Our analysis indicates that a network user significan tly increases her propensity Louis vuitton uk contribute after gaining special titles from the network. ther efore. free riding can be discouraged by a tit-for-tat strategy. 1976. Electronic knowledge networks: processes and structure. Boyd. Public goods: a survey of expe rimental research. In many social environments. studies show that the effectiveness of such mechanisms is limited as individuals can easily change online identifications and contribution of negative feedbacks is Louis Vuitton Outlet re Louis vuitton with negative feedbacks Novak and Sigmund 2005 . M. thus limiting direct reciprocity. Information Systems Research 12 3 225-239. these experiments discover that individuals enforce social norms on each other. Ma. In this regard. we find that the enforcement of social norm is human nature. Dynamic Referrals in Peer-to-Peer Media Distribution. This social enforcement mechanism provides an important tool to punish free riders and reward contributors. Emerson. enjoyment in helping others. However. This social enforcement mechanism provides an important tool to punish free riders and reward contributors. Management Science 36 6 689?C703. The kindness of strangers: The usefulness of electronic weak ties for technical advice. 2006. 2007b. R. L. The notion that individuals have incentive to punish non-cooperators in a social setting has been long observed in human so cieties. While we do not observe these variables in our peer-to-peer network. New York. and U. Hosanagar et al 2008 . The labeling transforms one-shot games into repeated games where cooperation can be sustained. etc. N. Greiner and Levati 2005. fairness Bock et al. G achter. M. Lerner. 2008 . Rockenbach. Xia et al. Johnson. The rest the paper is organized as follows .. Table 4 reports individual co ntributors?? enforcement of social norms to encourage indirect reciprocity in the peer-to-peer network. The design prevents one-to-one interactions. monetary. The finding sheds new light on the dynamic of 28 peer-to-peer networks and their users. challenged by the rapid growth of large scale online social networks such as peer-to-peer networks Asv anund et al. 2004. The tragedy of the commons. K. membership size.A. 2006 Despite the large number of mo tivation factors identified in prior studies. network users are less likely to reciprocat e with music files. Therefore. We therefore hypothesize that an individual??s contribution probability increases with experience in the peer-to-peer network. Each individual contributor Louis Vuitton UK change her server setting to give access to all users. While a significant number of users in these networks free ride on others?? 2 Such costs mainly manifest in the form of opportunity costs in stead of outright financial costs. K. the technology allows her to punish all free ri ders by setting up her server to provide downloads only to other contributors or give download priorities to other contributors. L. they do not louis vuitton outlet to contribution from pure contributors H2 . Hann et al. 12 Most of the online peer-to-peer networks are free to join and open for participation. In the context of social networks. on average. 2005 . New York. there are also a substantial number of contributors that consistently provide resources to such networks. Of all network users. Bowles. R. Hawaii.. reciprocation of music files provides little value to contributors. S. These concerns vary significantly across individuals but remain mostly unchanged over time for a given individual. often called free riders. therefore. and K. it increases the costs of deviation and encourages compliance. individuals?? contribution levels gradually decrease to the equilibrium level of zero contribution. In either case. 2007.. Clark. All errors remain ours. Hosanagar. Interdependent preferences and reciprocity. B. Information Economics and Policy 16 197-213. 2006 categorize the motivations into intrinsic. 1993. on average. O. The rest the paper is organized as follows .. In the peer-to-peer network studied in this paper. K. It takes experience and learning louis vuitton outlet understand its potential. we find that the probability of providing preferential services decreases significantly with number of contributors in the network H7b . Knowledge Management: An Evolutionary View of the Field. Individua ls change their propensity for contribution with social environm ent. Third. et c. We find that a contributor??s probability of providing preferential services to other contributors increases significantly when the network is overwhelmed by free riders H7a . Dynamic Referrals in Peer-to-Peer Media Distribution. B. Ogden. Culture differences in ultimatum game experiments: Evidence from a meta-analysis. Agres. 2000. Barcelona.. C. Wasko. Johnson. Indirect reciprocity offers an important explanation of widely observed cooperations among strangers in online environments. The dynamic between an individual and her social environment plays an important role in social networks. and Rao H.. A. network users are less likely to provide in-kind contributions responding to their contributions. 2005. B. 1999. Ba. R. Center for the Digital Future reports that 64% of peer-to-peer network users have never contributed any content Center for the Digital Future 2008 . Dawes. To develop an empirical hypothesis from the self-interest theory. Asvanund. INFORMS Journal on Computing 20 1 100-111. Dawes. I.. challenged by the rapid growth of large scale online social networks such as peer-to-peer networks Asv anund et al. S. Robert.
