Play & fun politics: useful tools for engaging social community users?

On-line social communities are frequently depicted as venues for users’ active participation in various forms of co-production whereas online collaboration seems animated by a sense of fun and the promise of new interactive experiences. This paper aims to reflect on a specific managerial tool, able to engage users in
crowdsourcing processes. In particular, we argue that crowdsourcing processes are often grounded in a deep sense of fun among participants and we will explore the role covered by play & fun components, once these are deliberately used as managerial tools to incentive users’ participation.