Motivation in Collaborative Knowledge Creation

2005

2012

Various factors and influences affect willingness to share knowledge, experiences and ideas, and to generate new knowledge with others. But the development and sharing of knowledge-and the utilization of knowledge by human beings-remains a key concern for Knowledge Management (KM). This paper sets out to examine phenomena that intrinsically dispose humans to share their knowledge, as well as factors related to the cooperative development of new knowledge. It is proposed that what drives cooperation in knowledge development is primarily the issue of common benefits and goal cooperativeness. The concept of win n is proposed as a way to link and harmonize the needs of individuals and a collective, which is the essential basis for Knowledge Management. A win n constellation indicates that each participant (all n participants) considers him or herself as a "winner" only if all other participants consider themselves to be "winners" as well. The mere accumulation of individual benefits is a zero-sum scenario, whereas collective success or benefit (win n) is by definition a non-zero-sum constellation where both the enterprise and all its participants do well. As a consequence, Knowledge Management initiatives benefit not only business enterprises but also their employees. It is postulated that this mutual benefit scenario fosters the success and sustainability of Knowledge Management in practice, since it addresses the intrinsic motivation of employees. These notions have evolved from the implementation of Knowledge Management systems within a production industry and are accompanied by quantitative and qualitative research. The results show that common benefits and cooperative goals were the driving forces for knowledge creation and sharing, and that the key structure for achieving win n was social self-organization.

Information and Organization, 2015

Prior studies on knowledge-sharing motivations mostly concentrate on discussing motivation in terms of level or amount, and thus, discussions regarding the quality of motivations, in terms of their levels of autonomy, are scarce. Additionally, while researchers have addressed the significant relationships among different types of motivations, there is still controversy concerning these relationships in a knowledge-sharing context. With reference to self-determination theory, this study examines a model that depicts the influence of various types of motivations on employees' knowledge sharing behaviors (KSBs). Based on the data collected from 259 employees in 34 organizations, hard reward, soft reward, and altruism for organizational benefits are significant influencing factors of KSBs, while altruism for personal satisfaction is not. Additionally, soft reward has a significant positive effect on both altruism for organizational benefits and altruism for personal satisfaction. The theoretical and practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

2011

The business direction we call Knowledge Management (KM) has emerged over the last decades as a result of many intellectual, societal, and business forces. Some of its roots extend back for millennia, both in the West and the East, while others, particularly those associated with Cognitive and Information sciences, are quite recent. Globalization of business also plays an important role. Whereas KM has become a valuable business tool, its complexity is often vexing, and as a field, will still be under development for a long time to come. Significant changes in the workplace have already taken place, but changes to come are expected to be greater. As for other management directions, it is expected that KM will be integrated into the basket of effective management tools, and hence disappear as a separate effort.

2013 International Conference on Research and Innovation in Information Systems (ICRIIS), 2013

The rapid changes in business operations and the frequency at which new products and services are introduced to market by competing organizations continue to emphasize the importance of effective management of knowledge that resides in every organization. Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) which are tools enabling the management of organizational knowledge is gaining importance because of the speed at which knowledge needs to be leveraged to aid organizations in sustaining competitiveness in the mist of stiff competition. Despite this importance and the acknowledgement of social processes as enablers of Knowledge Management (KM) processes, little attention has been given to how organizational factors interplay to promote the development of knowledge efficacy and effectiveness of KMS utilization in organization. This paper is an attempt to provide conceptual understanding on how motivating job design (engineered factor), as well as collaborative and innovative norms (emergent factors) interplay to promote knowledge efficacy and effectiveness in organizational use of KMS. Based on the proposed conceptualized framework, several propositions are postulated for future empirical study.

Knowledge is the most important strategic tool for improving and maintaining organizational performance. Knowledge has become the essential part of every successful organization. This makes the organizations to put more effort in managing knowledge in a new systematic and effective way to accomplish it goals. Organization must be able to identify the need for introducing technology and process to contribute in facilitating knowledge sharing within the organization. This paper explains how influence and effective knowledge sharing is on educating and motivating the employees toward the organizational goals, the paper further explain the impact on knowledge sharing on organizational knowledge management as part of knowledge management to increase the level of employee knowledge and performance in the organization.

2004

Knowledge Management (KM) has become one of the most discussed issues amongst academics and practitioners working in the information systems arena. The source of knowledge, the dissemination of knowledge, and the motives of the knowledge provider and knowledge seeker have received less attention in the literature than their significance warrants, both in terms of practical outcomes and in terms of ethical issues. This paper sets out to re-examine some of the foundations of Knowledge Management, to show that much of the current discussion -including by those who are critical of the conceptual basis of KM -neglects or underplays some otherwise well known aspects of the topic. The paper points to the more manipulative processes which characterise the darker side of KM. Why is it even necessary to explore the ethical dimension of KM? There exists shades of desirable and undesirable directions of the experience of KM, processes in need of a critical awareness. We cannot assume that however knowledge is interpreted, facilitated, conceptualised, or experienced, that KM processes will always have a desirable outcome. The first section examines the multidisciplinary foundations of Knowledge Management.The second section discusses 'relationship guidelines' for engaging with KM in organizations. The concluding part examines the issues raised from the previous discussion and relates these to the theme of ethics. The paper concludes that if the study of KM is to have an enduring future it must take a more holistic stance and recognise that its antecedents come from many more disciplines than those which are cited in its literature.

Journal of Management, 2014

Many organizations are using knowledge management systems (KMSs) to facilitate knowledge sharing. However, few studies have empirically investigated how individual characteristics and organizational work practices influence knowledge sharing. Based on accountability theory, the person-situation interactional psychology perspective, and the five-factor model of personality, this study uses a quasi-experimental design to investigate how two accountability-inducing management practices-evaluation and evaluation plus reward-and their interactions with personality characteristics influence knowledge sharing using a KMS. One hundred employees from a Chinese software company participated in the study. The authors found that both evaluation and evaluation plus reward had a positive relationship with knowledge sharing. Greater levels of knowledge sharing occurred in the evaluation-plus-reward condition compared with Wang et al. / Motivating Knowledge Sharing 979 the evaluation condition. Also, knowledge sharing was influenced by the interaction between evaluation plus reward and conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Implications of the study results for research and practice are discussed.

2003

Knowledge management is an important area targeting improvements in organisational functionality and performance. Technological tools of ever increasing sophistication are available for use in achieving the dissemination and sharing of data, information and knowledge across the organisation. However, despite the existence and capability of these tools, knowledge management in many organisations all too often does not deliver the benefits sought from it. Other important issues that arguably play a pivotal role in the success of knowledge management initiatives are organisational and human-related. Holistic knowledge management practice should take such matters more into account than is typically the case. The panel will present two main perspectives on knowledge management efforts, a ‘constructivist’ one and a ‘theoretical’ one, with a particular focus on the human and organisational issues involved. Constructive approaches are aimed at enabling purposeful intervention in the organis...

2001

The ability to define knowledge management in terms of an organization’s own needs and goals is critical to implementing a successful knowledge management (KM) initiative. As our understanding of what KM means to us matures, we can then identify the requirements we need to meet, structure to attain, and activities to select that will best allow us to share and transfer knowledge across the organization or discipline. The key becomes creating a system within the cultural context of an organization that delivers measurable improvements to that organization’s processes, perceptions, and profits. As we emerge from the information age, we move to an era where knowledge is required to do our tasks—knowledge about what we do, how to do it, and where to find the experts that will enable us to make better decisions. Such knowledge resides within organizations and within the minds of knowledge workers. The aspects to managing that knowledge—that corporate or organizational memory—involve gene...