COORDINATION AND LEARNING IN WIKIPEDIA: REVISITING THE DYNAMICS OF EXPLOITATION AND EXPLORATION Aleksi Aaltonen and Jannis Kallinikos ABSTRACT The evolution of Wikipedia betrays an increasing reliance on policies and guidelines, signalling certain stabilisation in the knowledge making processes underlying the encyclopaedia. We interpret such a state of affairs as reflecting the need to provide a few principles and guidelines of coordination, in a context that has otherwise been marked by vast diversity, high membership turnover and the lack of traditional exploi- tative structures. Rather than reflecting bureaucratisation and a shift away from its constitutive principles, the consolidation of these coordinative mechanisms further embeds the distinctive profile of knowledge making processes characteristic of the online encyclopaedia. They reinforce the diversity of the collective (rather than individual capabilities and skills) as the primary source of knowledge and render the mechanisms of harvesting Managing ‘Human Resources’ by Exploiting and Exploring People’s Potentials Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 37, 161–192 Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0000037010 161