Wiki im Wissensmanagement: Determinanten der Akzeptanz eines Web 2.0 Projektes innerhalb eines internationalen Zulieferers der Automobilindustrie

Wikis have been used increasingly as a tool for collaborative authoring and knowledge management (KM) in recent years. One possible application is the collective documentation of technical knowledge and experience within a corporation or its departments. However, just like with other new technologies, the success of wikis depends on the intended users’ acceptance, which cannot always be presupposed. Therefore, the present work focused on the acceptance of introducing wiki technology in an existing corporate knowledge management (KM) system at an international automotive supplier enterprise. Drawing on theories of technology acceptance (e.g. Venkatesh & Davis, 2000), KM research on virtual communities of practice, and motivation theory, a theoretical framework model was developed. It distinguishes individual and organizational factors and wiki features as potential influences on successful use of wikis in corporations. The model was used as framework for two studies investigating users’ acceptance of a newly introduced wiki on corporate level as well as wikis on departmental level. A third study analyzed the wiki’s contribution to overall corporate KM activities. The wiki had been used to build a corporate lexicon, available for more than 120,000 employees worldwide. Methodologically, the studies incorporated surveys among wiki users and log file analyses. The main findings emphasize former research results about motivation and perceived ease of use as key influences on acceptance of new technology. However, further evidence identified users’ expectancies as an additional important factor. Concerning the wiki’s contribution to KM, hopes of using it as a tool to foster generation of new knowledge were dampened, as it was used mainly for the representation of existing knowledge. Overall, the study was able to identify a number of factors for the successful introduction of wikis as collaborative authoring tools in a corporate setting