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Internet forums are an important arena for information exchange between consumers. Despite healthcare being one of the most accessed information categories on the internet, knowledge of exchange between patients in online communities remains limited. Specifically, little is known about how patients negotiate knowledge in online forums to understand and manage their diseases. This paper aims to illustrate this by presenting data that demonstrate the construction of tacit knowledge within online health communities, and how consumers exercise their “voice” within complex professional services.

This paper reports an exploratory single case study of an online discussion forum for breast cancer sufferers, in which participants discuss their experience with healthcare services and related pharmaceutical products. Textual data were collected and analysed from the forum retrospectively from an 11-month period, entailing contributions from 252 participants.

The paper challenges prevalent managerial and professional perspectives that evaluate online health information in terms of its correspondence with conventional medical information. In the absence of normative assumptions that broadly guide health service encounters, forum participants negotiate their understandings in the context of their personal experience.

This novel culture offers potential for developing rich and sometimes more appropriate understandings of health than available from the medical establishment. It discusses how service providers can exploit such opportunities towards improving service provision, facilitating the consumer voice within a complex service.

Re-evaluating the value of online forums, the paper identifies the mechanisms through which health consumers co-create knowledge within online communities, and how these mechanisms can inform and complement future service provision.

The purpose of this paper is to get a first approximation of the usefulness of online forums with regard to information seeking and knowledge generation.

This study captures the characteristics of knowledge generation by examining the pragmatics and types of information needs of posted questions and by investigating knowledge related characteristics of discussion posts as well as the success of communication. Three online forums were examined. The data set consists of 55 threads, containing 533 posts which were categorized manually by two researchers.

Results show that questioners often ask for personal estimations. Information needs often aim for actionable insights or uncertainty reduction. With regard to answers, factual information is the dominant content type and has the highest knowledge value as it is the strongest predictor with regard to the generation of new knowledge. Opinions are also relevant, but in a rather subsequent and complementary way. Emotional aspects are scarcely observed. Overall, results indicate that knowledge creation predominantly follows a socio-cultural paradigm of knowledge exchange.

Although the investigation captures important aspects of knowledge building processes, the measurement of the forums’ knowledge value is still rather limited. Success is only partly measurable with the current scheme. The central coding category “new topical knowledge” is only of nominal value and therefore not able to compare different kinds of knowledge gains in the course of discussion.

The investigation reaches out beyond studies that do not consider that the role and relevance of posts is dependent on the state of the discussion. Furthermore, the paper integrates two perspectives of knowledge value: the success of the questioner with regard to the expressed information need and the knowledge building value for communicants and readers.

Through the use of netnography, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the interaction of 192 inside sales agents who collaborate within discussion forums to create communities of practice (CoPs). Drawing on situated learning theory and inside salespersons’ discussion forums, this study showcases how inside sales agents use CoPs to better their sales activity knowledge. This paper discovered how inside sales agents reach outside their organization to seek information within their mesosystem to positively impact sales activity knowledge outcomes.

This study used the use of netnography to follow the online community from afar, observing and capturing the essence of interaction without intruding on the conversation. Data from two inside sales professional discussion forums, 192 inside sales agents, produced nearly 67,161 words or 496 double-spaced pages.

This research demonstrates the power of CoPs. Inside sales agents seek information outside their company, within their mesosystem, to gain knowledge to improve sales activities. As boundary spanners, inside sales agents are not restricted, but rather, proactively find ways to consistently keep learning.

Organizations can and should implement internal CoPs to allow the exchange between sales agents in a more controlled matter. Furthermore, sales managers should proactively seek extern CoPs and introduced them to their organization as supplemental training.

The use of netnography is limited in sales literature. The research provides support for the use of netnography as it provides researchers firsthand access to multiple sales roles. This unadulterated access provides sales researchers the opportunity to study the many facets of sales, with pure, genuine data.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the evidence for the use of on‐line forums within education and their use in working with service users with mental health problems. The paper also outlines the key characteristics of the online facilitator. The authors propose that nurse education is well placed to develop students on‐line forum participation and moderation programme.

The authors reviewed the literature to assess the current evidence.

Much of the literature was international, mainly from Asia Pacific, the USA and Europe but there was limited research and position papers from the UK. The use of forums was discussed but there is a paucity of research, particularly in relation to the use of on‐line forums within mental health. The literature identifies and gives an insight into the complexities of using on‐line forums.

Research limitations: this is a systematic literature review but only English language papers were consulted. Also the authors drew on their personal experiences of working with students in an on‐line learning environment to inform this paper. Implications: educators need to develop a change in attitude with regard to the use of on‐line learning. Many are used to face‐to‐face teaching and still regard it as the most stimulating and appropriate way for knowledge development. Specific collaborative and interactive skills are considered to be desirable when engaging in on‐line forums. These have to be learned by both the moderator and the students. Mental health nurses should be encouraged to perceive the skills of forum facilitation in a positive way when engaging with service users and can add to their repertoire of skills.

The authors suggest that more research is needed within this area on on‐line forums, with particular emphasis on how student nurses engage in on‐line forums. It is felt that nurses, given proper preparation and effective training, are well placed to carry out the role. Partnership working could be developed with universities and NHS Trusts to develop Trust's staff skills and expertise in the moderation of forums, as universities have the skills and experience. However supervision would be essential for moderators to develop appropriate pedagogic tools to facilitate what is a complex process.

The authors suggest making better use of available technology and empowering the service user to take ownership of the way they engage with professionals.

This appears to be an area that is under researched and considering the increasing usage of social networking as a means of peer support, there is scope for this to be transferred to professional practice.

Knowledge management (KM) is a global organizational practice that focuses on core questions around knowledge sharing and creation, and which is characterized by definitional issues and a schism over the nature of knowledge. Against this by definition problematic background, this study aims to investigate how KM practitioners construct identities as expert in an online discussion forum, showing how knowledge sharing is inextricably linked to identity construction.

The study adopts a discourse analytic approach, grounded in the discourse psychology paradigm, and its underlying theory that all language, including both talk and text, is situated action in social interaction, marked by variation, function and consequences.

Analysis demonstrates how forum contributors deploy discursive devices constructively, actively and relationally to formulate membership of an expert elite group, and that group membership is marked by inter‐group competitive rivalry. This has synergies with the theory of creative abrasion.

The study has implications for KM theories and practice in showing how attention to the social‐interaction practices of talk and text can reveal deeper understanding of how people share knowledge, and in demonstrating the important and consequential relationship between identity construction and knowledge.

This is among the first studies to take a discursive approach to the study of language in the KM domain, and demonstrates the rich potential for future studies.

The field of organization design is changing rapidly, reflecting contributions from managers and diverse organizational consultants. One of the most recent developments is in the design of non‐routine systems. Explores non‐routine systems design from a socio‐technical systems (STS) perspective. Includes a brief discussion of non‐routine systems and an examination of alternative methods for diagnosing and redesigning organizations composed of knowledge workers. The results of two STS case studies provide new learnings and point to special design principles for non‐routine systems. Concludes with implications for both managers and STS consultants interested in management of knowledge workers.

This study aims to introduce an empirical model which incorporates newsgroups, knowledge forums, knowledge assets and knowledge application processes to share organisational knowledge. Therefore it seeks to illustrate an application for integrating knowledge management (KM) into the business process.

The Taiwanese contingent of an international certification body – also a council member of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) – was selected for a case study. A hybrid technology infrastructure was designed and employed to implement the proposed model. Based on knowledge value added validation, the proposed KM model provides a set of new operating systems for sharing knowledge within an organisation.

Although many theories regarding implementation of KM in organisations have been proposed and studied, an application model for practical integration of various modern principles to share organisational knowledge is strategically important. Therefore a model that integrates principal KM applications into the business process, and the measurement of the resulting benefits, has been developed.

Knowledge is a valuable asset for an individual in today's economy; nevertheless the acquisition of such an asset relies heavily on knowledge sharing within an organisation. The author has proposed an exclusive hybrid platform with an empirical process model to address innovative approaches and practical values of KM within an organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a framework designed to assess the capacity of a knowledge management (KM) system to facilitate new knowledge creation.

A longitudinal case study methodology, in a single company, Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR), was used to test the framework.

New knowledge creation is best supported through mature KM systems that include all four modes of knowledge creation: combination, externalization, socialization, and internalization. KM systems and environments as a whole reach maturity by progressing through stages, which is presented as a KM maturity model.

By combining Nonaka's knowledge creation theory with Wittrock's generative learning activities, the paper illuminates both the why and how of new knowledge creation, in a way that can be applied to KM technological initiatives. One of the limitations of this study is the generalizability of the findings, which may be limited by the single case study method used.

The framework provides a rubric against which both old and new KM initiatives can be assessed to determine whether they are capable of generating new knowledge. The maturity model provides a template against which organizations can map their progress towards a mature KM environment.

Much of the literature on KM systems has focused on capturing knowledge and disseminating it. Few studies have provided practical, theoretically based advice on how to create new knowledge and what aspects of information systems can facilitate that creation. The framework and maturity model can serve as guides in that process.

The main purpose of the paper is to assess and suggest the ways and means to enhance a collaborative knowledge sharing culture in academic institutions, with special reference to information technology (IT)‐related education in the Management Faculty of the University of Pune.

The research is descriptive and empirical in nature because the primary data were collected using the survey method through fact finding techniques such as questionnaire and interview. The main purpose of this research is to obtain information concerning the current status of the phenomena to describe “what exists” with respect to variables or conditions in a situation.

The sustainability of any industry is closely linked to the manpower talent made available by the academic institutions. Therefore in order to service the needs of the industry in tune with rapidly changing trends, academic institutions have to implement innovative learning systems and be able to match up to the expectations of the industry for knowledge support. Collaborative knowledge sharing links the learning and knowledge processes to enhance organizational learning. The knowledge grows more with communication, sharing of ideas and transfer of knowledge through face‐to‐face communication, discussions, faculty development programs, industry‐institute interactions. Academic institutions should align their human resource strategies, practices and processes in such a way that collaborative knowledge sharing becomes a part of the work culture and overcome the barriers to knowledge sharing. There is need to develop systems that can recognize and reward the efforts of employees who share their knowledge. This can empower collaborative knowledge sharing culture in an academic institute.

In the same context as the practical implications of the paper, it is also appropriate and important to study further how, and to what extent collaborative knowledge improves the performance of the academic institutes. Also, the impact of collaborative knowledge sharing on the quality of higher education.

The recommendations in this paper focus on factors influencing collaborative knowledge sharing culture and also the practices of collaborative knowledge sharing to enhance organizational learning in an academic institute.

This paper contributes original empirical data on the collaborative knowledge sharing strategy to enhance organizational learning.

The purpose of this paper is to address the major findings of published research on the factors influencing students’ knowledge building in an online collaborative environment.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses was used to review and synthesize existing empirical studies on knowledge building in a collaborative learning context. In total, 24 studies were identified from major electronic bibliographic databases. The research was conducted between 2017 and 2019. Results of these studies were analyzed to determine potential factors that may influence the knowledge-building process among students.

Factors related to interaction and participation, task, student and support were found to be the major factors driving students’ knowledge building in the online collaborative learning environment. The association between these factors and certain collaborative tasks was mapped.

Findings from this review can help decision makers of higher education in both developing and developed countries to take the necessary steps in order to promote effective knowledge-building practices in online collaborative learning. It may also help educational policy makers to understand the particulars of collaborative knowledge-building practices, so to increase organizational overall effectiveness and performance.