The Effects of Individual and Social Factors on the Knowledge Sharing Activities of the Virtual Community of Practice

Jaehong Lee, Eunjung Kim, JoongHo Ahn

Abstract


The purpose of this study is to find factors affecting knowledge sharing activities which have two aspects-quantity and quality. We surveyed the members of a virtual community of practice called “UPOW.com”. It is dedicated to sharing knowledge about job related problems, questions, experience of educational official. This study derived factors from social cognitive theory and social capital theory.
The findings of the study can be summarized as follows; first, quality of shared knowledge and quantity of knowledge sharing both have positive effect on knowledge utilization. Second, individual factors and social relations have positive effect on quantity of knowledge sharing. However, individual factors’ effects on quantity of knowledge sharing are not significant. These results have academic implications to find factors affecting both side of knowledge sharing. Also these finding will give an insight to develop virtual community of practice for an organization’s sustained competitiveness.

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