Search results

Prior research indicates that the success of a virtual community relies on its ability to allow community members to share knowledge interactively. Wiki applications are web‐based hypertext applications that facilitate collaborative authoring, and have been widely adopted by virtual communities to facilitate knowledge sharing and accumulation. Nevertheless very few studies have empirically investigated the dynamics of how these applications contribute to the development and continuity of virtual communities by enhancing the knowledge sharing intentions of community members. This paper aims to address these issues.

A theoretical model was developed to explain and predict the knowledge sharing intentions of virtual community members. Survey data collected from 232 wiki community members were examined using structural equation modelling to verify the theoretical model.

The research results confirm the positive influence of the use of wiki applications on knowledge sharing intention through the mediating effects of member interactions, community participation, and community promotion. However it was found that community trust and community identification had no significant effect on knowledge sharing intention.

Very few studies have empirically investigated the relationships among the characteristics of wiki applications, virtual community outcomes (participation, promotion, trust, and identification), and the knowledge sharing intentions of virtual community members. The research findings can enrich our understanding of how wiki or other similar technologies affect the sharing of knowledge within virtual communities. This can, in turn, provide both virtual community administrators and managers of organisations with guidelines for creating successful knowledge sharing practices.

As prior study offered further general context of knowledge management approach while misplaced more personal behavior development in the context of knowledge sharing practices, this study examined whether and why personal factors predict knowledge sharing practices. This study aims to integrate and analyze indicators such as altruism, grant, interaction ability and knowledge sharing participation to develop a comprehensive behavioral model.

Structural equation modeling was used to check the research hypotheses framework with 268 samples of eight profit companies in Indonesia, divided into broadcasting, banking and services company.

The results showed that altruism and interaction ability factors are significantly correlated with knowledge sharing participation. The findings may help companies and workers to initiate knowledge sharing implementation and encourage knowledge sharing in the internal company.

The research focused on profit company in a single province in Indonesia. Further research may extend the study with a focus on non-profit organizations (e.g. academic institutions) and different geographical areas.

Managerial ideally creates standardization or regulation that to encourage participation of workers for transfer their knowledge. In this aspect, the company needs to organize, such as formal/informal training and meeting to make their workers more confident to communicate with each other.

Prior studies explored knowledge sharing behavior in a general sense; this paper examined the phenomenon specifically within the context of broadcasting, banking and services company in Indonesia, then analyzed the potential for a company to enhance their knowledge sharing strategy.

The aim of this paper is to develop a theoretical model that enables us to examine the antecedents and consequences effects of members' helping behavior in online communities. It also aims to develop a complete model for empirical testing.

The sample is 425 participants including nine online communities in Taiwan, including Yahoo! Kimo, CPB, Sony music, etc.. who were contacted and asked to participate in the study. Data were collected between August and December 2007 via the web for Internet users using a standardized questionnaire. Excluding those surveys that were undeliverable and those who believed that it was inappropriate to respond, the overall effective response rate was 84 percent (355 of 425).

The empirical results suggested that online communities members' helping behavior represents a large pool of product know‐how. They seem to be a promising source of innovation capabilities for new product development.

The research only aims to experimentally investigate complete model of helping behavior in online communities. But this research has not dealt with a double role of online communities' members so far, linking innovation with commercialization. They seem to be a promising source of innovation capabilities for new product development.

The phenomenon of helping behavior among members may become a major source and channel for information in the decision making process for the purchase of products. Therefore, a major finding derived from the empirical application is that community members are capable and willing to contribute to virtual co‐development.

Many variables have been evaluated for their influences on the helping behaviors of the members of the online communities. However, none of the previous studies have integrated these variables into a more comprehensive framework.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an in-depth analysis of online communities of practice that support the innovative development of web applications. The analysis is aimed at understanding the preeminent characteristics of communities of practice that can favour the process of innovation (conceptualisation and realization of a web application) and if these characteristics differ in the diverse phases of a software development project (requirement specification, design, implementation and verification).

The authors adopted a multiple case study research design, selected 29 communities of practice related to the development of web applications and classified them recognizing the different practices that refer to the different phases of the innovation process of web-applications software development. Finally, the authors focussed on seven communities comparing five important dimensions for each one.

The results of the empirical analysis show that the best practices are different, considering the different phases of the project, and that these practices can be strategies directed at members to attract them and also, strategies directed at the community to permit collaboration.

The paper proposes an important and new insight into the management of virtual communities of practice (VCoP). The authors supposed that the ways to manage a VCoP could depend on project phases. In particular, the management practices of community should differ according to the different project phases, i.e. requirements specification, design, implementation and verification of the software. Literature in this sense presented only research focussed on the different effects of virtualness on teams depending on the length of team duration and on communication efforts.

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

This research paper examines the post-military landscape of the Victoria Barracks regarding the high-density urbanism in Hong Kong from the 1970s to the 2000s. The article first interprets the concept of post-military landscape according to the ideology and urbanism of the then Hong Kong society. It then studies three plans of the Victoria Barracks of different stages, showing contestations between domestic, commercial and administrative powers in controlling the military redevelopment. Several contemporary architectural projects on the site will also provide an alternative view of the transformation according to the local economic laissez-faire policy. Its influence to the unsatisfactory heritage protection leads to the disappearance and false representation of the identity of this particular military and cultural heritage.

Purpose: This chapter applies and integrates theories of status and stigma to better understand the mechanisms that drive the combined effects of the status of race and the stigma of criminal record in the context of the labor market. Using these social psychological theories of status and stigma, I propose and test two potential mechanisms – moral expectations and performance expectations – that might explain the compound or “double disadvantage” observed among Black job seekers with a criminal record. Within this synthetic application, I also seek to bridge and extend the literatures on status and stigma processes.

Methodology/Approach: To examine the relationship between race and criminal record and the potential mediating role of moral and performance expectations, I use a laboratory experiment consisting of a hiring scenario where participants evaluate mock, but ostensibly real job applicants who vary on the characteristics of interest. Participant evaluations consist of rankings along a series moral and performance-related scales as well as a set of workplace outcomes.

Findings: Findings suggest that race and criminal record aggregate to intensify disadvantage, with Black applicants who have a criminal record faring worse than other applicants on each workplace outcome. Results also support moral expectations, but not performance expectations, as a key mechanism driving this status-stigma intensification process.

Implications: This study has important implications for studies of race, crime, and employment as well as for theories of status and stigma. Future research should attend more closely to the role of perceived morality both in substantive work on race and criminal record and in bridging work on status and stigma processes. Pinpointing moral expectations as a mechanism of bias related to race and criminal record also opens new avenues for targeted intervention efforts.