Knowledge sharing in wiki communities: an empirical study

Abstract

Purpose -Prior research indicates that the success of a virtual community relies on its ability to allow community members to share knowledge interactively. Wiki applications are web-based hypertext applications that facilitate collaborative authoring, and have been widely adopted by virtual communities to facilitate knowledge sharing and accumulation. Nevertheless very few studies have empirically investigated the dynamics of how these applications contribute to the development and continuity of virtual communities by enhancing the knowledge sharing intentions of community members. This paper aims to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach -A theoretical model was developed to explain and predict the knowledge sharing intentions of virtual community members. Survey data collected from 232 wiki community members were examined using structural equation modelling to verify the theoretical model. Findings -The research results confirm the positive influence of the use of wiki applications on knowledge sharing intention through the mediating effects of member interactions, community participation, and community promotion. However it was found that community trust and community identification had no significant effect on knowledge sharing intention. Originality/value -Very few studies have empirically investigated the relationships among the characteristics of wiki applications, virtual community outcomes (participation, promotion, trust, and identification), and the knowledge sharing intentions of virtual community members. The research findings can enrich our understanding of how wiki or other similar technologies affect the sharing of knowledge within virtual communities. This can, in turn, provide both virtual community administrators and managers of organisations with guidelines for creating successful knowledge sharing practices.

Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Distributed Environments: Main Motivators, Discrepancies of Findings and Suggestions for Future Research

“…For example, a number of studies indicated trust as a positive factor that motivates knowledge sharing intention [20], which results in the contribution to the actual knowledge sharing behavior. However, there are some other studies suggesting that the influence of trust in knowledge sharing behavior is not significant [14].…”

“…However, other studies [9], [14] rejected the assumption of motivational impact of trust. Specifically, the type of trust examined in the two studies [9], [14] was integrity-based trust which refers to the belief that people in the community would refrain from taking advantage of each other (opportunistic behavior). One possible explanation is that the two communities being examined were based on less risky knowledge sharing relationships such as among individuals who hardly interact or have close working relationships.…”

“…Also, finding from the study of Chen and Hung [11] rejected the assumption of reciprocity as a positive affect to members" knowledge sharing behavior in PVCs (323 valid empirical data was collected from two virtual IT-related sites). However, the qualitative case study from Hew and Hara [14] through online observation and interviews found that reciprocity is the most common single motivator that motivates knowledge sharing behavior among three PVCs (Advanced Nursing Practice, University Web Development and Literacy Education). Thirty out of Bartol and Srivastava [24] participants indicated that they are intended to share knowledge because of a sense of responsibility.…”

“…Trust is defined as individuals" belief in good intention to perform knowledge-sharing behavior with respect to the community [14], [20], [48], [49]. There are three dimensions of trust as ability-based (capability to manage the virtual community of practice) trust [13], [50], integrity-based (not taking advantage from others) trust [9], [50] and benevolence-based (concerns for the needs of others) trust [13].…”

The Effect of Gender and Online Collaborative Learning Strategy to Student Learning Motivation

“…Wiki is web pages or a website that people can directly edit, update, modify or delete (Wang and Wei 2011;Laughton 2011;Menkhoff et al 2011;Frumkin 2005). Wiki can be linked to a collaborative word processing document allowing multiple users from different locations to collaborate in real-time (Liu et al 2010;Frumkin 2005).…”