Collaborative crowdsourcing has become a popular approach to organizing work across the globe. Being global also means being vulnerable to shocks -- unforeseen events that disrupt crowds -- that originate from any country. In this study, we examine changes in collaborative behavior of editors of Chinese Wikipedia that arise due to the 2005 government censor- ship in mainland China. Using the exogenous variation in the fraction of editors blocked across different articles due to the censorship, we examine the impact of reduction in group size, which we denote as the shock level, on three collaborative behavior measures: volume of activity, centralization, and conflict. We find that activity and conflict drop on articles that face a shock, whereas centralization increases. The impact of a shock on activity increases with shock level, whereas the impact on centralization and conflict is higher for moderate shock levels than for very small or very high shock levels. These findings provide support for threat rigidity theory -- originally introduced in the organizational theory literature -- in the context of large-scale collaborative crowds.
Threat rigidity has been found to be consistent with behaviors observed in organizations @cite_27 @cite_11 but less so in experimental studies of groups @cite_23 @cite_3 @cite_15 . Other experimental studies found no evidence of centralization under threat @cite_14 @cite_0 .
@cite_14 @cite_3 @cite_0 @cite_27 @cite_23 @cite_15 @cite_11
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Abstract The effects of uncertainty and threat upon the centralization of group communication structures were investigated in a laboratory study. The performance of these groups was also analyzed. Uncertainty was manipulated by varying stimulus ambiguity; threat was manipulated by varying the possibility of loss and the use of time reminders. Results indicate that group structures became differentiated over time with groups in the high uncertainty, low threat condition showing the greatest degree of centralization. Centralization appeared to be associated with the experience of tension: subjects in the high uncertainty, low threat condition reported the highest degree of tension. Uncertainty had a negative effect on performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Teams have become the norm for operating in dangerous and complex situations. To investigate how physical threat affects team performance, 27 threeperson teams engaged in a complex planning and problem-solving task, either under physical threat or under normal conditions. Threat consisted of the possibility that during task performance the oxygen level would be reduced (which, in reality, did not occur). Team processes were measured by automated behavior recordings and questionnaires. Results confirmed that physical threat caused restrictions in information processing, more controlling leadership, less group discussions, and a reduction in coordinating and supporting behavior. These results support the propositions of the threat-rigidity thesis and extend previous research by establishing these results for physical threat and demonstrating effects on coordinating and supporting behavior as well. Simulation studies using susceptible-infectious-recovered models were conducted to estimate individuals’ risk of infection and time to infection in small-world and randomly mixing networks. Infection transmitted more rapidly but ultimately resulted in fewer infected individuals in the small-world, compared with the random, network. The ability of measures of network centrality to identify high-risk individuals was also assessed. ‘‘Centrality’’ describes an individual’s position in a population; numerous parameters are available to assess this attribute. Here, the authors use the centrality measures degree (number of contacts), random-walk betweenness (a measure of the proportion of times an individual lies on the path between other individuals), shortest-path betweenness (the proportion of times an individual lies on the shortest path between other individuals), and farness (the sum of the number of steps between an individual and all other individuals). Each was associated with time to infection and risk of infection in the simulated outbreaks. In the networks examined, degree (which is the most readily measured) was at least as good as other network parameters in predicting risk of infection. Identification of more central individuals in populations may be used to inform surveillance and infection control strategies. Centering theory is the best-known framework for theorizing about local coherence and salience; however, its claims are articulated in terms of notions which are only partially specified, such as "utterance," "realization," or "ranking." A great deal of research has attempted to arrive at more detailed specifications of these parameters of the theory; as a result, the claims of centering can be instantiated in many different ways. We investigated in a systematic fashion the effect on the theory's claims of these different ways of setting the parameters. Doing this required, first of all, clarifying what the theory's claims are (one of our conclusions being that what has become known as "Constraint 1" is actually a central claim of the theory). Secondly, we had to clearly identify these parametric aspects: For example, we argue that the notion of "pronoun" used in Rule 1 should be considered a parameter. Thirdly, we had to find appropriate methods for evaluating these claims. We found that while the theory's main claim about salience and pronominalization, Rule 1—a preference for pronominalizing the backward-looking center (CB)—is verified with most instantiations, Constraint 1–a claim about (entity) coherence and CB uniqueness—is much more instantiation-dependent: It is not verified if the parameters are instantiated according to very mainstream views ("vanilla instantiation"), it holds only if indirect realization is allowed, and is violated by between 20 and 25 of utterances in our corpus even with the most favorable instantiations. We also found a trade-off between Rule 1, on the one hand, and Constraint 1 and Rule 2, on the other: Setting the parameters to minimize the violations of local coherence leads to increased violations of salience, and vice versa. Our results suggest that "entity" coherence—continuous reference to the same entities—must be supplemented at least by an account of relational coherence.