This paper extends our understanding of knowledge creation in virtual communities of practice by examining crowdsourcing activities that enable knowledge creation in these social structures. An interpretive methodology, narrative networks analysis, is used to systematically study the narratives of discussion forums in a virtual community. The virtual community studied is voluntary for the participants, and open to anyone. Through the analysis of the narrative, a model of knowledge creation is developed that identifies types of evidentiary knowledge contributions, as well as conversation mitigators that help or hinder knowledge creation within the community. Knowledge is a primary attraction of a virtual community for many of its members, and this study aims to understand how knowledge is shared and created in such voluntary communities of practice. The model highlights elements that enhance and impair knowledge creation in this type of crowdsourced environment.

The main goal of this study is to present a multidimensional structure for relationship between Supply Chain Strategies, Business Strategies, and Knowledge Management Strategies with Knowledge Sharing in Supply Chain of the Automotive Industry of Iran. This is an applied research and has done as a Survey, Correlation and cause-effect research. In this research, confirmative factor analysis, correlation test, co-linearity test, and path analysis were used. Innovation aspect of the study is making a comprehensive view to relationship between supply chain strategies, business strategies, and knowledge management strategies with knowledge sharing in the supply chain. Another innovative aspect of the study is attention to supply chain strategies in context of knowledge management, because there are few researches about knowledge management in supply chain. The paper tries to describe quantitatively all the relations in multidimensional structure. Findings show that effective knowledge sharing in supply chain is influenced by the hierarchy of strategies. Therefore, supply chain strategies influence the business strategies and business strategies affects knowledge strategies and at least, knowledge strategies influence the effective and systematic knowledge sharing in the supply chain. Therefore, knowledge sharing is most of all influenced by knowledge management strategies; but is indirectly influenced by business strategies and supply chain strategies.

Conformance to social context while designing an e-learning course is crucial in enhancing acceptability of the course. Building socially aware e-learning courses requires elicitation of social opinion from various stakeholders associated with the system. Stakeholders are disparate in their perception towards the intricacies of the system, leading to generation of numerous assorted ideas. Knowledge Management (KM) assimilates these ideas to bring congruency into the system. This paper proposes i) a model KMeLS (Knowledge Management in e-Learning Systems) built upon the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization) framework, and ii) an algorithm PARSeL (Prioritizing Alternatives using Recommendations of Stakeholders in e-Learning) to incorporate KM into designing an e-learning course. PARSeL prioritizes the content using stakeholder recommendations using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy modeling. A case study is also presented with a goal of prioritizing a set of programming languages for an online computing course. The proposed methodology can be promising in recommending appropriate content for the e-learners and can be implemented to benefit e-learning organizations in a wider spectrum.

Given that many organizational tasks are accomplished by people working as virtual teams, it’s important to understand team members’ knowledge sharing behavior. This study attempts to explore social cognitive factors influencing knowledge sharing in the team-based context. Based on a survey of 183 participants of team projects, this study finds that team climate, sense of self-worth, and past sharing behavior lead to positive attitude toward knowledge sharing. Moreover, attitude toward knowledge sharing and past sharing behavior have a positive impact on knowledge sharing intention. These findings can help managers design work teams to stimulate collaboration and improve performance.

The author provides a framework comprising of propositions for further research explicating the relations between IT-based knowledge capabilities (IT-KC) and Commercialization of Innovations (CI). They posit that a firm’s absorptive capacity and ambidexterity (ability to explore and exploit) affect CI. Further, absorptive capacity too can be an antecedent to ambidexterity. IT based knowledge capability (which is an instantiation of IT capability) is found to positively moderate the relationship between ambidexterity and commercialization of innovations, and also is an antecedent to potential and realized absorptive capacity. The author ties the seemingly isolated bits of literature together into an integrative theoretical model for testing.

Experts are often viewed as individuals with a vast storehouse of knowledge beyond the normal participants in a domain. In reality, the expert may have just enough additional knowledge beyond those they interface with to propel their team to success. This research explores the interplay between the accumulation of knowledge as facilitated by individual and team network structures and prior skill sets necessary to successfully participate in a business simulation emulating the cash-to-cash cycle of a manufacturing company. Students participate in simulated organizations that compete against one another in an introductory and extended setting, the latter being the more complex market environment. Comparisons within and between teams across simulations indicate that minor background differences in specific participant ability and associated network structures can make significant differences in simulation standings.

The paper introduces a web-based eHealth platform currently being developed that will assist patients with certain chronic diseases. The ultimate aim is behavioral change. This is supported by online assessment and feedback which visualizes actual behavior in relation to target behavior. Disease-specific information is provided through an information portal that utilizes lightweight ontologies (associative networks) in combination with text mining. The paper argues that classical word-based information retrieval is often not sufficient for providing patients with relevant information, but that their information needs are better addressed by concept-based retrieval. The focus of the paper is on the semantic retrieval component and the learning of a lightweight ontology from text documents, which is achieved by using a biologically inspired neural network. The paper concludes with preliminary results of the evaluation of the proposed approach in comparison with traditional approaches.

Knowledge Management (KM) governance is the implementation of authority through a framework to ensure the delivery of anticipated or predicted benefits of KM strategy development and implementation in an authorized and regulated manner. KM governance also relies on measurement and evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of all aspects of KM, particularly the outcomes of strategy implementation to ensure that strategic benefits are realized. This paper examines the results of a global survey of people involved in the development and implementation of KM strategies. Responses came from 34 countries across every continent. Using descriptive and inferential statistics, this paper finds clear evidence of the measurability of KM outcomes through KM governance. These research findings strengthen the proposition that KM governance supports the capacity of KM governance to realize and reveal the value from, or the return on investment (ROI) of KM strategy development and implementation; the selection of KM tools and techniques is less of a consideration in this regard.

In this paper, the authors examine critical success factors and outcomes of market knowledge management, which is the management of knowledge pertaining to a firm’s customers, competitors, and suppliers. Using data collected from 307 managers in 105 businesses across Canada, the authors show that a firm’s extent of information technology adoption, its analytical capabilities, and market orientation are critical success factors for the firm’s market knowledge management. An important outcome of market knowledge management is the organization’s financial performance, mediated by customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Results of this study indicate that superior business performance depends not only on the effective management of knowledge, but also on what type of knowledge is managed. Finally, implications of results and avenues for future research are discussed.