Barriers to Knowledge Sharing for Prosumers and Global Team Employees

Abstract

Crowdsourcing is an emerging trend and many Websites are dependent on user-generated content (UGC). This study examined the effect of rewards on users' proclivity to add content or acknowledge content on Websites that are based on UGC. The study focused on extrinsic factors that are controlled by the Website management. A survey compared a sample of 100 users of The Traveler (Lametayel.co.il, the Website of a leading Israeli brick-and-mortar chain of outdoor and travelling products) that offered tangible rewards, with a sample of 100 users of Waze (a community-based traffic and navigation application) that offered virtual ones. The main results indicated that tangible rewards were significantly more effective than virtual ones in encouraging users to add content, but virtual rewards had more influence on acknowledging content, although the particular reward mechanism might have affected user behavior. Many of the users were unaware of both the tangible or virtual rewards, and the foremost source of knowledge about the offered rewards was the Website, rather than social media or acquaintances. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Towards building general framework for designing knowledge sharing tool based on actor network theory

“…Zheng (2017)describes the three levels which are organization, team and individual which are essential to be addressed to create a practicing KS environment. Sołek-Borowska and Eisenbardt (2019) classify into core barriers and main barriers for prosumers and employees. The core barriers contain factors that are common for both prosumers and employees.…”

“…in tele-working environment) (Persson, 2020). There exists a lack of technical support to assist KS users in optimizing KS tools potentials (Mazorodze and Buckley, 2019), and hence, this leads to not knowing how to share knowledge as reported in Sołek-Borowska and Eisenbardt (2019) and Kabel et al (2021).…”

“…KS poses job insecurity, as the shared knowledge may give advantages to others (Noll et al , 2010). Lack of commitment to KS such as not reading corporate emails and unable to conduct meeting (Blagov et al , 2017; Persson, 2020; Sołek-Borowska and Eisenbardt, 2019).…”