'Knowledge Factors'

Abstract der Veröffentlichung 'Knowledge Factors' (Schmitz-Justen, F.J., 2006: Knowledge Factors: How to animate members of online communities to create knowledge-relevant content. Bern, Berlin, Brüssel, Frankfurt, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang GmbH · Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften, 231 pages - ISBN: 3-63155-466-4)

Knowledge is becoming ever more important as an individual good, and as a social and economic resource.

The starting point of this research is the argument that future learning and knowledge work will be ever more influenced by inter- and transdisciplinary conditions, under both remote and co-located combinations of lifelong learning and knowledge work - conditions that are identified as being well addressed by Online Knowledge Communities (OKCs).

The research interest of the project dealt with in this publication is how knowledge processes can be optimally supported in the cooperative context of forum-based OKCs. The research focuses especially on the two key processes knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. The research question of the project has been formulated as follows: Which factors influence and support the knowledge-relevant usage of online forums and thus indirectly stimulate the two key knowledge processes "Knowledge Transfer" and "Knowledge Creation" within forum-based OKCs?

The starting point of the research is a literature review and the outline of individual hypotheses on the basis of an interdisciplinary body of research from the fields of computer science and management science, specifically knowledge management literature, community of practice literature, human-computer interaction literature, and collaborative systems literature.

Following the literature review, the empirical part of the research is based on an in-depth study of the users of the electronic communication forums at International University Bremen (IUB). Based on a log-file analysis, an online questionnaire survey, and direct observation, the empirical part of the research project presented in this publication consists of two main parts of research: an ANOVA-based and a SEM-based analysis.

Both empirical parts of research - the ANOVA-based calculation of type of content-based knowledge process values and the SEM-based hypotheses testing of individual factors of impact on an individual's knowledge process contribution - could be shown to be in line with the theoretically deduced hypotheses.

Besides the careful selection of a forum-platform (factor service quality) and carefully drafting of the initial content in the case of newly established online knowledge communities (factor perceived quality of content), the best strategy to stimulate participants to contribute a larger share of knowledge-process-relevant content appears to be the emphasis of the online forum as an online knowledge community, with a focus on professional as opposed to social content (factors social vs. professional affiliation motivation). These four factors could presumably not only be positively influenced, but also represent the three largest factors of influence (in absolute terms) plus the fifth largest factor of influence on a participant's relative share of knowledge process-relevant contributions. As far as "investments" in the degree of trust and care among members of the community and the degree of cooperation and sense of community are concerned, further research is required.

As one of the first comprehensive studies covering not only both key knowledge processes (knowledge creation and knowledge transfer), but also the entire range of potential input factors that might potentially impact on these processes (system, content, social, and user aspects), this project integrates existing, fragmented research with a limited focus on a restricted number of input aspects and / or knowledge processes into an integrated model of forum-based collaborative knowledge management. Future research, for which hypotheses are already outlined in the respective part of this publication, is particularly required to analyze the impact of participants' frequency of contribution as one aspect of individuals' absolute knowledge process contribution.