Special Section Introduction Online Community as Space for Knowledge Flows

• 成果类型: Editorial Material
• 署名作者: Faraj, Samer; von Krogh, Georg; Monteiro, Eric; Lakhani, Karim R.
• 署名单位: McGill University; Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich; Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU); Harvard University
• 刊物名称: INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7047
• DOI: 10.1287/isre.2016.0682
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 668-684
• 关键词: source software-development; VALUE CREATION; information-technology; field experiment; social software; VALUE CAPTURE; INNOVATION; governance; IMPACT; motivation

摘要

Online communities frequently create significant economic and relational value for community participants and beyond. It is widely accepted that the underlying source of such value is the collective flow of knowledge among community participants. We distinguish the conditions for flows of tacit and explicit knowledge in online communities and advance an unconventional theoretical conjecture: Online communities give rise to tacit knowledge flows between participants. The crucial condition for these flows is not the advent of novel, digital technology as often portrayed in the literature, but instead the technology's domestication by humanity and the sociality it affords. This conjecture holds profound implications for theory and research in the study of management and organization, as well as their relation to information technology.