Wikimedia movement governance: the limits of a hierarchical organization
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show the limits of a hierarchical organization in the Wikimedia movement governance model. Wikimedia governance, as well as the dynamic transformations it is currently undergoing, remains to be covered by the literature on organization and management studies; yet, they exemplify the problems with the "organization of the future," which is highly idealized throughout the management literature. Design/methodology/approach The research design relies on an ethnographic, long term, participative study of the Wikipedia community at large. The methods used rely mainly on discourse analysis and interviews. The study benefits from the unique participant immersion of the researcher (who spent six years participating in the studied community, making over five edits each day on average, and being elected to several positions of highest trust within the organization) Findings The findings show that the open, participative, and democratic character of the organization, whi.