Exploring the role of psychological safety in promoting the intention to continue sharing knowledge in virtual communities

Virtual communities play an important role in business, society, and education. At present, one of the great challenges faced by virtual communities is the availability of knowledge, which is mainly created through knowledge-sharing behavior. Although prior studies have extensively studied knowledge-sharing behavior in virtual communities from various perspectives, they largely ignored the important role of psychological safety in this process. We propose to address this gap by examining psychological safety and its effect on individuals’ intention to continue sharing knowledge. We also identify trust in the virtual community and self-consciousness as antecedents of psychological safety. The research model is empirically tested through a survey across two virtual communities in a major university. The results show that the condition of psychological safety has a positive influence on the intention to continue sharing knowledge. The level of trust has a positive impact on the intention to continue sharing knowledge not only directly, as documented in the literature, but also indirectly, through the mediating role of psychological safety. Finally, we find that self-consciousness exerts a negative influence on feelings of psychological safety. The implications of our findings and the need for future research are also discussed.     

Evolutionary stable strategies for business innovation and knowledge transfer

Evolutionary game theory expands into a number of areas that go beyond the biological concept of evolution to include sociology, economics, and business management. Social networks determine definite interactions between individuals in social settings. The common nature of these two broad areas of research generates interest in applying the approaches of evolutionary game theory to social network-based problems. Knowledge transfer that occurs in the process of social interaction improves a company's innovation capability. This paper attempts to explore ways in which networks relate to knowledge transfer on the basis of evolutionary game theory. We offer a simple mathematical model to examine the interaction of knowledge transfer and actor behavior in games of coordination.     

Organisational knowledge creation strategies: A conceptual framework

The main purposes of this article are to identify the dimensions of organisational knowledge creation strategies (EICE model: exploration, institutional entrepreneurship, combination, exploitation) and to clarify the relationship between the organisational knowledge creation strategies and its knowledge asset. For these purposes, guided by knowledge-based view and knowledge creation theory, we propose an EICE model and explore its effect on the knowledge asset. We further suggest the managerial implications and theoretical implications. The main managerial implication is that the knowledge creation strategies model may help manager to make effective strategies for knowledge creation within the organisation. The main contributions to organisation theory are extending Nonaka's knowledge creation theory to form a new strategic model for knowledge creation.     

Understanding the formation mechanism of high-quality knowledge in social question and answer communities: A knowledge co-creation perspective

The social question and answer (Q&A) community provides people with an effective tool to obtain high-quality information. From the perspective of reciprocal determinism and value co-creation, this study aims to investigate the formation mechanism of high-quality knowledge in the community. We develop a model to investigate how cognitive factors and community technological factors influence users’ knowledge co-creation behavior, thereby influencing knowledge quality in the community. A survey of 382 knowledge contributors in a social Q&A community shows that knowledge self-efficacy, topic richness, personalized recommendation, and social interactivity have a positive impact on users' knowledge sharing and integration behavior, which subsequently affect the community’s knowledge quality. Moreover, users' ratings moderate the influence of knowledge sharing on knowledge quality. This research demonstrates the synergistic effect of people and technology in knowledge co-creation, thus advances literature about value co-creation and content quality in online communities.     

企业知识管理的知识获取策略

针对当前企业知识管理中的知识获取“瓶颈”问题,对其产生原因进行了深入分析;以知识本身为导向,对企业知识源做出界定;在此基础上,从集成化视角给出了解决知识获取“瓶颈”的若干策略与方法。     

Virtual lead user communities: Drivers of knowledge creation for innovation

This study examines the creation of innovation-related knowledge in virtual communities visited mainly by lead users. Such communities enable firms to access a large number of lead users in a cost-efficient way. A propositional framework relates lead users’ characteristics to unique virtual community features to examine their potential impact on the development of valuable innovation knowledge. The authors empirically validate this framework by analyzing online contributions of lead users for mobile service innovation projects. The findings indicate that the value of their contributions stems from their ability to suggest solutions instead of simply describing problems or stating customer needs. Lead users’ technical expertise also makes them particularly well-suited to develop new functionalities, but less so for design and usability improvements. The digital context favors the creation of explicit knowledge that can be easily integrated into the development of new products. Finally, contributions given by lead users in a proactive way contain more novel insights than reactive contributions such as answers to community members’ questions. The findings should help managers stimulate, identify, and improve the use of lead users’ input in virtual communities.     

How to facilitate knowledge diffusion in complex networks: The roles of network structure,knowledge role distribution and selection rule

The diffusion of knowledge within organizations provides opportunities for interpersonal co-operation, improves creative ability and therefore leads to competitive advantage. Focus of prior literature on knowledge diffusion has been on identifying factors that influence individuals' behavioral intentions to seek and share knowledge. However, knowledge diffusion as an enigmatic, emergent and organizational-level process is more than the simple aggregation of individual attributes and needs to be further investigated. Accordingly, this study focuses on three distinct system-level factors, i.e., architectures of connections among individuals, distributions of knowledge roles and designs of selection mechanisms and analyses their effects on knowledge diffusion. To be more specific, we examine three distinct knowledge roles: seekers, contributors and brokers. We also distinguish between three types of selection mechanisms: objective selection mechanisms, feedback-based selection mechanisms and random selection mechanisms. By conducting agent-based simulations on four representative networks, i.e., regular networks, random networks, small-world networks and scale-free networks, our results show that the optimal knowledge diffusion performance can be achieved on scale-free networks where all agents implement objective mechanisms and show characteristics of brokers. Moreover, our results (a) highlight the significance of brokers, (b) illustrate the superiority of objective selection rules and (c) demonstrate that scale-free networks provide an optimal framework for knowledge diffusion. Furthermore, we also find the interdependent relevance of these three factors to knowledge diffusion and propose a qualitative explanation of these findings.     

Knowledge map creation and maintenance for virtual communities of practice

This paper proposes a knowledge map management system to facilitate knowledge management in virtual communities of practice. To realize the proposed knowledge map management, we develop knowledge map creation and maintenance functions by utilizing information retrieval and data mining techniques. The knowledge maps created respectively from the documents of the teachers’ professional community, SCTNet, and the thesis repository at Taiwan’s National Central Library, are evaluated by experts of these two domains. Knowledge maps generated by the system are accepted by domain experts from the evaluation since the degree of their modification of the automatically created knowledge maps is proportionally small. The knowledge structure representing the categories of community documents maintains its high purity, diversity, specificity, and structure adaptation by using the knowledge map maintenance function with limited computational cost. Thus, the knowledge map creation and maintenance mechanisms developed in this research enable the dynamic knowledge management of communities of practice on the Internet.     

The impact of knowledge stickiness on knowledge transfer implementation,internalization, and satisfaction for multinational corporations

Improving the effectiveness of knowledge transfer from a parent firm to its subsidiary is one of the most critical issues confronting management at multinational companies (MNC). Since knowledge tends to be sticky and difficult to transfer, the success of knowledge transfer is contingent not only upon various kinds of contextual variables, but also upon the process of knowledge transfer implementation and internalization. Previous studies did not consider the process of implementation and internalization variables, and failed to provide a more comprehensive research framework for MNC knowledge transfer. This study attempts to assess the impact of knowledge stickiness on knowledge transfer implementation and internalization, as well as the performance of headquarter–subsidiary knowledge transfer. Results of this study suggest that an increase in knowledge stickiness may have a positive and significant influence on knowledge implementation, internalization, and knowledge transfer satisfaction. However, increases in knowledge stickiness beyond a certain point can also deter the success of transferring knowledge. Results also suggest a significant relationship between knowledge transfer implementation and internalization, innovation and satisfaction, and between knowledge innovation and knowledge transfer satisfaction.     

Reciprocal intention in knowledge seeking: Examining social exchange theory in an online professional community

The free-rider problem in an online professional community could, over time, undermine the wealth of the community and deplete the knowledge inventory to unacceptable levels. A knowledge seeker’s intention to reciprocate is motivated by perceived social benefits. An interpretation of intention to reciprocate cannot be fully addressed without investigating how knowledge seekers define the community support received in their knowledge-seeking process. This study suggests that perceived community support is the degree to which knowledge seekers perceive a supportive climate created by linking actors. An empirical study involving 471 knowledge seekers was conducted in an online professional community that seekers used to search for and acquire programming knowledge. The results indicated that knowledge seekers take perceived social benefits and perceived community support into account when forming an intention to reciprocate. In addition, perceived community support positively moderated the effect of knowledge-seeking effort on perceived social benefits. These findings contribute to the existing literature on knowledge-seeking by using social exchange theory to integrate perceived community support and better explain the intention of knowledge seekers to reciprocate in an online professional community. Theoretical and practical implications derived from the findings are further discussed.     

A framework of industrial knowledge spillovers in big-science centers

We employed the grounded theory method to construct a framework describing the distinctive mechanisms through which big-science centers generate industrial knowledge spillovers in the economy. Our focus is on large-scale big-science installations typically associated with experimental physics. We draw on social network, social capital, and inter-organizational learning theories to examine knowledge spillovers accruing to industrial partner companies in big-science-industry dyads. The context for the study is provided by CERN’s new particle accelerator project, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In addition to building a grounded theory framework for the study of industrial knowledge spillovers, our study demonstrates the distinctive potential that big-science centers offer as a source of knowledge spillovers in national innovation systems.     

Cultivating the sense of belonging and motivating user participation in virtual communities: A social capital perspective

Virtual communities (VCs) are attracting more attention as they provide a platform for people to share experiences and knowledge, which may further impact their purchase decisions. From a social capital perspective, this study investigated factors that cultivate a VC member's sense of belonging and their effects on facilitating his participation in the VC in terms of the intentions to get and share experiences and knowledge. The results indicated that three factors that relate to three dimensions of social capital in the VC – familiarity with members in the VC from the structural dimension, perceived similarity with other members from the cognitive dimension, and trust in other members from the relational dimension – are all positively related to the sense of belonging, which affects intentions to get and share knowledge and mediates the relationships between social capital factors and a VC member's intentions to participate.     

高技术虚拟企业组合谈判策略配置与选择机制

摘要：组合谈判策略的制定与选择是提升高技术虚拟企业个体谈判目标价值,保证联盟任务顺利执行的一条有效途径。本文全面分析个体Agent思维状态、外部环境信息、成员社会关系与行为模仿、议题空间特性等因素对联盟冲突决策的影响,提出高技术虚拟企业组合策略的执行方案与实施方法。结合个体Agent谈判策略的表现形式,建立回避、响应和折衷三种策略选择机制间的互动关系模型。促进了联盟多边谈判的网络资源、信息和知识的流动、共享和集成,并为群体谈判规划的确立以及谈判决策效力的发挥提供了有效支持。     

A multilevel model for effects of social capital and knowledge sharing in knowledge-intensive work teams

Although it is a widely held belief that social capital facilitates knowledge sharing among individuals, there is little research that has deeply investigated the impacts of social capital at different levels on an individual's knowledge sharing behavior. To address this research gap, this study combines a multilevel approach and an optimal network configuration view to investigate the multilevel effects of social capital on individuals’ knowledge sharing in knowledge intensive work teams. This study makes a distinction between the social capital at the team-level and that of social capital at the individual level to examine their cross-level and direct effects on an individual's sharing of explicit and tacit knowledge. A survey involving 343 participants in 47 knowledge-intensive teams was conducted for testing the multilevel model. The results reveal that social capital at both levels jointly influences an individual's explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. Further, when individuals possess a moderate betweenness centrality and the whole team holds a moderate network density, team members’ knowledge sharing can be maximized. These findings offer a more comprehensive and precise understanding of the multilevel impacts of social capital on team members’ knowledge sharing behavior, thus contributing to the social capital theory, as well as knowledge management research and practices.     

The role of lead users in knowledge sharing

This paper introduces a model of knowledge sharing in an online community of practice that suggests that knowledge contributions will be made by those who possess the relevant knowledge. For them, matching a ready-made solution to a problem is low cost. We hypothesize that lead users – due to their characteristics – are likely to possess more relevant solution knowledge and thus be centrally involved in contributing knowledge. Our results support the hypothesis by showing that lead user characteristics relate positively to making contributions to the community. In addition, we find that search and integration of knowledge from different external sources of relevance to the community positively moderates knowledge contributions by lead users.     

知识并购目标选择分析

摘要：文章探讨了知识并购中如何选择并购目标的问题。知识并购的真正目标是目标组织的嵌入知识。首先,分析了嵌入知识的心理机制和基本特征。其次,从嵌入知识转移和整合的角度分析了影响并购目标选择的因素,并得出了八个有助于组织并购决策的推论。     

知识转移的经济分析

在基本模型的基础上,从经济分析的角度构建三个拓展的知识转移模型,刻意模式由于具有更高的知识转移效率和能够实现知识发送者的经济激励受到更多关注.刻意模式下的用品模式和示范模式之间存在一个最优的转换点,用数学模型可以说明知识的不同转移模式带来的知识接受者的福利差别,用品模式和示范模式在知识转移成本上截然不同.     

Fairness and devotion go far: Integrating online justice and value co-creation in virtual communities

Although building long-term, successful virtual communities is important, rare studies have examined both in- and extra-role value co-creation behaviors from the perspective of social exchange theory and equity theory. Specially, we incorporate five different online justice perceptions into our model and examine the mediating role of “sense of virtual community” between these perceived online justice antecedents and both in- and extra-role online value co-creation behavior (reflected by knowledge contribution and online community citizenship behaviors, respectively). We empirically examine the model using data from 278 members of virtual communities. The results reveal that perceived online justice leads to value co-creation behavior through sense of virtual community. The findings elicit several implications for theory and practice.     

The social strategy cone: Towards a framework for evaluating social media strategies

Social media is growing rapidly. Providing both risks and opportunities for organizations as it does. The social strategy cone is developed for evaluating social media strategies. This framework comprises of seven key elements of social media strategies as based on a systematic literature review and case studies. The results of 21 interviews have contributed to the construction of the social media strategy cone for analyzing social media strategies. Three levels of maturity of social media strategy are proposed: initiation, diffusion and maturity. Initiation includes the key elements: ‘target audience’ and ‘channel choice’ while all case organizations studied payed attention to these elements. Diffusion includes the elements: ‘goals’, ‘resources’ and ‘policies’. Maturity adds the elements of ‘monitoring’ and ‘content activities’. Only 3 of the 9 organizations studied are in this phase of maturity. Although, theory suggests the importance of the element of ‘monitoring’ our research shows the need for more attention in practice.     

企业知识转移生态学模型

高效知识转移已经成为企业建立竞争优势的关键因素之一。文章基于生态学的视角,提出了企业知识具有散落分布性、嵌入依附性、动态继承性和增量积累性等四方面生态学特征。在此基础上,构建了企业知识转移生态学模型,在该模型中,知识个体、知识种群与知识群落间知识的相互联系构成了企业知识链与知识网。其中,个体知识转移强调员工自身知识的迁移与完善,种群知识转移侧重团队知识的整合与创造,而群落知识转移则关注企业知识应用的整体效率。此外,研究还发现,企业生态系统中的知识在转移过程中还呈现出一些超生态学特征。最后,文章结合思科公司知识转移的案例,提出了促进企业知识生态系统知识转移效率的启示与建议。