Knowledge sharing in online communities: Incentives and barriers

Abstract

With the development of information and communication technology (ICT), online environments have enabled users to establish online communities, where they can congregate and engage in various social interactions (such as discussion groups, bulletin board systems, etc.), both synchronously and asynchronously. Apart from purely social online communities, such as Facebook or MySpace, some communities evolve to share knowledge, forming online communities that often resemble communities of practice found in workplaces and educational institutions, where a common interest, identity, and a set of communication norms and structures are cultivated through interaction. These communities are also known as electronic knowledge networks. The success and proliferation of these networks compel organizations to establish and manage such communities to facilitate intra-organizational knowledge exchange. In this context, this paper endeavors, through a review of Greek and foreign-language literature and articles, to investigate the factors that motivate or inhibit knowledge-sharing behavior (explicit or implicit) in online communities. The resulting findings can assist developers and managers of online knowledge-based communities in effectively promoting online knowledge-sharing behaviors and enhancing their longevity.