Factors influencing informal cross-border knowledge sharing via enterprise social software

Knowledge sharing is an essential activity for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in today’s multinational companies (MNCs). The difficulty for an MNC’s geographically and functionally dispersed knowledge workers to informally share their knowledge across borders gives rise to enterprise social software platforms (ESSPs) and their tools to facilitate the sharing activity. In light of knowledge worker reluctance to contribute to these tools, this research analyzes determinants of an ESSP’s tools adoption and usage behaviour. This research addresses one main research question with three sub-questions. The main question investigates the factors that influence a knowledge worker’s willingness and contributions to informal cross-border knowledge sharing via an ESSP’s tools. The sub-questions explore a knowledge worker’s attitude, behavioural intention, and behavioural usage, through identifying motivational drivers and inhibiting barriers. Exploratory qualitative research was employed within this empirical study to answer the research questions through conducting nine semi-structured interviews. All interviewees were knowledge workers within one case company which provided an ESSP with the following tools exhibiting varying usage: user profiles, a wiki, and a discussion board. Content analysis of the data was structured around the theory of planned behaviour, the unified theory of the acceptance and use of technology, and social relationship theories. This resulted in the development of an integrative framework which illuminated the interrelated influence of individual, technological, and social factors resulting in a knowledge worker’s adoption and behavioural usage of an organization’s ESSP’s tools for informally sharing their knowledge across borders. In addition to individual attitudinal determinants, behavioural intention was found to be influenced primarily by the existence of technological motivational drivers in the form of perceived valued outcomes and inhibiting barriers embodied by one’s perceived effort. These were moderated by social factors related to one’s perceived social influence for each tool and the perceived support from the contextual organizational environment.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

EPISTEMIC MOTIVATION AND KNOWLEDGE CONTRIBUTION BEHAVIORS IN WIKI TEAMS: A CROSS-LEVEL MODERATION MODEL

Prior research on how to facilitate individuals’ participation in wiki knowledge contribution generally pays little attention to the differentiation of knowledge contributions and the embeddedness of individual team members in team context. This paper examines how an individual’s epistemic motivation and team task reflexivity interact to jointly influence adding, deleting and revising behaviors in distinct ways. Empirical data of 166 university students in 51 teams support our hypotheses. Individuals’ adding, deleting and revising behaviors on wikis are influenced differently by the interactive effect of individual epistemic motivation and team task reflexivity. First, the positive relationship between epistemic motivation and adding behaviors is stronger when the team’s task reflexivity is high. Second, the epistemic motivation stimulates deleting behaviors only when team task reflexivity is high. Third, epistemic motivation is significantly associated with more revising behaviors no matter the level of task reflexivity is high or low

Personal Learning Environments Acceptance Model: The Role of Need for Cognition, e-Learning Satisfaction and Students' Perceptions

As long as students use Web 2.0 tools extensively for social purposes, there is an opportunity to improve students' engagement in Higher Education by using these tools for academic purposes under a Personal Learning Environment approach (PLE 2.0). The success of these attempts depends upon the reactions and acceptance of users towards e-learning using Web 2.0. This paper aims to analyse the factors (e-learning satisfaction and students’ perceptions, among others) that determine the intention of use of a PLE 2.0 initiative. The study in addition analyses the moderating role of the Need for Cognition (NFC) in the model. The results indicate that the model proposed has a high explanatory power of the intention to use a PLE 2.0 and gives support to the moderating role of NFC. The study discusses how this analysis can help to improve course designs by teachers

Why Don’t You Use It? Assessing the Determinants of Enterprise Social Software Usage: A Conceptual Model Integrating Innovation Diffusion and Social Capital Theories

Social software has recently attracted the attention of organizations. Nowadays organizational social software applications are often bundled within enterprise social software platforms (ESSPs). Given the popularity of social software in the private realm (e.g., Facebook), organizations expect their employees to use the ESSPs in the same frequency right after rollout. However, employees do not always meet this expectation, leading to internal social software platforms that starve for attention. While there is some research investigating users’ motives to adopt social software in the private realm, empirical research on social software adoption in an enterprise setting is still scarce. As a step towards closing this research gap, we collected a rich set of qualitative data aiming at investigating the determinants of employees’ ESSP usage. Based on theory and the collected qualitative data, this paper proposes a conceptual ESSP adoption model combining the theoretical perspectives of innovation diffusion theory and social capital theory

An Empirical Study on Media Characteristics and Knowledge Sharing in Web 2.0 Environment

The success of the Enterprise 2.0 KMS (knowledge management systems) depends on the user’s continuous participation in the process of knowledge sharing. This study attempts to identify the determinants of the user’s intention to continuous knowledge sharing based on Expectation Confirmation Theory and Channel Expansion Theory. We also consider communication process modes (i.e., blog and wiki) as a moderator for perceived channel richness. The results of our analysis show the positive effects of all the predictors. With regard to the moderating effects of communication process modes, the effect of experiences shared with group members is greater in the channel to support conveyance, and the effects of experiences about the channel and the group task are greater in the channel to support convergence

Learners’ continuance participation intention of collaborative group project in virtual learning environment: an extended TAM perspective

The aim of this study is to explore learners’ intention to return to the electronic environment through the use of wikipages. The survey is based on students’ participation in a collaborative group project over a one semester course on business information systems. A research model based on the extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been proposed to investigate what factors will influence learners’ continuance participation in the electronic learning environment. 75% of students returned the questionnaire and the data analysis results based on the extended TAM Shows that the learners’ intention to return to the electronic learning environment was highly associated with their attitude towards the electronic learning tool and the affection associated with the tool

Students apprehension and affective inertia in a Twitter-based activity: Evidence from students of an economics degree

Students' affective inertia can lead to their resistance to conducting an activity. This article aims to identify the characteristics of an e-learning activity carried out via Twitter that can help teachers reduce the possible incidence of such inertia. The analysis, based on structural equation modelling and applied to a sample of 105 students, reveals that e-learning activities should be useful and enjoyable in order to reduce affective inertia. Furthermore, students that are more apprehensive towards using social networking sites (SNS) are more likely to experience affective inertia, and having high expectations regarding the activity's enjoyment are less likely to reduce their inertia, compared to those who are less apprehensive about SNS use. This research offers important implications for teaching practice on the designing of e-learning activities

What Drives Students' Loyalty-Formation in Social Media Learning Within a Personal Learning Environment Approach? The Moderating Role of Need for Cognition

Our study analyzes an educational experience based on the integrated use of social media within a higher education course under a personal learning environment approach and investigates the factors that determine students' loyalty to social media learning. We examined the moderating role of need for cognition (NFC) in students' formation of attitudes, satisfaction, and loyalty toward this learning experience. The results indicate that NFC has an influence on these variables, significantly moderating how loyalty toward social media learning is formed. For high-NFC students, satisfaction with the learning experience is the most important variable to explain loyalty; whereas for low-NFC students, attitudes have a stronger effect. Different strategies are suggested, according to the learners' NFC levels, for increasing the use of social media in personal learning environments. Practical implications for improving the integration of such informal resources into formal education are discussed.Junta de Andalucía – Programa Andaluz de I + D P12 SEJ 259

Gender Differences in Virtual Community Knowledge Sharing

Over the years, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 have promoted and prospered user-generated content, ease of use, interoperability, and virtual communities. Indeed, a growing number of online platforms and virtual communities contribute to our society and economy by maximally sharing knowledge among numerous participants. Hence, it is necessary to understand the participation-motivation of knowledge sharing in various virtual communities. Using a sample of American virtual communities of interest, this study examines a model of knowledge sharing based on social capital theory and social cognitive theory. This research echoes prior studies with similar and even stronger evidence. Also, the results suggest a significant moderating effect of gender difference on knowledge sharing in virtual communities – when participants share a common language and vision