• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.119-129
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• 2013

The degree to which people share knowledge has major impacts on the effectiveness of virtual community of practice (VCoP). As an extension to the previous study which investigated the effect of individual cooperative types (cooperator, reciprocator, and free rider) on knowledge sharing, it is investigated how much increase in the degree of cooperation will enhance knowledge sharing when there are more knowledge contributors and strong ties exist across the community. Simulation method is adopted to measure the effect of the cooperative type and tie strength on knowledge sharing. The results reveal that the tie strength positively affects knowledge contribution in VCoP and strongly tied VCoP generates equivalent level of knowledge contribution as that of weakly-tied VCoP with 5% more contributors.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.8
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• pp.360-369
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• 2010

The objective of this research examines the relationships among privacy concerns, self discrepancy, and sense of virtual communities. According to the relevant literature review, we considered information privacy concerns factor as information collection, control, and awareness of privacy practice, and sense of community factor as membership and immersion on virtual communities. This research surveyed for the online community user and employed hierarchical regression model for the moderating effect test. The results of empirical analysis turns out that awareness of privacy concerns practice has negative impact on the self discrepancy, on the other hand, information collection and control factors do not affect. The next finding is internet use duration has moderating effect on the self discrepancy with information control and awareness of privacy concerns practice. The last findings are self discrepancy affect on the community membership and does not affect on the community immersion. It could be a good guide line for the operational direction on virtual community.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.23-38
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to find factors affecting knowledge sharing activities which have two aspects-quantity and quality. We surveyed the members of a virtual community of practice called "UPOW.com". It is dedicated to sharing knowledge about job related problems, questions, experience of educational official. This study derived factors from social cognitive theory and social capital theory. The findings of the study can be summarized as follows; first, quality of shared knowledge and quantity of knowledge sharing both have positive effect on knowledge utilization. Second, individual factors and social relations have positive effect on quantity of knowledge sharing. However, individual factors' effects on quantity of knowledge sharing are not significant. These results have academic implications to find factors affecting both side of knowledge sharing. Also these finding will give an insight to develop virtual community of practice for an organization's sustained competitiveness.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.107-116
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• 2018

The aim of this study is to delve deeper into the online brand community study. This study tests (a) the effects of online brand community on its outcomes, (b) the impact of value creation practice construct as a whole, (c) the effects of value creating practice construct on the two types of loyalty, loyalty toward the brand and the community. Participants of this study (N=353) are members of four types of online brand communities (e.g., business-to-consumer virtual product support community, firm-hosted online community, user-generated online community, peer-to-peer problem-solving community, and social media based brand community). Data were collected online using Amazon Mechanical Turk from April 10, 2016 to May 10, 2016. The data were analyzed through structural equations modeling using AMOS 20. The three community markers (e.g., consciousness of kind, rituals and traditions, and moral responsibility) and the four value creation practices (e.g., social networking, impression management, community engagement, and brand use) are proved to be significant indicators of online brand community and value creation practice constructs, respectively. Test results showed that strong and effective online brand communities generate value creation practices, and value creation practices enhance brand loyalty. The mediating effects of community loyalty between value creation practices and brand loyalty were revealed.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.73-88
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• 2012

Much of knowledge that can retain a company's competitive advantage remains within the organization. However, identifying, finding and leveraging knowledge in an organization is still problematic [17]. Although knowledge is the key to success, it is simply too valuable to be left in an organization [59]. The CoP (Community of Practice) within an organization is a practical way to manage knowledge in an organization as systematically as other critical assets in order to deploy and share it [59]. However, research related with CoP, has focused on the value of CoP. Therefore, we developed not only a holistic and systematic method for understanding and assessing the current position of CoP but also a method for extracting the core strategies and CSFs of CoP based on performance evaluation. We developed strategies, CSF (Critical Success Factor) and PM (Performance Measure)s of CoP based on BSC (Balanced Scorecard) process. Specifically, CSFs and strategies of CoP were extracted based on maturity model and type of CoP. According to the procedure from the methodology to evaluate the performance of CoP, three different industrial cases were adopted to validate the evaluation methodology.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.39-56
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• 2008

This paper investigates the relationship between the structural characteristics of a virtual CoP and the measures of social network analysis. Several implications were developed by the results of the study First, the study, based on reviews of both the CoP and SNA literature, identified specific structural measures of SNA; connectedness, geodesic distance, and density. Second, the formal CoP investigated in this study showed greater development that the classic, informal CoP in terms of the structural dimension of a CoP. The results show that those measures of social network analysis provide an illuminating way to better understand the structural properties of CoP's. Implications of the study with some suggestions for future research are provided.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.127-137
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• 2000

Effective knowledge sharing and creating requires human networking as well as system. Corporation 'S' organized 'community of practice(CoP),' which is a virtual group based on work process, skill, and interest. The purpose of this study is to suggest effective CoP establishment and implementation methods, based upon 'S' experience. The effective methods this study suggests are : setting up clear CoP objectives by each CoP; dual CoP system with career centered and subject centered; alignment with business strategy; guide by knowledge integrator, and professional competence development as CoP purpose. Key success factors to CoP activities also include effective communication, facilitators' competency, and managers' support.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.89-108
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• 2015

Social networking communities (SNCs) are media designed to facilitate social interaction using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. SNCs can constitute individuals' their own profiles in the online environment and share texts, images and photos in a variety ways. In other words, one of the other motivators is knowledge sharing. Various sites, such as Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, and Hi5 are categorized as SNCs. SNCs have become increasingly popular in recent years among youths, especially students, who use them to build social networks. This study examines whether this usage of SNCs inculcates a sense of community among their members. Several studies have examined the role of a sense of community through increased usage in the context of virtual communities. Although this result may be true of virtual communities, this paper contends that the opposite relationship prevails in the case of SNCs because members interact to build networks and are not obliged to interact. The results reveal that maintaining long-term interactions in the SNCs is helpful in building a sense of community in SNCs. Although short-term usage may not boost the development of a sense of community in SNCs, it does matter if the premise is for a long-term commitment to SNCs. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

• Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.45-64
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• 2018

The global information economy is transforming the way people connect with each other, learn new things, and contribute to the knowledge society. With the online platform, library services have also expanded beyond face to face interaction. Although studies of virtual reference services have been made in different parts of the world, a case study discussing various forms of online reference engagement in Kazakhstan has not been written. While most of the theories on connectivism emphasize the context of instruction, the researchers of this paper discussed the tenets as they relate to online engagement. Applying the theory of connectivism, this paper explores through a mixed method the use of various online platforms to enhance engagement connecting library users to information. Findings revealed that differences in patterns of interactions as to platforms, types of queries, and users reveal that students, faculty, and other members of the academic community served by the library have various preferences for communication. The case study further showed that respondents have not maximized the use of VLS but interest in using both synchronous and asynchronous services is clear. Finding connections between sources of information, creating useful information patterns, is essential in learning. Amplifying awareness on the use of VLS giving emphasis to the unique features of each service is useful in order to enable students to see how this platform facilitates learning.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.217-241
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• 2015

One of the challenges in online community management is what level of perceived anonymity can be granted to encourage active participation from members while discouraging unhealthy activities. Few studies developed a scheme of anonymity and investigated how different levels of anonymity influence community activities. This study develops a classification scheme of anonymity encompassing the following three different levels : (1) real name(no anonymity), (2) nickname (partial anonymity), and (3) random assignment of a temporal ID (complete anonymity). Then, it examines how different levels of anonymity influence trust and perceived risk, which in turn affect virtual team performance. A series of laboratory experiments were performed, manipulating the levels of anonymity, in the context of well-structured communities that allow prior interactions among community members. The data was collected from 364 laboratory participants and analyzed using ANOVA and PLS. The results indicate that the difference of anonymity between (2) and (3) had not be significant and the only (1) could not guarantee the anonymity. The impact of anonymity on trust and perceived risk could not be significant in this situation. These findings could contribute to make more beneficial member identification strategies in online community practice.