Personajes y referencias

3.2 Overview of The Web 2.0 For Km Literature  

Researchers have identified and emphasized the potential of Web 2.0 technologies for KM in different studies. Table 11 has an overview of these studies. Most of these studies have focused on a particular Web 2.0 technology-Wiki (Kane & Fachman, 2009; Minocha & Thomas, 2007; Mindel & Verma, 2006; Wagner, 2006). Specifically, Mindel and Verma (2006) suggest that Wiki can be effective in teaching and learning. Similarly,

Table10: Overview of the Web 2.0 tools Web 2.0

tool

Features

Wiki  Collaborative tool that facilitates the production of a group work  History function, which allows previous versions to be examined, and a

rollback function, which restores previous versions.

 The ease of use (even playfulness) of the tools, their extreme flexibility and open access

Blog  Opinion, information, or links, called posts, arranged chronologically

 ‘Weighted’ conversation’ between a primary author and a group of secondary comment contributors, who communicate to an unlimited number of readers  Linking is an important aspect of blogging

 Facilitates syndication, in which information about the blog entries, for example, the headline, is made available to other software via RSS RSS and

syndication

 Allow users to find out about updates to the content of RSS-enabled websites, blogs or podcasts without actually having to go and visit the site

Aggregation

services  Gathers information from diverse sources across the Web and publishes in one place.  Includes but not limited to news and RSS feeds

Data

“Mash-ups”  Web services that pull together data from different sources to create a new service (i.e. aggregation and recombination). Multimedia

sharing  People participate in the sharing and exchange of these forms of media by producing their own podcasts, videos and photos Audio

blogging and podcasting

 Audio recordings, usually in MP3 format, of talks, interviews and lectures, which can be played either on a desktop computer or on a wide range of handheld MP3 devices

Social Networking

 facilitate meeting people, finding like minds, sharing content—uses ideas from harnessing the power of the crowd, network effect and individual

Minocha and Thomas (2007) found that Wiki can be an effective collaboration tool if there is socialization among participants. Kane and Fachman (2009) suggest using Wiki specifically for IS research collaboration. There are several studies that focus on other Web 2.0 technologies such as Blogs (Hsu & Lin, 2007) and social tagging (Wu & Gordon, 2009). In addition, there are a few studies that focus on the Web 2.0 technology in general. For example, Lee and Lan (2007), and Richards (2009) study Web 2.0 and emphasize the potential of Web 2.0 for effective collaboration. Existing research

recognizes that Web 2.0 has the potential to solve many of the existing challenges of KM, very little empirical work has been done to evaluate the effectiveness of Web 2.0 for KM. In one study, Wagner and Majchrzak (2006) have empirically validated the effectiveness of Wiki for conversational KM to enable customer centricity. In another study, Wagner (2006) empirically demonstrates Wiki’s potential to overcome the bottlenecks of knowledge acquisition. Minocha and Thomas (2007) also find evidence for the strength of a Wiki as a collaborative authoring tool to facilitate learning. However, with the exception of thes few studies, very little empirical work exists in the extant literature on Web 2.0 for KM, particularly for organizations.

Table 11: Overview Of The Web 2.0 For KM Literature

Description of Study Findings/ Outcome Source

Studied the effectiveness of Wiki as a collaborative learning tool

Wiki is an effective collaborative learning tool. However, socialization among the participants needs to be ensured for effective collaboration.

Minocha & Thomas, 2007

Studied the potential of Wiki for IS research collaboration.

Conceptually proved that Wiki can effectively facilitate research collaboration.

Kane & Fachman, 2009

Table 11: Overview Of The Web 2.0 For KM Literature

Description of Study Findings/ Outcome Source

centricity using Wikis.

where Wiki is in use to promote customer centrality revealed six characteristics that affect customer engagement—community custodianship, goal alignment among contributors, value- adding processes, emerging layers of participation, critical mass of management, and monitoring activity. Conceptually evaluated Wiki’s

potential for teaching and learning.

Collaboration is a fundamental aspect of the academic

environment and collaboration in academic courses with Wikis is an experiment worth continuing.

Mindel & Verma, 2006

Evaluated the potential of Wiki in diminishing knowledge acquisition bottlenecks through conversational KM.

Knowledge acquisition through collaboration and conversation facilitated by Wiki can lead to super-linear knowledge asset growth and continuous quality

improvement.

Wagner, 2006

Studied the acceptance of blog usage.

The results indicated that ease of use and enjoyment and knowledge sharing were positively related to one’s attitude toward blogging. On the other hand, social factors (community identification) and attitude toward blogging significantly influenced a blog participant’s intention to continue to use blogs.

Hsu & Lin, 2007

Developed a theoretical model to argue for potential benefits of sharing deeper structural knowledge in an electronic document repository through social tagging and personal document hierarchies.

Exploratory study confirmed the benefits of sharing personal hierarchies in a collaborative

knowledge work environment.

Wu & Gordon, 2009

Studied the Web 2.0 technology as a mean to achieve collaborative intelligence.

Theoretically proved that Web 2.0 can facilitate collaborative intelligence.

Table 11: Overview Of The Web 2.0 For KM Literature

Description of Study Findings/ Outcome Source

Studied Web 2.0 for collaborative

knowledge engineering.

Developed a Web 2.0 approach for collaborative knowledge engineering.

Richards, 2009

Our literature review demonstrates that prior researchers have identified and emphasized the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to make different aspects of KM more effective. However, the existing literature does not provide clear understanding of how organizations can adopt Web 2.0 for KM effectively at different levels for various purposes. We plan to address this gap in the literature through our research.

CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH APPROACH

Given that Web 2.0 is a relatively new phenomenon, there is dearth of existing research on the use of Web 2.0 technology in KM at organizational level as well as project, group and individual levels. Case study research designs are appropriate to answer the “how” and “why” questions we address in this research (Yin, 1994). We adopt an interpretive, exploratory case study strategy in the first phase of our research. This is appropriate to understand contexts, mechanisms and effects associated with the use of Web 2.0 technology for KM at individual, project, group, and organization levels. In the subsequent part of our research, we adopt a principally positivist case study based interpretive research approach to confirm the relationships between use of Web 2.0 technology for KM and its effects on individual, project, group, and organization levels which we observe and develop in the first part.

A case study is "an empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident" and it "relies on multiple sources of evidence" (Yin, 1994, p. 13). Case study research investigates pre-defined phenomena without involving any type of explicit control or manipulation of variables. The goal of a case study is to develop an in-depth understanding of a phenomenon situated in its context (Cavaye, 1996). Case studies combine data collection techniques such as