Start Date

12-16-2013

Description

Individual knowledge needs to be shared across IS developing organizations to provide information for all types of decisions. Considering knowledge management (KM) as a two-part process of knowledge contribution and knowledge seeking, we focus on the former one as it is (1) the required condition for knowledge sharing and (2) the greater challenge to accomplish by organizations compared to implementing successful knowledge seeking. Distinguishing different types of individual and organizational extrinsic motivators based on self-determination theory, we use expectation-confirmation theory (ECT) to analyze the extent to which software developers’ expectations towards knowledge contributions are fulfilled by organizations. Additionally, showing extrinsic motivators’ importance for software developers to contribute to KM systems, we provide organizations a roadmap for setting favorable conditions. Whereas our consolidation of previous research on knowledge contribution provides guidelines for future research on extrinsic motivators, we contribute to existing theory by applying ECT to the context of KM contribution.

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Dec 16th, 12:00 AM

Knowledge Contribution Motivators – An Expectation-Confirmation Approach

Individual knowledge needs to be shared across IS developing organizations to provide information for all types of decisions. Considering knowledge management (KM) as a two-part process of knowledge contribution and knowledge seeking, we focus on the former one as it is (1) the required condition for knowledge sharing and (2) the greater challenge to accomplish by organizations compared to implementing successful knowledge seeking. Distinguishing different types of individual and organizational extrinsic motivators based on self-determination theory, we use expectation-confirmation theory (ECT) to analyze the extent to which software developers’ expectations towards knowledge contributions are fulfilled by organizations. Additionally, showing extrinsic motivators’ importance for software developers to contribute to KM systems, we provide organizations a roadmap for setting favorable conditions. Whereas our consolidation of previous research on knowledge contribution provides guidelines for future research on extrinsic motivators, we contribute to existing theory by applying ECT to the context of KM contribution.