The biggest challenge in fostering a virtual community is the supply of knowledge, namely the willingness to snare Knowledge with other members. This paper integrates the Social Cognitive Theory and the Social Capital Theory to construct a model for investigating the motivations behind people's knowledge sharing in virtual communities. The study holds that the facets of social capital -- social interaction ties, trust, norm of reciprocity, identification, shared vision and shared language -- will influence individuals' knowledge sharing in virtual communities. We also argue that outcome expectations -- community-related outcome expectations and personal outcome expectations -- can engender knowledge sharing in virtual communities. Data collected from 310 members of one professional virtual community provide support for the proposed model. The results help in identifying the motivation underlying individuals' knowledge sharing behavior in professional virtual communities. The implications for theory and practice and future research directions are discussed.

http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/515486f5131ebee688cdd8b0d435af0f.pdf

Understanding knowledge sharing in virtual communities: an integration of social capital and social cognitive theories

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the protocol backing the core routing decisions on the Internet. It maintains a table of IP networks or 'prefixes' which designate network reachability among autonomous systems (AS). Point of concern in BGP is its lack of effective security measures which makes Internet vulnerable to different forms of attacks. Many solutions have been proposed till date to combat BGP security issues but not a single one is deployable in practical scenario. Any security proposal with optimal solution should offer adequate security functions, performance overhead and deployment cost. This paper critically analyzes the deployment issues of best three proposals considering trade-off between security functions and performance overhead.

Comparative analysis of

Individualism and collectivism

Knowledge Management

Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study of motivation and barriers to employee participation in virtual knowledge‐sharing communities of practice at Caterpillar Inc., a Fortune 100, multinational corporation. The study indicates that, when employees view knowledge as a public good belonging to the whole organization, knowledge flows easily. However, even when individuals give the highest priority to the interests of the organization and of their community, they tend to shy away from contributing knowledge for a variety of reasons. Specifically, employees hesitate to contribute out of fear of criticism, or of misleading the community members (not being sure that their contributions are important, or completely accurate, or relevant to a specific discussion). To remove the identified barriers, there is a need for developing various types of trust, ranging from the knowledge‐based to the institution‐based trust. Future research directions and implications for KM practitioners are formulated.

Motivation and barriers to participation in virtual knowledge‐sharing communities of practice

– The purpose of this study is to explore cultural factors influencing knowledge sharing strategies in virtual communities of practice., – A qualitative research design was employed. Data collection was based on in‐depth interviews. The authors assumed that such factors as degree of collectivism, competitiveness, the importance of saving face, in‐group orientation, attention paid to power and hierarchy, and culture‐specific preferences for communication modes, would explain differences in knowledge seeking and sharing patterns., – The results showed that these factors had different levels of importance among employees in the three participating countries. The issue of saving face was less important than expected in China. Modesty requirements as well as a high degree of competitiveness among employees were found to be serious barriers to information sharing in China, but not in Russia and Brazil. Perceived differences in power and hierarchy seemed to be less critical in all three countries than initially assumed., – Since this study was conducted among the online community members of Caterpillar Inc., the results could be affected by factors unique to this specific case. Thus, future research should investigate the influence of other factors such as the organizational culture, or occupational groups on knowledge sharing strategies., – Before any introduction of country‐specific knowledge sharing systems, a cultural needs assessment should be conducted., – The impact of national culture factors on knowledge sharing has been largely neglected in the literature, and the findings will assist knowledge managers charged with the design of flexible knowledge management systems.

/pdf/cultural-influences-on-knowledge-sharing-through-online-393dtp4ys0.pdf

Cultural influences on knowledge sharing through online communities of practice

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of factors associated with e‐learning, particularly computer attitudes and usability, on transfer of training in workplace e‐learning courses.Design/methodology/approach – This study relied on quantitative data obtained from four online survey questionnaires. The sample of this study was 47 learners who took either one soft‐skill e‐learning course or one hard‐skill e‐learning course in a selected company and their supervisors.Findings – The results demonstrated that learners' computer attitudes impact their perception of the usability of the e‐learning courses, and that this perception influences the degree of their transfer of training. The results imply that when learners come to an e‐learning class with positive attitudes toward computers, they feel the e‐learning course system to be more satisfactory and efficient, and accordingly they can better transfer what they have learned to job performance.Research limitations/implications – The s...

Factors associated with transfer of training in workplace e‐learning

The Relationship between National Culture and the Usability of an E-Learning System

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore how national (Chinese) cultural factors influence knowledge sharing behavior in virtual communities of practice at a large U.S.-based multinational organization. The data in this study come from interviews with the companyâ€™s employees in China, and managers who are involved in managing knowledge-sharing initiatives. The study results suggest that overall the influence of the national culture could be less pronounced in online knowledge sharing than what the literature has suggested. Although Chinese employeesâ€™ tendency to draw sharp distinctions between in-groups and out-groups, as well as the modesty requirements were barriers to knowledge sharing online, the issue of saving face was less important than expected, and attention paid to power and hierarchy seemed to be less critical than what the literature indicated. A surprising finding was that in the initially assumed collectivistic Chinese culture, the high degree of competitiveness among employees and job security concerns seem to override the collectivistic tendencies and are the main reasons for knowledge hoarding. The reasons for unexpected findings could be associated with differences between face-to-face and online knowledge sharing environments, the influence of the companyâ€™s organizational culture, and the recent rapid changes of the overall Chinese cultural patterns.

Tim Wentling

Papers

Motivation and barriers to participation in virtual knowledge‐sharing communities of practice

Cultural influences on knowledge sharing through online communities of practice

Factors associated with transfer of training in workplace e‐learning

The Relationship between National Culture and the Usability of an E-Learning System

Impact of Chinese Culture Values on Knowledge Sharing Through Online Communities of Practice