Start Date
12-13-2015
Description
This paper reviews prior research on individual participation in online CoPs. In particular, the paper examines how the concept of CoPs has been applied in IS and what theories have been applied to study knowledge sharing behaviours in online CoPs. Given inconsistent empirical findings derived from prior IS studies, the paper drew on literature on relationship marketing to re-conceptualize participation in a CoP as a contractual relationship between a member and the online community that evolves through a number of transitions. A conceptual framework was then developed to revisit prior empirical findings in relation to key antecedents and outcomes of individuals’ knowledge sharing in online environments. Review results suggest that there is a need to examine how individual, online CoPs and contextual factors may jointly affect individual participation in online CoPs through different intermediate processes and how an online member-community relationship may be formed and/or developed by different relational mediators.
Recommended Citation
Zou, Yi, "A Relational View of Individual Participation in Online Communities of Practice: An Integrative Literature Review" (2015). ICIS 2015 Proceedings. 11.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2015/proceedings/HumanBehaviorIS/11
A Relational View of Individual Participation in Online Communities of Practice: An Integrative Literature Review
This paper reviews prior research on individual participation in online CoPs. In particular, the paper examines how the concept of CoPs has been applied in IS and what theories have been applied to study knowledge sharing behaviours in online CoPs. Given inconsistent empirical findings derived from prior IS studies, the paper drew on literature on relationship marketing to re-conceptualize participation in a CoP as a contractual relationship between a member and the online community that evolves through a number of transitions. A conceptual framework was then developed to revisit prior empirical findings in relation to key antecedents and outcomes of individuals’ knowledge sharing in online environments. Review results suggest that there is a need to examine how individual, online CoPs and contextual factors may jointly affect individual participation in online CoPs through different intermediate processes and how an online member-community relationship may be formed and/or developed by different relational mediators.