OKC-enabled online knowledge integration: role of group heterogeneity and group interaction process

Abstract

PurposeOnline knowledge integration has been an important concern of the online knowledge community as it can lead to various positive outcomes of online knowledge coproduction. This paper identifies online knowledge integration factors by considering group heterogeneity and group interaction process.Design/methodology/approachBased on the categorization-elaboration model (CEM) and interactive team cognition (ITC) theory, a research model that reflects the antecedent's factors and mediating factors of online knowledge integration was developed and empirically examined based on data collected from 2,339,836 data extracted from Wikipedia.FindingsGroup interaction process plays an essential mediator role in online knowledge integration. Group knowledge heterogeneity negatively influences online knowledge integration and group experience heterogeneity positively, and they both positively promote online knowledge integration through group interaction process with different paths.Research limitationsOur research concerns the OKC context in one setting (Wikipedia). We expect that the results will generalize to other OKC platforms.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study could assist the online knowledge community's organizers to understand the motivational mechanisms of online knowledge integration. Group interaction process could be regarded as the key role to promote group wisdom and maintain group independence.Social implicationsWe advance the understanding of the online knowledge integration and gain a richer understanding of the importance of group interaction independence for online knowledge integration based on the agreement of group wisdom. It suggested keeping group interaction independence is an important aspect for highly online knowledge integration among heterogeneity groups.Originality/valueThis study extends CEM and ITC theory to the domain of knowledge integration context and finds the mechanism between group heterogeneity and online knowledge integration by introducing the group interaction process.

Exploring the effects of different achievement goals on contributor participation in crowdsourcing

“…Miao et al, 2016;Pee et al, 2018;Wu et al, 2018) and some have examined the effect of contributor group heterogeneity (e.g. Qiu et al, 2020). These previous studies indicated that not all people participate to the same extent in a crowdsourcing environment.…”

“…, 2018) and some have examined the effect of contributor group heterogeneity (e.g. Qiu et al. , 2020).…”

Cognition or interaction? Mediating factors influencing online group open collaboration

“…Various types of group heterogeneity are studied in the literature, such as skill heterogeneity (Giuri et al, 2010), role-based heterogeneity (Daniel et al, 2013), tenure and interest heterogeneity (Ren et al, 2016) and cognitive heterogeneity (Arazy et al, 2011). Some studies have concluded that group heterogeneity is positively related to open collaboration performance (Kittur and Kraut, 2010;Wang et al, 2018), but other studies have reported that group heterogeneity is negatively related to open collaboration performance (Arazy et al, 2011;Ren and Yan, 2017;Qiu et al, 2020). These inconsistent findings seem to imply a complex relationship between group heterogeneity and open collaboration performance.…”

“…Online open collaboration is not an isolated process of cognition or interaction (Qiu et al, 2020(Qiu et al, , 2021. Instead, consideration must be given to both cognition and interaction when examining the performance of online group open collaboration.…”

“…GKH refers to the difference in group members' knowledge backgrounds and task-related information (Qiu et al, 2021). It not only determines the depth and breadth of the knowledge contributed by the group (Spender, 1996;Qiu et al, 2021), but also is the basis for the formation of GC and group interaction (Healey et al, 2015;Qiu et al, 2020). By integrating the literature in the above two streams KM and IS, we argue that both GC and interaction have a mediating effect on the relationship between GKH and open collaboration performance on the basis of ITC theory.…”