The Impact of Sentiment-driven Feedback on Knowledge Reuse in Online Communities

Knowledge reuse is of increasing importance for organizations. Despite the extant research, we still do not adequately understand the ways peers are motivated to reuse knowledge with the help of wiki technologies. In this paper, we study the motivation for knowledge reuse in a prominent instance of online social production: Wikipedia. Studying knowledge reuse in Wikipedia is important since Wikipedia has been able to leverage the benefits of efficient knowledge reuse to produce knowledge goods of relatively high quality. Specifically, we explore: 1) how Wikipedia editors (any peer who contributes to developing articles in Wikipedia) communicate their feedback toward each other’s work in peer conversations and 2) to what extent sentiment-driven feedback impacts the level of knowledge reuse in Wikipedia. The results show that displaying sentiment-driven feedback positively influenced the level of knowledge reuse. Our study further shows a significant difference in the level of knowledge reuse between editors who shared mainly positive or mainly negative sentiments. Specifically, displaying mainly positive feedback corresponded to a superior level of knowledge reuse than displaying mainly negative feedback. We contribute to the extant literature of online social production communities in general and Wikipedia in particular by providing a first building block for research on peer feedback’s role in developing and sustaining wiki-based knowledge reuse. We discuss our findings’ implications for theory and practice

Untangling knowledge creation and knowledge integration in enterprise wikis

A central challenge organizations face is how to build, store, and maintain knowledge over time. Enterprise wikis are community-based knowledge systems situated in an organizational context. These systems have the potential to play an important role in managing knowledge within organizations, but the motivating factors that drive individuals to contribute their knowledge to these systems is not very well understood. We theorize that enterprise wiki initiatives require two separate and distinct types of knowledge-sharing behaviors to succeed: knowledge creation (KC) and knowledge integration (KI). We examine a Wiki initiative at a major German bank to untangle the motivating factors behind KC and KI. Our results suggest KC and KI are indeed two distinct behaviors, reconcile inconsistent findings from past studies on the role of motivational factors for knowledge sharing to establish shared electronic knowledge resources in organizations, and identify factors that can be leveraged to tilt behaviors in favor of KC or KI

A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education

This review focuses on the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. It provides a synthesis of the research literature in the field and a series of illustrative examples of how these tools are being used in learning and teaching. It draws out the perceived benefits that these new technologies appear to offer, and highlights some of the challenges and issues surrounding their use. The review forms the basis for a HE Academy funded project, ‘Peals in the Cloud’, which is exploring how Web 2.0 tools can be used to support evidence-based practices in learning and teaching. The project has also produced two in-depth case studies, which are reported elsewhere (Galley et al., 2010, Alevizou et al., 2010). The case studies focus on evaluation of a recently developed site for learning and teaching, Cloudworks, which harnesses Web 2.0 functionality to facilitate the sharing and discussion of educational practice. The case studies aim to explore to what extent the Web 2.0 affordances of the site are successfully promoting the sharing of ideas, as well as scholarly reflections, on learning and teaching

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

Knowledge in transition in healthcare

Organizations are challenged by the need to transform Dynamic Knowledge, embedded in each worker, into Static Knowledge, rooted in factual documental information. However, innovation and knowledge creation seem to be facilitated by the personal knowledge and life experiences of people, which appear to be dynamic. The tensions between Dynamic and Static Knowledge in facilitating the transfer and sharing of knowledge arise as compelling research as well as practical topic for organizations. Our paper aims to investigate such tensions by employing a case study. We decided to deepen such dynamics in the healthcare field, given its importance for business and society. In more detail, we analyzed one Emergency Room (ER) department through a series of interviews. Our findings highlight the importance of the right balance between Static and Dynamic Knowledge. On the one hand, the healthcare organization recognized the need to incorporate knowledge into practical and tangible instruments. On the other hand, the flows of Dynamic Knowledge must be fostered through a culture of knowledge translation and sharing, and the development of soft skills

Knowledge Management as a Strategy & Competitive Advantage: A Strong Influence to Success (A Survey of Knowledge Management Case Studies of Different Organizations)

There has been a great deal of recognition in the business world that information and knowledge management can be vital tools in organizations. Knowledge management can be proven a competitive advantage of any organization. The rationale of this exploratory study is to investigate the link among knowledge management system & techniques and organizational success by using knowledge as completive advantage. It is a qualitative research study of different case studies of the use of knowledge management as competitive advantage in different organization that leads to success. A total of 8 different organizations are studied and results propose that by using knowledge management as strategy and competitive advantage, these organizations earn high profit. And it has a great influence to success. Implication and Directions are also discussed together with limitation and suggestions for future research. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Organization, Tacit Knowledge, Explicit Knowledge, KMS, KM Strategies, KM Technologies, Productivity, Competitive Advantage