• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.55-69
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• 2015

Employees' knowledge contribution is one of the critical activities that maximize internal capability of the firm and facilitate organizational innovation by sharing scattered internal knowledge. This study integrates antecedents of knowledge contribution based on the theory of planned behavior(TPB). Utilizing TPB as a theoretical framework, expected reciprocity, subjective norm, and self-efficacy's direct effects on knowledge contribution were assessed. Additionally, interaction effects among expected reciprocity, subjective norm, and self-efficacy were explored. As the results of analysis, all the antecedents significantly influenced knowledge contribution. Interestingly, when the knowledge source's self-efficacy was high, the influence of expected reciprocity on knowledge contribution was decreased. Similarly, when the knowledge source's subjective norm for knowledge contribution was high, expected reciprocity's effect was weakened. This implies that when facilitating knowledge contribution, interaction effects among antecedents of knowledge contribution, as well as their direct effects, should be considered.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.75-91
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• 2002

This research is interested in organization members' knowledge contribution, along with the requirement for the effective knowledge management as a critical corporate asset. We consider the performance appraisal and reward system on knowledge sharing as a key issue for the successful knowledge management. Analyzed will be the interactive relationship among the performance appraisal and reward system, individual knowledge contribution, and organizational knowledge contribution effectiveness. This case study is based on in-depth interviews in the consulting industry recognized as a knowledge-integrated industry. The purpose of this research is to examine how firms evaluate and reward organization members' knowledge contribution, to define how fim1s utilize IT for the knowledge management, and to show how the performance appraisal and reward system influence organizational knowledge contribution effectiveness. Besides, other determinants for knowledge contribution effectiveness are defined. It is recognized that knowledge contribution effectiveness is positively related to non-monetary rewards and informal appraisals. As for the future study, we recommend the empirical research based on several propositions developed in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.169-187
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• 2010

The purposes of this study are to find factors that have influences on the knowledge contribution activities, and to offer some suggestions to improve the knowledge contribution. Especially this study suggests to improve knowledge contribution by analyzing both on-line and off-line knowledge contribution activities in the public sector. The results of data analysis by structured equation model(SEM) indicate that leadership, intrinsic motivation, and knowledge quality significantly influence on-line and off-line knowledge contribution. Based on the results, the potential implications for the strategy of effective knowledge contribution are discussed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.53-74
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• 2012

A challenge in fostering virtual communities is the continuous supply of knowledge, namely members' willingness to contribute knowledge to their communities. Previous research argues that giving away knowledge eventually causes the possessors of that knowledge to lose their unique value to others, benefiting all except the contributor. Furthermore, communication within virtual communities involves a large number of participants with different social backgrounds and perspectives. The establishment of mutual understanding to comprehend conversations and foster knowledge contribution in virtual communities is inevitably more difficult than face-to-face communication in a small group. In spite of these arguments, evidence suggests that individuals in virtual communities do engage in social behaviors such as knowledge contribution. It is important to understand why individuals provide their valuable knowledge to other community members without a guarantee of returns. In virtual communities, knowledge is inherently rooted in individual members' experiences and expertise. This personal nature of knowledge requires social interactions between virtual community members for knowledge transfer. This study employs the social capital theory in order to account for interpersonal relationship factors and identity theory for individual and group factors that may affect knowledge contribution. First, social capital is the relationship capital which is embedded within the relationships among the participants in a network and available for use when it is needed. Social capital is a productive resource, facilitating individuals' actions for attainment. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1997) identify three dimensions of social capital and explain theoretically how these dimensions affect the exchange of knowledge. Thus, social capital would be relevant to knowledge contribution in virtual communities. Second, existing research has addressed the importance of identity in facilitating knowledge contribution in a virtual context. Identity in virtual communities has been described as playing a vital role in the establishment of personal reputations and in the recognition of others. For instance, reputation systems that rate participants in terms of the quality of their contributions provide a readily available inventory of experts to knowledge seekers. Despite the growing interest in identities, however, there is little empirical research about how identities in the communities influence knowledge contribution. Therefore, the goal of this study is to better understand knowledge contribution by examining the roles of social capital and identity in virtual communities. Based on a theoretical framework of social capital and identity theory, we develop and test a theoretical model and evaluate our hypotheses. Specifically, we propose three variables such as cohesiveness, reciprocity, and commitment, referring to the social capital theory, as antecedents of knowledge contribution in virtual communities. We further posit that members with a strong identity (self-presentation and group identification) contribute more knowledge to virtual communities. We conducted a field study in order to validate our research model. We collected data from 192 members of virtual communities and used the PLS method to analyse the data. The tests of the measurement model confirm that our data set has appropriate discriminant and convergent validity. The results of testing the structural model show that cohesion, reciprocity, and self-presentation significantly influence knowledge contribution, while commitment and group identification do not significantly influence knowledge contribution. Our findings on cohesion and reciprocity are consistent with the previous literature. Contrary to our expectations, commitment did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This result may be due to the fact that knowledge contribution was voluntary in the virtual communities in our sample. Another plausible explanation for this result may be the self-selection bias for the survey respondents, who are more likely to contribute their knowledge to virtual communities. The relationship between self-presentation and knowledge contribution was found to be significant in virtual communities, supporting the results of prior literature. Group identification did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in this study, inconsistent with the wealth of research that identifies group identification as an important factor for knowledge sharing. This conflicting result calls for future research that examines the role of group identification in knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This study makes a contribution to theory development in the area of knowledge management in general and virtual communities in particular. For practice, the results of this study identify the circumstances under which individual factors would be effective for motivating knowledge contribution to virtual communities.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.105-119
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• 2009

This study addresses the following questions : how does organization citizenship behavior(OCB) affect knowledge contribution in online communities? does the antecedents of OCB, cohesiveness and affection similarity, influence knowledge contribution in online communities? In order to test our hypotheses with an empirical study, we have conducted a survey which resulted in 192 valid response in the final sample. The PLS analysis results indicate that OCB affects knowledge contribution and coherence and affection similarity of online community users have influence on OCB. Further, knowledge contribution is influenced by community users' affection similarity. Practical implications of these findings and future research implications are also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.73-88
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• 2012

This study examines the role of perceived feedback and motivations on the use for contribution in Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). An individual expects responses from others when he or she posts the knowledge or questions of soliciting knowledge in KMS. If an individual posts a message and there are many responses, motivation to use KMS will develop. Prior research has considered feedback a potential factor that would affect an individual's motivation, such as self-efficacy, but there is few prior works that have tested empirically on how feedback can influence an individual's motivations as well as the use for contribution in KMS. Perceived feedback can be categorized into feedback on posted knowledge and feedback on knowledge request postings. The results of the study show that motivations such as organizational reward, knowledge self-efficacy, and enjoyment of helping, except for social reward, are associated with the use for contribution. Our results also show that among perceived feedback, feedback on posted knowledge affects motivation and use for contribution while feedback on knowledge request postings directly influences the use for contribution.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.113-135
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• 2004

This paper defines appraisal items and weights of the items for the purpose of developing an appraisal instrument that objectively measures employee's effectiveness of knowledge contribution. Deductive research is used for the development of appraisal items and delphi method for the development of weights of the items. In the deductive research the term, "effectiveness of knowledge contribution" is first defined. Then knowledge contribution activities are classified as "dimension of explicit contribution" and " dimension of tacit contribution" due to the characteristics of knowledge. Each dimension is divided again by components. The dimension of explicit contribution is divided according to the content of knowledge, and the dimension of tacit contribution is divided according to the extent of tacitness of knowledge contribution. The total components of dimensions are 7. The dimension of explicit contribution is composed of factual knowledge and procedural knowledge. The factual knowledge is made up of "procedural knowledge outcome" and "other factual knowledge". The procedural knowledge is made up of "procedural knowledge manual" and "lessons-learned procedural knowledge". The dimension of tacit contribution is composed of "agency", "model" and "Q&A". The basic framework for measuring 7 components of knowledge contribution is quantitative and qualitative approach. This paper is premised on the assumption that the outcomes of employee's knowledge contribution activities are recorded in the knowledge management systems in order to evaluate them objectively. The appraisal items are defined as follows: at the dimension of explicit contribution, in quantitative approach, "the upload number" or "performance number", and in qualitative approach, other employee's "referred number" and other employee's "content and format satisfaction evaluation"; at the dimension of tacit contribution, "demanded number of performance" After the development of appraisal items by the deductive method, delphi method was used for the analysis of the weights of the items with the total degree of knowledge contribution, 100. This research does not include the standard marks of the appraisal items. It is because when companies apply this appraisal instrument, they could use their own standard appraisal marks of the appraisal items considering their present situations and companies' goals. Through this almost desert-like research about the appraisal instrument of employee's knowledge contribution effectiveness, it proposes a cornerstone in the research field of appraisal instrument, which provides a standard for employee's knowledge contribution appraisal, and appraisal items that make organizational knowledge to be managed more systemically in business sites.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.117-132
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• 2021

Based on the core value of the Q&A community, the contribution of knowledge and information has a great impact on users' community evaluation. As a small social group, the relationships and interactions among community members are quickly formed through information technology. As such, the cognitive evaluation of the relationship between community members will have an impact on the intention of information contribution. This research builds on the previous research based on the social exchange theory and establishes a dual model of swift guanxi in examining the relationship between guanxi and continuous knowledge contribution. In the current study, 305 survey questionnaires were used and 249 valid questionnaires were used for analysis. The analysis results are as follows: First, information support has a positive impact on dedication-based swift guanxi. While hypothesis between information support and constraint-based swift guanxi was not be supported. Second, emotional support has a positive impact on the formation of swift guanxi from a dual perspective. Third, the swift guanxi from the dual perspective has a positive impact on the intention of continuous knowledge contribution. Finally, although personal involvement has an adjustment effect, it is a downward adjustment effect, hypotheses are not supported. The current study offers theoretical and practical implications in field of knowledge management, specifically knowledge contribution in the virtual community.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.1-27
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• 2009

Since online knowledge networks usually consist of a larger, loosely knit, and geographically distributed group of "strangers" who may not know each other very well, members may not willingly share their knowledge with others. In order to address this challenge, this study looks Into the factors that are expected to affect knowledge sharing in an online knowledge network. For empirical validation, we choose "the global network of Korean scientists and engineers (KOSEN)" as one of the best practices of online knowledge networks. By using the archival, network, and survey data, we validate two models of knowledge sharing in sequence (i.e., knowledge contribution and knowledge utilization models) and then discuss the results. The findings of this study show that individuals not only contribute but also utilize knowledge in an online knowledge network when they are structurally embedded and perceive a strong reciprocity. In the network. In addition, taking pleasure in helping is found to positively affect knowledge contribution, whereas perceiving usefulness is found to Influence knowledge utilization. Contributions of this study and future research opportunities are also discussed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.418-443
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• 2023

Many organizations facilitate a host of online knowledge sharing communities to assist internal knowledge sharing and operation. The permeable boundaries and voluntary structures of online communities allow individuals to span community boundaries and affect member resources and structures. Although much research has been done on members' knowledge contribution in online communities, relatively little is known about how a member's contribution to a community is shaped by the cross-level interactions of member's external boundary spanning and the community's environmental scanning or membership fluidity. Drawing from the theoretical lens of boundary spanning and the external view of online communities, we take a multi-level approach in the analysis of the activities of 1,992 members of 126 communities internal to a global company. We find that a member's external boundary spanning activity (e.g., external knowledge acquisition via reading posts) has a positive effect, though at a decreasing rate, on subsequent internal knowledge contribution (e.g., posting replies in the member's home community). This positive effect is stronger in communities that are more active in environmental scanning or have fluid membership and weaker in communities that are less active in environmental scanning or have stable membership.