Supporting group collaboration in Wiki by increasing the awareness of task conﬂict Kewen Wu School of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China Julita Vassileva Department of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada Qinghua Zhu School of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China Hui Fang School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Xiaojie Tan School of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China Abstract Purpose – Wiki forms a new model of virtual collaboration. The original wiki is designed to hide content authorship information. Such design may hinder users from being aware of task conﬂict, resulting in low-efﬁcient conﬂict management and decreased group performance. This study aims at increasing users’ awareness of task conﬂict to facilitate wiki-based collaboration. Design/methodology/approach – A visual feedback dialog box is designed to increase users’ awareness of task conﬂict. A survey-based comparative study is conducted by using original wiki and modiﬁed wiki (the new design). A total of 301 participants are invited. Structural equation model (SEM) is used to analyze survey data. Findings – Most users are willing to solve conﬂict issues, and the dialog box can increase users’ awareness of task conﬂict. Conﬂict awareness can promote user’s participation, gain better conﬂict resolution and improve group performance. The dialog box can enhance the inﬂuence of conﬂict awareness on user participation and conﬂict resolution, but reduce the inﬂuence of conﬂict awareness on group performance. Research limitations/implications – Only undergraduate students are invited, some typical variables are not included. The design needs improvement. Originality/value – A new wiki tool is designed. The inﬂuence of conﬂict awareness is explored while previous studies largely ignore this variable. Keywords Design, Wiki, Comparative study, Group collaboration, Online collaboration Paper type Research paper The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0001-253X.htm The authors would like to express their sincere appreciation to Editor and three anonymous reviewers. This research is supported by the Chinese Social Science Foundation (10ATQ004, 11CTQ008), Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, Humanities and Social Sciences project (10YJC870033). Supporting group collaboration in Wiki 581 Received 20 May 2013 Revised 18 July 2013 12 August 2013 Accepted 12 August 2013 Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives Vol. 65 No. 6, 2013 pp. 581-604 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0001-253X DOI 10.1108/AP-05-2013-0046