There has been a growing interest in examining the factors that support or hinder one's knowledge sharing behavior in the virtual communities. However, still very few studies examined them from both personal and environmental perspectives. In order to explore the knowledge sharing behaviors within the virtual communities of professional societies, this study proposed a social cognitive theory (SCT)-based model that includes knowledge sharing self-efficacy and outcome expectations for personal influences, and multi-dimensional trusts for environmental influences. The proposed research model was then evaluated with structural equation modeling, and confirmatory factor analysis was also applied to test if the empirical data conform to the proposed model.

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Knowledge sharing behavior in virtual communities: The relationship between trust, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations

This article reviews research on open innovation that considers how and why firms commercialize external sources of innovations. It examines both the “outside-in” and “coupled” modes of Enkel et al. (2009). From an analysis of prior research on how firms leverage external sources of innovation, it suggests a four-phase model in which a linear process — (1) obtaining, (2) integrating and (3) commercializing external innovations — is combined with (4) interaction between the firm and its collaborators. This model is used to classify papers taken from the top 25 innovation journals identified by Linton and Thongpapan (2004), complemented by highly cited work beyond those journals. A review of 291 open innovation-related publications from these sources shows that the majority of these articles indeed address elements of this inbound open innovation process model. Specifically, it finds that researchers have front-loaded their examination of the leveraging process, with an emphasis on obtaining innovations from external sources. However, there is a relative dearth of research related to integrating and commercializing these innovations.Research on obtaining innovations includes searching, enabling, filtering, and acquiring — each category with its own specific set of mechanisms and conditions. Integrating innovations has been mostly studied from an absorptive capacity perspective, with less attention given to the impact of competencies and culture (including not-invented-here). Commercializing innovations puts the most emphasis on how external innovations create value rather than how firms capture value from those innovations. Finally, the interaction phase considers both feedback for the linear process and reciprocal innovation processes such as co-creation, network collaboration and community innovation.This review and synthesis suggests several gaps in prior research. One is a tendency to ignore the importance of business models, despite their central role in distinguishing open innovation from earlier research on inter-organizational collaboration in innovation. Another gap is a tendency in open innovation to use “innovation” in a way inconsistent with earlier definitions in innovation management. The article concludes with recommendations for future research that include examining the end-to-end innovation commercialization process, and studying the moderators and limits of leveraging external sources of innovation.

Leveraging External Sources of Innovation: A Review of Research on Open Innovation

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Online communities – Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability

Ideas competitions appear to be a promising tool for crowdsourcing and open innovation processes, especially for business-to-business software companies Active participation of potential lead users is the key to success Yet a look at existing ideas competitions in the software field leads to the conclusion that many information technology (IT)-based ideas competitions fail to meet requirements upon which active participation is established The paper describes how activation-enabling functionalities can be systematically designed and implemented in an IT-based ideas competition for enterprise resource planning software We proceeded to evaluate the outcomes of these design measures and found that participation can be supported using a two-step model The components of the model support incentives and motives of users Incentives and motives of the users then support the process of activation and consequently participation throughout the ideas competition This contributes to the successful implementation and maintenance of the ideas competition, thereby providing support for the development of promising innovative ideas The paper concludes with a discussion of further activation-supporting components yet to be implemented and points to rich possibilities for future research in these areas

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Leveraging Crowdsourcing: Activation-Supporting Components for IT-Based Ideas Competition

‘Crowdsourcing’ is currently one of the most discussed key words within the open innovation community. The major question for both research and business is how to find and lever the enormous potential of the ‘collective brain’ to broaden the scope of ‘open R&D’. Based on a literature review in the fields of Community Building and Innovation Management, this work develops an integrated framework called ‘Community Engineering for Innovations’. This framework is evaluated in an Action Research project – the case of an ideas competition for an ERP Software company. The case ‘SAPiens’ includes the design, implementation and evaluation of an IT-supported ideas competition within the SAP University Competence Center (UCC) User Group. This group consists of approximately 60,000 people (lecturers and students) using SAP Software for educational purposes. The current challenges are twofold: on the one hand, there is not much activity yet in this community. On the other, SAP has not attempted to systematically address this highly educated group for idea generation or innovation development so far. Therefore, the objective of this research is to develop a framework for a community-based innovation development that generates innovations, process and product ideas in general and for SAP Research, in particular, combining the concepts of idea competitions and virtual communities. Furthermore, the concept aims at providing an interface to SAP Human Resources processes in order to identify the most promising students in this virtual community. This paper is the first to present an integrated concept for IT-supported idea competitions in virtual communities for leveraging the potential of crowds that is evaluated in a real-world setting.

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Community engineering for innovations: the ideas competition as a method to nurture a virtual community for innovations

Trust provides the foundation for the successful implementation and operation of a virtual community (VC). Trust is an especially relevant success factor in online health-care communities. A look at existing communities leads to the conclusion that many VCs fail to meet requirements upon which trust is established. Based on the findings in the literature and the researchers' experience, this paper describes how trust-enabling functionalities can be systematically designed and implemented in a VC for cancer patients. Consequently, the outcomes of these design measures are evaluated. The evaluation results show that supporting trust can be achieved following a two-step model. The presented components support the perceived competence and perceived goodwill of the operators and the other members. Perceived goodwill and competence then support the process of creating and sustaining trust between members as well as between members and the operators of the VC and contribute to the successful implementation and maintenance of the community. The paper concludes with a discussion on further trust-supporting components yet to be implemented and gives recommendations for further research in this area.

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Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Trust-Supporting Components in Virtual Communities for Patients

"Crowdsourcing" is currently one of the most discussed key words within the open innovation community. The major question for both research and business is how to find and lever the enormous potential of the "collective brain". This research in progress paper provides an approach for finding and leveraging innovations for an ERP software company among its user base. This is done by designing an IT-supported ideas competition within the SAP UCC (University Competence Center) User Group to use the potentials of the collective intelligence of this crowd. The German SAP UCC User Group consists of about 60,000 people (lecturers and students) using SAP software for educational purposes. The practical problem is twofold: On the one hand, there is not much activity yet in this community. On the other hand, SAP has not tried to systematically address this highly educated group for idea generation or innovation development so far. Therefore, the objective of this research is to generate innovations, process and product ideas for SAP Research and Development through an IT-supported ideas competition among the SAP UCC Community. Furthermore, the concept aims at providing an interface to SAP Human Resources processes in order to identify the most promising students in this VC This paper follows an action research approach. It is focusing on the diagnosing and action planning phase to develop an integrated concept of the ideas competition within the VC.

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Leveraging the Wisdom of Crowds: Designing an IT-Supported Ideas Competition for an ERP Software Company

Trust in online communities, particularly in the healthcare domain, provides (apart from other success factors) the foundation for a successful implementation and operation of a virtual community (VC). A look at existing communities however leads to the conclusion that many VCs fail to meet requirements upon which trust is established. Based on the researchers' experience, this paper describes how trust-enabling functionalities can be systematically designed and implemented in a virtual community for cancer patients. The presented components support the process of creating trust in the VC and contribute to the successful implementation and maintenance of the community. The paper concludes with a discussion on aspects of trust yet to be implemented and recommendations for further research in this area.

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Trust in virtual healthcare communities: design and implementation of trust-enabling functionalities

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Winfried Ebner

Papers

Community engineering for innovations: the ideas competition as a method to nurture a virtual community for innovations

Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Trust-Supporting Components in Virtual Communities for Patients

Leveraging the Wisdom of Crowds: Designing an IT-Supported Ideas Competition for an ERP Software Company

Trust in virtual healthcare communities: design and implementation of trust-enabling functionalities

Internetbasierte Ideenwettbewerbe als Instrument der Integration von Kunden in das Innovationsmanagement von Software-Unternehmen