Motivation in Collaborative Knowledge Creation

Abstract

The importance of motivation in knowledge management (KM) debates is now generally acknowledged. Motivation affects the overall quality of knowledge used and produced in the work situation, the willingness to contribute to KM systems, the willing engagement in knowledge sharing and many other facets. Lacking sustained motivation in association with an insufficiently knowledgefriendly culture has often been mentioned as the principal culprit for failed KM initiatives and programs (Davenport, DeLong, & Beers, 1998; McKenzie, Truc, & Winkelen, 2001). As Hislop (2005, p. 44) notes, KM authors have not always recognized this prime role of motivation. In the era when KM was – wrongfully – equated with information technology by many authors, an era that is – again wrongfully – labeled as first generation KM by some authors, motivation was one of many socio-cultural factors that were ignored. In recent years, the KM literature has incorporated and elaborated older, sometimes more critical debates regarding social aspects of knowledge and its role within organizations. These broader developments, fuelled by such concepts as communities-of-practice and social epistemologies and informed by critical rebuttals of KM proponents’ managerialist ideologies, have secured a place for motivation in the KM arena as a socio-cultural factor that is indispensible for understanding knowledge processes and KM