The Effects of Virtual Communities on Multinational Corporations

Abstract

This paper studies the past, present and future uses of virtual communities to enhance multinational corporation’s operational efficiency. By comparing the challenges
multinational companies face to James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds it examines how a crowd, or virtual community, can solve a multitude of problems better than an
individual. It also studies the different effective uses of virtual communities by corporations such as Crestcom, McDonalds and Caterpillar as well as the less effective uses
by Mercedes-Benz.