Licentiate Thesis ! Share with Social Media: The Case of a Wiki Osama H. Mansour 2011-04-19 ! ! ! ! ! ! Share with Social Media: The Case of a Wiki By Osama Mansour Abstract Traditional approaches to knowledge collaboration and sharing have proven to be limited in the sense of addressing organizational needs of dynamic and distributed knowledge. More recently, the emergence of social media and the second generation of web technologies have introduced new ways and possibilities for sharing knowledge in organizations. In particular, the wiki technology, as one type of social media, is argued to mark a shift in the way people collaborate and share knowledge with each other on the web. It represents a new, open style of knowledge collaboration and sharing which allows anyone to freely and openly create and shape knowledge. In this respect, organizations have been attracted by this new dynamic approach which is based on open collaboration and flexible participation. More organizations are using wikis in order to effectively leverage distributed knowledge and improve their competitive edge. Against this backdrop, this research is concerned with examining how such organizations use social media, the wiki technology in particular, for sharing knowledge among individuals and groups. The aim is twofold: to develop an understanding of the ways by which these individuals and groups exchange and share knowledge with each other and to identify different factors that influence knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki in an organizational setting. The research is based on three published research papers which provide both theoretical and empirical accounts of knowledge collaboration and sharing using wikis. To these ends of this research, an interpretive case study was used as an empirical research method with interviews as primary sources of data. Several other data sources have been triangulated during the empirical inquiry including field visits, observations, and documents. The case took place at a large multinational organization that used a wiki as a collaborative platform to support knowledge sharing among members of several professional communities of practice. Eventually, the outcome of the research is a thorough understanding that describes knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki as a dynamic social process involving recursive and dynamic social interactions among members of communities of practice through which knowledge is collaboratively constructed and reconstructed and thus shared. It also presents a dual impact of wiki openness on knowledge collaboration and sharing within organizations. Keywords: Wiki; Openness; Knowledge Collaboration and Sharing; Social Media; Organization; Knowledge. ! ! "!! ! ! ! ! To My dear parents And beloved wife Ameera ! ! ! ! Acknowledgements When a thesis is completed a sense of achievement combined with a beautiful feeling of joy and appreciation fill up our lives for a long period of time. An achievement that marks a shift in our lives and makes us remember all special people who have been part in making this achievement come true. In this instance I wish to express my gratitude for these people for their endless motivation and support and for which they deserve my sincere acknowledgement and appreciation. I’d like to acknowledge my exceptional supervisor Professor Anita Mirijamdotter for her endless care, support, and motivation. Anita continues to be a unique person with an elegant behavior and excellent professional manners. For this I am indebted for you and I will continue to appreciate all what you have done for supporting me since the time you gave me the opportunity to pursue my Ph.D. studies up to this level. I also wish to acknowledge my gentle and delicate co-supervisor Assistant Professor Linda Askenäs. The creativity of Linda has always moved me from places of familiar thinking into places of original thought and innovation. Her challenging and creative discussions have always been an inspiration that helps me overcome difficulties and improve my work accordingly. I very much thank you for being such an intelligent and stimulating person. A sincere acknowledgement goes for Dr. Amr El-Sersy and Dr. Mustafa Abusalah for their generosity and endless support for my empirical research at Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC). I am especially grateful for Dr. Mustafa for his continued support to my research. I also wish to thank all participants in this research for their precious time and insightful discussions. Special thanks also go to my great friends and colleagues. I wish to thank Miranda Kajtazi, Sadaf Salavati, Bato Vogel, and Didac Gil for being such an excellent company with pleasant manners. Further, I am grateful to Dr. Jan Aidemark and Professor Alf Westelius for their excellent feedback and insightful comments during my thesis pre-seminars. Many thanks to all my colleagues at the Swedish Research School of Management and Information Technology (MIT) for their support and comments on my work. Great love and appreciation to my dear parents for their unfailing patience and endless support. Thank you mother for your warm love and I am also sorry for seeing your tears every time I was leaving home. Thank you father for believing in me and for making everything possible to support me in pursuing my desires. Lots of love to all my sisters and brothers. Finally I wish to express my deepest love and deliver the sweetest words for my beautiful, elegant, and angelic wife Ameera. Your love has always given me a beautiful sense of delight and inspiration. Life is more beautiful with you, and for this I thank you with all my heart for being with me always and forever. ""! ! ! ! ! Table of Contents PART I: The Kappa Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Prelude to the Research and the Problem ....................................................................... 2 Evolution of Social Media in Retrospective ..................................................................... 3 Purpose of the Research .................................................................................................. 4 Research Questions.......................................................................................................... 5 Reflections on the Scope of the Research ....................................................................... 5 Outline of the Thesis ....................................................................................................... 6 Theoretical Considerations........................................................................... 8 2.1 Web 2.0 and Social Media ............................................................................................. 9 2.1.1 Wikis .......................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Alternative Views of Knowledge ................................................................................... 13 2.3 Knowledge Sharing in Organizations ............................................................................ 15 2.3.1 Knowledge Management Systems ......................................................................... 16 2.3.2 Knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki ................................................ 17 2.3.3 Factors for sharing knowledge in organizations ..................................................... 18 2.4 Communities of Practice in Organizations ................................................................... 19 2.5 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 21 The Case at CCC ........................................................................................ 22 3.1 Quick Overview of CCC ................................................................................................ 23 3.2 The Case at CCC ........................................................................................................... 23 3.3 Knowledge Management Initiative................................................................................. 24 3.3.1 CoPs at CCC .......................................................................................................... 25 3.3.2 Overview of Fanous: The wiki platform at CCC .................................................... 26 3.4 Fanous in Action: A Real Example................................................................................ 28 Scientific Method for Research .................................................................. 30 4.1 Philosophical Roots of the Research ............................................................................ 31 4.2 Ontological Stance ......................................................................................................... 31 4.3 Epistemological Stance.................................................................................................. 32 4.4 Methodological Stance: The Choice of the Scientific Method .................................... 33 4.4.1 Interpretive research method................................................................................ 35 4.5 Process of Inquiry ........................................................................................................... 39 4.5.1 The use of theory .................................................................................................... 41 4.6 Data Collection Process ................................................................................................. 41 4.6.1 Case study as a strategy of inquiry ........................................................................... 41 4.6.2 Data triangulation .................................................................................................... 43 4.7 Data Analysis and Validation ......................................................................................... 45 4.8 Ethical Considerations ................................................................................................... 47 iii! ! Papers and Findings .................................................................................... 50 5.1 Theoretical Papers ........................................................................................................ 51 5.1.1 Paper I: Research in Information Systems: Implications of the constant changing nature of IT capabilities in the social computing era .......................................................... 51 5.1.2 Paper II: Group Intelligence: A Distributed Cognition Perspective ..................... 53 5.2 An Empirical Paper ...................................................................................................... 54 5.2.1 Paper III: Wiki-based Community Collaboration in Organizations ..................... 54 Discussion and Implications ....................................................................... 58 6.1 Collaborative Knowledge Construction ........................................................................ 59 6.1.1 Processes of collaborative knowledge construction ............................................... 60 6.2 Dual Impact of Wiki Openness ................................................................................... 63 6.2.1 Inhibitors of knowledge collaboration and sharing ................................................ 64 6.2.2 Enablers of knowledge collaboration and sharing .................................................. 66 6.2.3 Classification of enablers and inhibitors of knowledge sharing ............................. 68 6.3 Social Media Approach to Knowledge Sharing ............................................................. 70 6.4 Implications for Theory and Practice ............................................................................ 74 6.4.1 Theoretical Implications ........................................................................................ 74 6.4.2 Practical Implications ............................................................................................. 75 Conclusions and Further Research............................................................. 76 7.1 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 77 7.2 Further Work ................................................................................................................ 78 7.3 Final Remarks ............................................................................................................... 79 References: .............................................................................................................................. 80 PART II Collection of Papers.................................................................................... 88 Paper I......................................................................................................... 89 Paper II ....................................................................................................... 90 Paper III ...................................................................................................... 91 iv! ! ! ! ! List of Figures Figure 1: Outline of the thesis ....................................................................................................... 7 Figure 2: Increasing complexity of communication and KM at CCC ........................................ 24 Figure 3: Organization of CoPs in the wiki environment ............................................................ 26 Figure 4: Visualization of the process of inquiry. ........................................................................ 40 Figure 5: Single case study design (adapted from Yin, 2009, p. 46). .......................................... 42 Figure 6: Structure of understanding (adapted from Cole & Avison, 2007, p. 823) ................... 46 Figure 7: Knowledge collaboration and sharing with wikis ......................................................... 72 #!! ! ! ! List of Tables Table 1: Wiki Design Principles (adapted from Cunningham, 2004). ....................................... 11 Table 2: Set of Principles for Conducting and Evaluating Interpretive Research (adapted from Klein & Myers, 1999) .......................................................................................................... 36 Table 3: Summary of Multiple Sources of Data ......................................................................... 45 Table 4: Recent Changes and Developments in Technology in the Fourth Era of Social Computing (adapted from Mathiassen, 1998, p. 6) ............................................................ 52 Table 5: Classification of Dual Enablers and Inhibitors of Using a Wiki for Knowledge Collaboration and Sharing (adapted from Ipe, 2003) ......................................................... 69 #"! ! ! ! ! ! “We surrendered to the Internet, nervously accepted our dependence on it, as the extent of that dependency sunk in. It seemed the ‘Net’ would never stop growing and changing, leaving us forever scrambling to catch up.” Susan Herring ! ! ! ! ! ! PART I The Kappa ! ! ! ! Chapter I Introduction 1! ! 1.1 Prelude to the Research and the Problem In 2005, Wasko & Faraj argued that increasing advancements in communication technologies could enable individuals and groups within electronic networks of practice to extend their reach of collaboration and sharing using discussion forums, emails, bulletin boards, and listservs. Since that time, the web has been steadily subject to further advancements represented by the evolution of social media and the emergence of the second generation of web technologies (Web 2.0). Accordingly, many social media technologies, such as wikis, blogs, microblogs, and social networks, are increasingly gaining popularity on the web with a growing number of users adopting social media in their everyday lives (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009; Kane & Fichman, 2009; Boyd & Ellison, 2008; Stenmark, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). The eventual impact of these media has been argued by many scholars to change the way individuals and groups work and interact with each other (Hirschheim & Klein, forthcoming; Majchrzak, 2009; Stenmark, 2008). As such, the evolution of technology, from discussion forums and bulletin boards into wikis and social networks, might underlie fundamental changes that create a challenge for us to rethink and refine earlier theories and assumptions of social exchange and contributions to online communities (cf. Majchrzak, 2009). The impact of social media in organizations has also been salient in the sense of increasing adoption of these media to enable and support new forms of collaborative and knowledge management practices (Yates et al., 2010; Andriole, 2010; Stenmark, 2008; Wagner & Majchrzak, 2007; Majchrzak et al, 2006; Wagner, 2006). For instance, Yates et al. (2010) introduced the concept of shaping, a process that allows members of Communities of Practice (CoPs) in organizations to use a wiki to collaboratively rewrite, reorganize, and integrate shared knowledge. Furthermore, the wiki and other social media tools, such as blogs, have been described as conversational technologies for knowledge management in organizations by which knowledge is created through conversations or collaborative writing (Hasan & Pfaff, 2006; Wagner, 2004, 2006). Wagner (2004, 2006) maintained that conversational technologies enable conversational knowledge creation that differs from earlier models of creating and managing knowledge through data aggregation and data mining techniques, which are more suited with stable and centralized knowledge bases. Others, such as Wagner & Majchrzak (2007), discussed the use of wikis within and outside the organization to enable a customer-centric environment in which customers and organizations openly interact and exchange ideas and solutions together. In this respect, Hasan & Pfaff (2006) called the Information Systems (IS) discipline for attention to the adoption and impact of open cooperative technologies at the workplace. Stenmark (2008) called for a new generation of literature on the use of social media in business environments. He argued that such literature would bring novel understandings that are fundamentally different from our previous understandings of collaborative tools such as intranets. Hence, the evolution of social media entails transformative technological advancements (Yates et al., 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) which stimulate the need to understand how we really interact, collaborate, and share with each other on the web. Against the background of the discussion presented above, this research examines a case of using one type of social media, a wiki, as a collaborative platform for exchanging and sharing knowledge among members of professional CoPs at a large multinational organization. I have investigated this case with a major question in mind: what influence can a wiki have on the ways employees work and interact with each other? 2! ! The case is particularly intriguing as it provides an opportunity to understand the influence of a wiki in a global context where it is used by a large number of distributed employees to exchange and share their knowledge and expertise from real-life projects with each other. It is worth mentioning that the current case has a unique aspect in the sense that the initiative to introduce and use the wiki at the organization came after an unprecedented growth in the number of employees. The number has quintupled in the last ten years; it amounted in 2009 to 160,000 employees. What new possibilities can a wiki introduce to this organization? How can employees use the wiki to meet their needs for knowledge and expertise that are necessary to perform project activities? What is the impact of a wiki on the interactions amongst employees? These are the central questions of the present case which might contribute to an understanding of why and how organizations are using social media technologies at the workplace. As such, it provides an important opportunity to investigate and understand the impact of social media on the ways people work and interact with each other as argued before. In addition, an interesting report, recently published by Gartner (2010), provides further evidence to the importance and need of investigating the present case. In that report, Gartner predicted that social media technologies, such as social networking and collaboration software, would replace emails as primary tools for communication in enterprise settings. Also, the report predicted that more organizations would employ internal social networks and micro blogging tools in the next five years. These predictions show that the current research study goes in line with this emerging trend of social media and guarantees a necessary and timely contribution to novel understandings of the use of social media in organizations. 1.2 Evolution of Social Media in Retrospective The current evolution of social media represents a new generation of web technologies. Many scholars argue that social media is changing the way individuals and groups work and interact with each other and is also introducing new possibilities for organizations to collaborate and share (Hirschheim & Klein, forthcoming; Majchrzak, 2009; Wagner & Majchrzak, 2007; McAfee, 2006). Stenmark (2008) further argued that social media involves new attitudes, ideas, and services that mark a shift in the way we interact on the web. Social media can be defined as a group of internet-based applications that build on the technological and ideological foundations of Web 2.0 and allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (UGC) (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). The term Web 2.0 appeared about six years ago and is often used to refer to a bundle of technologies such as wikis, blogs, social networks, mashups, and many other technologies. These technologies provide platforms that enable dynamic generation, sharing, and refinement of knowledge among individuals and groups (McAfee, 2006). In this respect, the 2.0, in the term Web 2.0, implies the evolution of the web, which has become a more open, social, personalized, and participative environment (Ravenscroft, 2009; Stenmark, 2008). Eventually, Web 2.0 is the platform for the evolution of social media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Alongside the rapid evolution, social media has made its entrance into the corporate world, and more organizations tend to recognize the value of using social media technologies at the workplace (Andriole, 2010; Stocker et al., 2009; Stenmark, 2008). Then the term Enterprise 2.0, coined by Andrew McAfee (2006, 2009), emerged to describe organizations that use social media or Web 2.0 platforms in order to make visible the practices and outputs of their knowledge workers. 3! ! Within organizations, many scholars have explained the use of social media technologies, such as wikis, for several internal knowledge management purposes (e.g. Stocker et al., 2009; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006; Majchrzak et al., 2006; Stenmark, 2005; Wagner, 2004). For instance, Hasan & Pfaff (2006) and Wagner (2004, 2006) described wikis as conversational knowledge management tools by which individuals and groups create and share knowledge through collaborative dialogues and interactions. Yates et al. (2010) also explained that wikis are increasingly used in organizations by Communities of Practice (CoPs) to collaborate and share knowledge. However, they argued that wikis could also enable these communities to shape knowledge, which is an open and collaborative activity of rewriting, reorganizing, and integrating shared knowledge. Such model of collaboration and knowledge creation may differ from the earlier linear model of using stable knowledge bases in electronic discussion forums and bulletin boards in which independent individuals tend to contribute and read a linear sequence of posts and replies which lacks collective integrity (Yates et al., 2010; Wagner, 2004, 2006). Hence, the perceived shift between the two models in the last few years may provide a foundation for the argument that social media is causing a change to the ways we interact and work together. However, despite the rapid evolution and growing adoption of social media in organizations, only a little amount of empirical knowledge is available about this phenomenon (Chai et al., 2010; Andriole, 2010; Kosonen & Kianto, 2009; Stocker et al., 2009; Stenmark, 2008; Majchrzak et al., 2006; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). This leaves us with an incomplete picture of how social media technologies influence or transform how individuals and groups exchange and share knowledge at the workplace, thus requiring continued efforts to give a clearer picture and develop further understandings of this emerging phenomenon. In addition, I started this discussion with an argument raised by many scholars that the evolution of social media is changing the way people work and interact with each other. Therefore, my aim in this thesis is principally grounded in this argument and is also motivated by the paucity of empirical knowledge on the use of social media in organizational settings. The next sections provide more concrete ideas on the focus of this research. 1.3 Purpose of the Research Many scholars argue that the current evolution and continued growth of social media technologies is transforming the way individuals and groups work and interact with each other (e.g. Hirschheim & Klein, forthcoming; Majchrzak, 2009; Kane & Fichman, 2009; DiMicco et al., 2008; Wagner & Majchrzak, 2006; McAfee, 2006). The purpose of this research, based on this argument, is to investigate of the role and impact of social media in enabling knowledge collaboration and sharing practices among individuals and groups within an organizational context. In particular, I seek to i. ii. develop an understanding of the ways by which individuals and groups use social media to exchange and share knowledge; explore and examine factors that influence their use of social media for knowledge collaboration and sharing at the workplace. Therefore, the ultimate aim of this thesis is to investigate and empirically examine the theoretical argument raised by these scholars in order to provide a scientific account for understanding how social media are used for knowledge collaboration and sharing practices. 4! ! 1.4 Research Questions In order to address the purpose of my research, one main question is raised to examine and understand the use of social media, in this case a wiki, by individuals and groups to exchange and share knowledge with each other within an organizational context. How do organizations use social media for knowledge collaboration and sharing practices among individuals and groups at the workplace? Further, in order to achieve a thorough account of the use of social media, the next subquestion addresses the consequences and implications resulting from the use of these media by individuals and groups within an organizational context. The answer to such a question would make explicit the influence of using a wiki on knowledge collaboration and sharing practices on different individual, group, and organizational levels: What are the consequences and implications for individuals and groups of using social media for knowledge collaboration and sharing at the workplace? 1.5 Reflections on the Scope of the Research Before framing the scope of this research, I will first present some general reflections about the driving impact of continued developments and evolution of technology, and social media in particular, in making our organizations more global. Nowadays, it has become an established fact that modern organizations require some kind of technology in order to function and compete in an increasingly global and connected world where knowledge has become a core of all our activities. It can thus be argued that the evolution of technology has transformed the traditional organization, bounded by land and labor, into a global generator and driver of knowledge. More importantly, most of these knowledge-based organizations perform distributed activities in which work does not depend on individual knowledge or experience but rather on group work that spans the global boundaries of the organization. The advent of social media, which represents the most recent evolution of web technologies, has even furthered the global nature of organizations. Using social media has enabled organizations to span their boundaries by introducing new possibilities to connect their employees together and enable dynamic exchange and sharing of knowledge, expertise, problems, ideas, and solutions. Most likely, this is why many scholars and business leaders use the term knowledge or digital economy to describe current business activities (Carlsson, 2004). As such, further developments in technology encourage organizations to adapt to these new changes and possibilities of connectivity and sharing in order to leverage core competencies and capabilities of their employees at the workplace (cf. Drucker, 1994). Accordingly, social media is fostering and increasing the global nature of organizations and the world. This impact is echoed within the field of Information Systems (IS) where social media is believed to change the way people work and interact with each other (Hirschheim & Klein, forthcoming; Majchrzak, 2009; Stenmark, 2008). For instance, in her comment about wikis, Majchrzak (2009) explained the opportunity to pursue how social media technologies may change our theories of social exchange and dynamic capabilities. 5! ! Why and how social media might possibly change the way we work and interact with each other is a broad and open issue that cannot be fully addressed within the scope of the current research. It also requires extensive research efforts to understand the use of social media in a variety of contexts and for different purposes. Therefore, it is necessary to explain that I am only interested in examining the use of social media within an internal organizational context, though on a global level, with a specific focus on using the wiki technology for exchanging and sharing knowledge among distributed employees within the organization. In other words, this research does not focus, for instance, on using the wiki for external sharing of knowledge with other organizations or customers and partners (cf. Wagner & Majchrzak, 2007), but rather on how organizations use social media internally to enable and support knowledge collaboration and sharing amongst their employees within the global boundaries of the organization (cf. Mansour & Monavari, 2008). Pertaining to this empirical case, the wiki was used by several employees distributed among projects all over the world. This gives a global context to my case, but still the wiki is only limited to internal use within the boundaries of the organization as no customers, partners or suppliers can access the wiki environment. 1.6 Outline of the Thesis This Licentiate thesis is divided into two parts. The first part includes a cover page or ‘Kappa’ which comprises seven chapters. Chapter one provides a general overview of the research and also presents the research purpose and questions. Chapter two gives a thorough presentation of related literature and theoretical considerations. Chapter three presents the empirical case in this research. Chapter four presents the scientific method used and also describes the different aspects of the data collection process. Chapter five provides a summary of three published papers and the findings of each paper. These are the basis of this Licentiate thesis. The discussion of my research findings is presented in Chapter six. Chapter seven is devoted to conclusions and recommendations for further research work. The second part of the thesis includes three published papers. Figure 1 illustrates the outline of the thesis: 6! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Figure 1: Outline of the thesis 7! ! ! ! Chapter II Theoretical Considerations !8 ! This chapter provides a review of related theories, which have been used to frame a theoretical basis for my research inquiry. It includes several theoretical aspects of Web 2.0 and Social Media. It also discusses knowledge sharing within organizations and ends with a description of Communities of Practice (CoPs). 2.1 Web 2.0 and Social Media Social media represents a new generation of web technologies. Metaphorically, it is an evolution from Web 1.0 into Web 2.0. The 2.0, in the term Web 2.0, implies the evolution of the web, which has become readily understood as a more open, social, and participative environment (Ravenscroft, 2009). Web 1.0 often describes the web as a controlled environment where a few administrators keep knowledge while others have limited roles in its creation and management. In contrast, Web 2.0 presents the web as architecture of participation (O’Reilly, 2007). The term Web 2.0 first appeared in a conference in 2004 to describe a new way by which software developers and end-users used the web as a platform where content and applications were not created and published by individuals but rather continuously modified by everyone in a collaborative and participatory fashion (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; O’Reilly, 2007). Web 2.0 includes wikis, social networking tools, mashups, tagging, folksonomies, virtual worlds, and many other applications (Majchrzak, 2009). Stenmark (2008) argued, however, that Web 2.0 is not only about technology but it also brings a mixture of new attitudes and practices that mark a shift in our understanding of users’ role on the web, and thus Web 2.0 can be understood as an innovative mix of technologies and attitudes. For the technology part, Stenmark (2008) discussed three main technological pillars of Web 2.0: authoring, structuring, and awareness technologies. Authoring technologies, such as wikis and blogs, enable flexible participation and free expression through allowing usergenerated content. This is related to the description of Web 2.0 as an architecture of participation (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) where users can freely engage with each other in the collaboration and sharing of knowledge. Pertaining to structuring technologies, they allow for the organization of data on the web. The most notable Web 2.0 approach for structuring data is tagging through which users can collaboratively use specific keywords to describe and classify data on the web (Stenmark, 2008). This approach allows for a non-hierarchal organization of data that facilitates future navigation, filtering, and searching (Golder & Huberman, 2006). In addition, awareness technologies, such as RSS, make it possible to follow up with large amounts of shared knowledge on the web. RSS technology refers to the aggregation of feeds and news from multiple channels simultaneously (Stenmark, 2008). For the attitude part of Web 2.0, Stenmark (2008) referred to two main themes: attitude towards information ownership and attitude towards productivity/creativity tradeoffs. The attitude towards information ownership (see also Hasan & Pfaff, 2006) is one of the most salient effects of social media compared to traditional understandings of web technologies. Social media allows information to be constructed through social interactions among people who use it. Thus, it gives ownership, power, and control over information to people breaking away central control by administrators (Stenmark, 2008). In other words, it has a democratizing effect on the creation and management of knowledge (Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). For instance, discussion forums, which can be described as a Web 1.0 technology, are used for linear and structured knowledge sharing among independent individuals. !9 ! These individuals have no control over their contributions and each one of them attempts to align the contributions of others to his or her own needs, thus resulting in a lack of integration among contributions. The lack of control, by knowledge contributors and the limited flexibility to manage and integrate contributed knowledge, might lead to outdated and stagnate sources of inconsistent knowledge (Yates et al., 2010; Wagner, 2006). In contrast, Wikis, for instance, are used for a more dynamic, flexible, collaborative approach that allows for an open and free shaping of knowledge by users (Yates et. al., 2010). Further, the attitude concerning productivity and creativity in the Web 2.0 era is also linked to the attitude towards information ownership. The development of Web 2.0 technologies has encouraged organizations to seek not only productivity but also creativity and innovation (Andriole, 2010; Stenmark, 2008). The ability to maintain updated knowledge repositories, through dynamic social interactions and collaboration among creators and buyers of new products and services, can help organizations increase innovation and adapt in a dynamic and changing environment (Andriole, 2010; Stenmark, 2008). For instance, crowdsourcing represents the ability of organizations to leverage knowledge from a large number of people outside and inside their boundaries using Web 2.0 technologies like wikis and blogs (Andriole, 2010). Accordingly, Web 2.0 provides the platform for the evolution of social media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). In this respect, social media is defined as a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and allow for the creation and exchange of user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Gruber (2007) also described the social web, which is a synonym for social media, as a class of websites and applications in which user participation is the primary driver of value. In a broader sense, it represents social network sites, such as Facebook, and MySpace; media sharing sites, such as YouTube; collaborative sites, such as Wikipedia, and virtual worlds such as Second Life. All these sites represent user-generated applications where content, whether text or media, is created, shared, and managed by users. In short, the evolution of the second generation of the web and social media represents a fundamental shift that enables a new form of virtual content sharing (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) and changes the way people interact and work together (Hirschheim & Klein, forthcoming). The following sections provide a more specific discussion of social media within organizational settings and describe wikis and Enterprise 2.0. 2.1.1 Wikis A wiki is a Web 2.0 technology that dates back to 1994. Ward Cunningham is often referred to as the inventor of the first wiki for the purpose of allowing software developers and designers to collaborate and share knowledge with each other (Stenmark, 2005). A wiki is described as a tool for open knowledge collaboration. It consists of sets of dynamically updated and interrelated web pages, which include content contributed directly by users (Yates et al., 2010; Happel & Treitz, 2008). Cunningham (2004) provided a long list of wiki design principles. These principles are described in Table 1 below. The combination of these principles gives a wiki an evolving, flexible and open nature that facilitates collaborative authoring and open editing (Hester & Scott, 2008; Rafaeli & Ariel, 2008; Leuf & Cunningham, 2001). ! 10 ! Principle Simple Description Easy to use with simple HTML markup language. Open Should a page be found to be incomplete or poorly organized, anyone can edit it as he or she sees fit. This is often called/ described as open editing (Rafaeli & Ariel, 2008; Leuf & Cunningham, 2001). Incremental Pages can cite other pages, including pages that have not been written yet. This is the same as using simple hyperlinks to link wiki pages and create a context (Wagner, 2006). Organic The structure and text content of the site are to editing and evolution. Universal The mechanisms of editing and organizing are the same as those of writing, so that any writer is automatically an editor and organizer. Overt The formatted output will suggest the input to reproduce it. Tolerant Interpretable behavior is preferred to error messages. Observable Activity within the site can be watched and reviewed by any other visitor to the site. This also refers to versioning where users can see or switch multiple versions of an article on the wiki (Wagner, 2006). Convergent Duplication can be discouraged or removed by finding and citing similar or related content. Table 1: Wiki design principles (adapted from Cunningham, 2004) In this respect, the word wiki is a Hawaiian word which means quick or fast and is metaphorically used to symbolize many of the above principles, mainly quick editing and changing processes of open wiki content (Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). Further, a wiki is built and developed by the community, which is responsible for agreeing upon the content and maintaining a working and emergent structure shaped by community members (Stenmark, 2008). Yates et al. (2010) discussed the shaping process of a wiki which involves rewriting, integrating, and organizing content on the wiki. Thus, a wiki enables more than a contribution of knowledge. It allows people to shape shared content in a variety of ways (Yates et al., 2010). This transforms a wiki into an evolving knowledge repository that manifests collaborative efforts of the community (Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). Given the principles described above, openness represents one of the major aspects of a wiki as long as these principles are followed and implemented when introducing and using a wiki (Wagner & Majchrzak, 2007). Openness of the wiki allows multiple users to collaborate on the creation of documents (Happel & Treitz, 2008) and freely access, edit, and change content contributed by anyone (Forte & Bruckman, 2007; Wagner, 2006; Stenmark, 2005). The open nature of the wiki might have different interpretations. ! 11 ! For instance, openness may imply full access to knowledge without any control or restrictions (Stenmark, 2005). It can also refer to free editability through which anyone with access to a wiki can freely and openly edit, modify, or change content (Rafaeli & Ariel, 2008; Leuf & Cunningham, 2001). There are also many issues related to wiki openness such as promoting an open democratic approach to knowledge sharing (Hasan & Pfaff, 2006), flattening organizational structures and changing traditional and hierarchal communication channels (Stenmark, 2003), and autonomy and empowerment of employees (Stenmark, 2005). Perhaps a good description of the openness of the wiki can be found in the following quote by Terranova (2006, p. 34) on open systems: “The open network is thus more than a collective space, where collaborations between individual actors take place through the mediation of technical machines at the service of the production of value. On the contrary, it is a space of permutations radically open to the Outside - to the intensive temporalities which underlie the real time of networked, global communication, to the fabric of incorporeal events and corporeal modifications, to the creative destruction unleashed by the real- time, stratified, global interplay of the technological, the social and the cultural.” The importance of an open wiki has been recognized in knowledge management as a collaborative knowledge management tool. For instance, a wiki is described as a tool for conversational knowledge management by many scholars (e.g. Wagner, 2004, 2006; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). A conversational approach to knowledge management based on wikis represents the creation of knowledge through dynamic conversations and dialogues among individuals (Hasan & Pfaff, 2006; Wagner, 2006). It implies that the source of knowledge is the community, where conversations take place, rather than a few individuals (Wagner, 2006). Such conversations may represent the shaping process of a wiki that enables anyone to integrate pieces of knowledge together, structure knowledge, or even rewrite knowledge to fit the overall structure. This new style of knowledge collaboration and sharing with wikis represents the transformation from the traditional web into a more participatory social web (Stenmark, 2008). However, there are many concerns about wikis due to their openness and free editability. In particular, much has been discussed about the quality of content on a wiki especially when scholars tend to discuss content quality of the well-known online encyclopedia called Wikipedia which is based on the wiki concept. For instance, a wiki is open for vandalism and malicious edits since anyone can freely access, change, or shape content (Happel & Treitz, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). Most often, the quality of content and reliability of knowledge sources are major concerns for users of a wiki (Yates et al., 2010; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006; Wagner, 2004). Further, there are legal concerns particularly within organizational settings about the use of a wiki as a tool for creating and sharing knowledge (Pfaff & Hasan, 2007). These concerns are mainly related to the rights of intellectual property and ownership of information. In addition, Hester & Treitz (2008) discussed three domains related to wiki proliferation: inaccurate or old content, scattered content across multiple pages and access to relevant content due to poor linked or titled pages. ! 12 ! 2.2 Alternative Views of Knowledge The definition of knowledge is simply controversial, and the consensus of what knowledge is has never been achieved since the time of the Greeks. However, there are many understandings and perspectives of what knowledge is and how we can describe knowledge. The definition of knowledge can be as simple as ‘justified true belief’ (Nonaka, 1994) or ‘that which is known’ (Grant, 1996). An epistemological account of ‘what is knowledge’ was provided by Hirschheim (1985) through the description of two types of knowledge. The first is Doxa that which was believed to be true, and the second is Episteme that which was known to be true. Knowledge has also been discussed from a representational perspective in the sense of how it is presented as either explicit or tacit (Tsoukas, 2003; Zack, 1999; Grant, 1996). The latter is more difficult to understand and articulate than the former as it consists of intangible properties embedded in personal beliefs, experiences, and values (Pan & Scrabourgh, 1998). Tacit knowledge is something we understand and apply, and it is difficult to codify or articulate. It is developed from direct experience and action, and is usually shared through highly interactive conversations, story-telling and shared experience (Zack, 1999). Nonaka (1994) also defined knowledge as a continuous activity of knowledge. In this respect, tacit knowledge is a synonym for many terms: know-how, subjective knowledge, personal knowledge, and procedural knowledge (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Zack, 1999; Grant, 1996). In contrast, explicit knowledge is something that can be precisely and formally articulated, easily codified, documented, transferred, or shared (Zack, 1999). Nonaka (1994) referred explicit knowledge as knowledge that is transmittable in formal, systematic language. Explicit knowledge can be a synonym for knowing-about, objective knowledge, codified knowledge, and declarative knowledge (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Zack, 1999; Grant, 1996; Nonaka, 1994). The distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge is one of the most dominant debates among philosophers and epistemologists. Tsoukas (2003) argued that there is a great misunderstanding about this distinction in the literature. He argued that contrary to the dominant understandings of tacit knowledge, mainly those of Nonaka, tacit knowledge cannot be converted, translated, or captured but only displayed and manifested. He further argued that new knowledge comes about not when tacit knowledge becomes explicit, but when our skilled performance is punctuated in new ways through social interaction. More clearly, Walsham (2005) discussed sense-giving and sense-reading, based on Polyani’s ideas (see Polyani, 1966, 1969), which are both acts of tacit knowledge or tacit power and also represent the punctuation of skills through social interaction. He explained that sense-reading is mainly cognitive and involves an intelligent understanding of events around us. A traveler who becomes full of experiences when seeing new sights and events in a new country is a case in point. He then attempts to communicate or share this new experience with a friend and this involves sensegiving (e.g., writing a letter to a friend displaying this new experience using words). Finally, he returns to sense-reading at the part of the friend who will interpret his friend’s account of this experience (e.g., reading the letter, which again involves a cognitive effort). In other words, in using tacit and explicit terms, there is no explicit knowledge independent of the individual’s tacit knowing, and even if tacit is made explicit, its meaning remains rooted in tacit knowledge (Walsham, 2005; Tsoukas, 1996). In a similar sense, Tsoukas (2003) argued that all knowing involves skillful action and that the knower necessarily participates in all acts of understanding. ! 13 ! Another important discussion related to the definition of knowledge is the attempt to define knowledge by distinguishing it from information and data. In this respect, Alavi & Leidner (2001) believed that knowledge is something possessed in the minds of individuals and that it is a result of cognitive processing triggered by the inflow of new stimuli. They added that information is converted to knowledge once it is processed in the minds of individuals, and knowledge becomes information once it is articulated and presented in the form of text, graphics, words, or other symbolic forms. In the same vein, Nonaka (1994) argued against the synonymous use of knowledge and information and explained the distinction among them, for information refers to the flow of messages, and knowledge is created and organized by the very flow of information. Such distinctions raise the question of how organizations view or treat knowledge. For instance, Kogut & Zander (1992), in their treatment of organizational knowledge, distinguished between knowledge as information and knowledge as know-how. Knowledge as information implies knowing what something means. Knowledge as know-how is a description of knowing how to do something. Information is often proprietary; for instance, information is delivered by organizations to traders of financial securities. Know-how is an accumulated practical skill or expertise and thus it has to be learned and acquired. An additional important view of knowledge is the view that implies organizations as a distributed knowledge system. This view emphasizes not only the use of knowledge resources but also all potential services rendered out from these resources (Tsoukas, 1996). Tsoukas (1996) provided a comprehensive discussion of different classifications of the knowledge of the firm. In addition, Wasko & Faraj (2000) provided three important perspectives of knowledge with respect to the definition of knowledge and organizational knowledge as well as system attributes that are used to support the flow of knowledge. The first is knowledge as object (see also Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Zack, 1999). The term object in this perspective regards knowledge as a tangible asset or resource that can be codified or measured. More importantly, it also implies that knowledge is independent from human action and is conceived as knowable truth (Wasko & Faraj, 2000). The perspective of knowledge as an object assumes that it is owned by an organization and is a private good for the people who own the knowledge and who share it for personal benefits such as promotions and bonuses. The second perspective is knowledge as embedded in individuals (see also Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Nonaka, 1994). Contrary to the first perspective, this perspective emphasizes knowledge as a property of individuals that resides in the minds of people. The final perspective is linked to CoP and emphasizes knowledge as embedded in a community. A community perspective of knowledge emphasizes knowledge as a public good that is owned by the group and enabled through the use of knowledge management systems that are designed to facilitate open collaboration and discussions, mutual exchanges, and engagement among members of the community (Wasko & Faraj, 2000). In the same vein, Lave & Wenger (1991) discussed situated learning in which knowing and doing are interlinked and that individual learning occurs within communities where individuals continue to interact on an ongoing basis. In other words, individuals exercise their tacit power and learn through such interactions (Walsham, 2005). This perspective is also related to what Nonaka (1994) described as communities of interaction which play an important role in the amplification and development of knowledge through interactions among people. ! 14 ! 2.3 Knowledge Sharing in Organizations Knowledge is recognized as an important and central asset for the competitiveness of modern organizations (Haas & Hansen, 2007; Zack, 1999; Wenger, 1998; Nonaka, 1994; Kogut & Zander, 1992). In this respect, Kogut & Zander (1992) maintained that a central competitive dimension of what firms know how to do is to create and transfer knowledge within an organizational context. As such, knowledge sharing represents one of the most important aspects of Knowledge Management (KM) in organizations. KM refers to the process of creating, transferring, organizing, applying and sharing knowledge (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). Knowledge sharing, being the most important aspect of knowledge management, has many definitions and descriptions. Lee & Al-Hawamdeh (2002) referred to knowledge sharing as a deliberate act by which knowledge is made reusable through its transfer from one party to another. Also, Davenport (1995, p. 5), cited in Jarvenpaa & Staples (2000), explained that information sharing refers to the “voluntary act of making information available to others … shared could pass information on, but does not have to.” Still, in an extreme sense, knowledge cannot be shared (Hendriks, 1999). Hendriks argued that knowledge cannot be passed freely like other commodities as it is tied to a knowing subject. He further argued that knowledge sharing requires an act of reconstruction in which knowledge acquires knowledge in order to be shared. Thus, effective sharing and leveraging of knowledge highly depends on people who are willing to create, share, and use knowledge (Ipe, 2003). Ipe (2003) further explained that sharing implies making knowledge of the individual available to others resulting in a joint ownership of knowledge among sharers. Such sharing of knowledge requires frequent social interactions to facilitate the exchange of knowledge among people (Ipe, 2003; Kogut & Zander, 1992). Nonaka (1994) maintained that interactive links through creative dialogues among individuals and groups play an important role in the creation of relevant knowledge. For instance, Brown & Duguid (1991) and Nonaka (1994) discussed the importance of emergent or evolving CoPs in creating a social context that facilitates exchanges and interactions among people. The attempts by members of these communities to solve problems and share experiences often create linkages and common perspectives among them, thus allowing socialization. This is a process of creating tacit knowledge through shared experience which in turn helps in the creation of knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). In addition, Haas & Hansen (2007) discussed two types of knowledge sharing within organizations. The first is the common way of direct contact among individuals through advice or conversations. The second type of knowledge sharing is through written documents whether in the form of papers or electronic repositories. Further, Hendriks (2001) made distinctions among different modes of knowledge sharing in respect to the purpose and settings of sharing knowledge. On the one hand, he explained that knowledge sharing for the purpose of applying knowledge requires knowledge owners to present their knowledge in readable formats such as describing cases or documenting real experience from projects. On the other hand, sharing knowledge for the purpose of creating knowledge requires allowing people to access the knowledge of each other and reconstruct their knowledge. Hence, understanding knowledge sharing is determined by different processes, situations and objectives for which knowledge is shared. ! 15 ! 2.3.1 Knowledge Management Systems Alavi & Leidner (1999) defined Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) as information systems designed specifically to the sharing and integration of knowledge. There are two main perspectives on knowledge management (Ipe, 2003; Bhatt, 2001) that relate to the discussion of KMSs. The first is the role and power of Information Technology (IT) in codifying, processing, and storing knowledge into electronic repositories and the conversion of tacit into explicit knowledge (e.g. Hendriks, 2003; Zack, 1999), which emphasizes the technical side of KMSs. The second is more social oriented and advocates the view that knowledge is a property of individuals. This refers to the people’s perspective of knowledge that resides in human minds (Ipe, 2003). However, neither the first nor the second has received adequate attention to address the complexity of knowledge management. An integrated socio-technical perspective has been promoted in the KM literature emphasizing the importance of accounting for the critical interplay between the technical system and the social and organizational context (e.g. Kogut & Zander, 2006; Ipe, 2003; Bhatt, 2001; Pan & Scarbrough, 1999, 1998). Advocates of this perspective emphasize the role of understanding cultural and structural factors that may influence the role of KMSs in enabling knowledge management practices. For instance, Bhatt (2001) summarized this perspective by highlighting the efficient role of technology in the codification and processing of data into information while at the same time reflecting upon its poor role in transforming information into knowledge. This requires a social process that involves subjective meanings and interpretations. Therefore, understanding knowledge management practices using KMSs requires an attention to both the social and technical aspects given the complex nature of knowledge and knowledge management practices in general. In this respect, while it can be argued that all KMSs share a general aim of facilitating the creation and dissemination of knowledge, a KMS is assumed to support varied knowledge processes that are determined by alternative perspectives of knowledge as discussed in section 2.2. A Knowledge Management System (KMS), from the perspective of knowledge as an object, is designed to encourage codification, storage, and transfer of knowledge using a common database or knowledge repository that stores several forms of knowledge such as text, audio, video and graphics (Wasko & Faraj, 2000). Examples of such KMSs are search engines and intelligent knowledge filters. From the perspective of knowledge as embedded in individuals, a KMS is designed to facilitate individual communications and enable one-to-one interactions. For instance, emails are considered effective personal tools for communicating knowledge to others (Wasko & Faraj, 2000). Finally, traditional KMSs, from the community perspective of knowledge, are used for collaborative and interactive purposes among communities. Such systems include listservs, electronic discussion groups, electronic bulletin boards and chat facilities. Most recently, social media technologies are increasingly used by CoPs to exchange and share knowledge (Yates et al., 2010). These kinds of technologies represent flexible KMSs that enable open knowledge forums and support dynamic exchange of knowledge and ideas among people (Wasko & Faraj, 2000). The next section provides a concrete discussion on how the wiki technology, as one type of social media, is used for knowledge collaboration and sharing within organizational settings. ! 16 ! 2.3.2 Knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki The use of wikis for knowledge management has received wide attention as a new end-user approach founded on collaboration and conversation (Wagner, 2006). A wiki allows collaborative knowledge management through which a group of people or a community of practice can work together to create and share knowledge (Yates et al., 2010; Wagner, 2006). The collaboration and sharing of knowledge refers to the joint creation, sharing, and application of knowledge (Schwartz, 2006). In this respect, a wiki is a popular tool in organizations which is often used by CoPs for sharing insights, experiences, and practical knowledge (Yates et al., 2010). However, a wiki is not only limited to sharing knowledge but it also allows the shaping of knowledge, a purposeful activity to transform existing knowledge on the wiki into more useful knowledge (Yates et al., 2010). The shaping of knowledge on a wiki involves three main behaviors: rewriting, reorganizing and integrating. These three behaviors represent different knowledge collaboration and sharing processes. The rewriting of content on a wiki involves many contributions of the members of the community with the aim of improving content readability or identifying key concepts. The reorganization of knowledge refers to organizing sets of pages on a wiki which is important for the facilitation of searching and retrieving knowledge (Yates et al., 2010; Rowley & Hartley, 2008), especially with the growing amounts of content and inconsistent structure (Happel & Treitz, 2008). The last shaping process is the integration of content and ideas on a wiki in order to clarify the current state of knowledge of the community. The growing importance of knowledge in organizations has motivated organizations to use many tools which allow for dynamic and flexible collaboration and sharing of knowledge. In this regard, the use of a wiki as an end-user approach to knowledge management relies on decentralization, collaboration, participation, and embracing of a culture that supports knowledge sharing and facilitates effective knowledge management (Pfaff & Hasan, 2007). In the same vein, Stenmark (2005) discussed the importance of the wiki as an effective knowledge sharing tool compared to other tools such as the Intranet. He argued that the Intranet might fail to support organizational knowledge management goals even when people embrace knowledge sharing and are willing to contribute and share their experience with others. He further argued that a wiki could enhance this situation by providing people with shared control, collaborative authoring capabilities, and ability to communicate with others in the organization, thus shifting control from one provider or controller into a larger community. This is related to conversational knowledge management which depends on participation and conversations among community members (Hasan & Pfaff, 2006; Wagner, 2004, 2006). Conversational knowledge management represents a new model of knowledge collaboration and sharing in organizations. In this context, a wiki is described as a conversational technology that facilitates the creation of knowledge through collaborative writing (Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). In another place, Pfaff & Hasan (2007) pointed out that a wiki provides a basis for knowledge creation and also a social network where people can learn from each other through social interactions. Accordingly, a wiki can enable groups to co-create knowledge in an anarchic, collaborative fashion, which is a quite different model from traditional models where knowledge is created through abstraction or aggregation of information like in data or text mining (Wagner, 2004). The latter model is more suited with centralized and stable knowledge bases, and is fundamentally different from the evolving and dynamic model of knowledge creation using wikis. ! 17 ! Yates et al. (2010) believed that the lack of interaction and conversation among knowledge contributors might create stagnate and outdated sources of knowledge. For instance, users sharing knowledge, using a discussion forum, contribute their knowledge through posting questions and answers or writing specific posts in a linear and rigid fashion. Other users have no ability to shape any contribution, thus impeding flexible social interactions and effective knowledge sharing (Yates et a. 2010; Wagner, 2006). A wiki, however, allows people to shape each other’s contributions creating a flexible network of interactions that facilitate dynamic knowledge collaboration and sharing. Thus, a wiki enables a decentralized, informal and community approach to knowledge sharing. 2.3.3 Factors for sharing knowledge in organizations Knowledge sharing is considered one of the most important yet difficult aspects of knowledge management. The difficulty of knowledge sharing among people might be related to multiple factors that influence the sharing of knowledge. Riege (2005) discussed individual, organizational, and technology barriers to knowledge sharing. Individual barriers may include lack of social skills, cultural differences, and lack of time and trust. Organizational barriers may include lack of infrastructure and resources, accessibility, and physical environment. Technological barriers include reluctance to use applications that do not meet user requirements and unrealistic expectations of IT systems. One key issue in technologysupported knowledge sharing is the role of technology in facilitating the sharing of knowledge among people. Technology has an important role in supporting knowledge collaboration and sharing processes (Riege, 2005; Hendriks, 2001). However, a technological approach to knowledge sharing without an account for the social, cultural, and structural environment often tends to fail. Cabrera & Cabrera (2002) dwelt on two types of social dilemmas that influence knowledge sharing. The first is the tragedy of commons or the resource dilemma that describes how collective cooperation might lead to damaging collective resources. The second type is the public-good dilemma which refers to a shared resource form which every member of a group can benefit from regardless of whether he/she contributes or not to its provision and whose availability does not diminish with use. An example of such a social dilemma is treating organizational knowledge as a public good. While everyone in an organization can benefit from this knowledge by learning new skills and expertise, it might be that some people obtain these benefits at the expense of others. People might enjoy what others have contributed without paying the cost of contributing their share to the others. Cabrera & Cabrera (2002) believed that, depending on the relative weight between the costs and benefits of knowledge sharing, individuals tend to feel better off hoarding, rather than sharing, what they know. Benefits of knowledge sharing may include personal gains such as promotions, self-esteem, intellectual benefits, etc., as well as community-related expectations, and normative beliefs such as shared values (Ardichvili, 2008). Costs might be determined by the view that knowledge is power (Ipe, 2003) and that the sharing of knowledge may lessen personal competitiveness, control, and power (Ardichvili et al., 2003; Ipe, 2003; Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Davenport, 1997). Pertaining to promoting a knowledge sharing culture and overcoming its barriers, communities of practice have been discussed in the literature as a vehicle for knowledge creation and dissemination within organizations (Ardichvili, 2008). ! 18 ! Ipe (2003) divided motivations for knowledge sharing into internal and external factors. Internal factors include the perceived power view of knowledge and reciprocity. The increasing importance of knowledge in organizations has enriched the view that knowledge is a source for power in the sense that withholding knowledge might help knowledge owners to compete with others in the attainment of personal goals (Ipe, 2003). The other internal factor, reciprocity, refers to the mutual expected benefits among those who share knowledge with each other (Ipe, 2003). Sharers of knowledge might be more motivated to share when they see that the extent of their willingness to share will add more value to themselves. Ipe (2003) believed that reciprocity factors are important for motivating the sharing of knowledge within communities of practice where reciprocity can enhance trust and recognition among members. However, reciprocity might also cause a barrier to knowledge sharing when community members feel that they have to give away knowledge without any expected benefits. External factors which motivate knowledge sharing include relationship with the recipient and rewards for knowledge sharing. The relationship with the recipient involves two elements: trust, power and status of the recipient. Trust within communities is critical to maintain mutual sharing of knowledge in the sense that the lack of equal contributions from members might influence knowledge sharing (Haas & Hansen, 2007; Ipe 2003). In this context, Ardichvili (2008) identified two types of trust within virtual CoPs: personal knowledge-based trust and institution-based trust. Personal trust emerges on the basis of recurring social interactions between the truster and the trustee. Institutional-based trust is based on the belief that necessary organizational structures and procedures exist to ensure trustworthy behavior of individual members. Power and status issues also influence knowledge sharing in the sense that those who share similar positions and statuses might be more willing to share with each other rather than with others in lower positions. In addition, the other external factor focuses on rewards and incentives for knowledge sharing. Incentives and rewards for sharing knowledge are important to encourage individuals to share knowledge with each other (Ipe, 2003). The lack of a recognition system might contribute to the barriers of knowledge sharing in organizations (Riege, 2005). 2.4 Communities of Practice in Organizations The notion of Communities of Practice (CoPs) was coined by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in 1990. CoPs are defined as groups of people who share a passion for something which they know how to do it, and who interact regularly in order to learn how to do it (Wenger, 2004). Also, Wenger et al. (2002) defined CoPs as groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis. As such, CoPs represent the social fabric of KM in organizations (Wenger, 2004). This view emphasizes that knowledge is dynamic, social and individual, tacit and explicit, and lives in the act of human knowing (Wenger et al., 2002). Wenger (2004) argued that knowing is not only an individual experience but involves exchanging and contributing to the knowledge of a community. As a result, knowledge becomes an outcome of what the community has shared and accumulated overtime. A CoP is, therefore, inherently and irreducibly a social endeavor (Duguid, 2005). Wenger & Snyder (2000) discussed the distinction between CoPs and other forms of organizational groups. ! 19 ! For instance, members of a formal project team are selected by managers based on their experience and ability to achieve the goals of the project and the life of a team finishes once the project is completed. In contrast, members of a CoP are self-selected and they voluntarily choose to join a community, organize themselves and establish their own leadership. Accordingly, CoPs develop around things that matter to people. For instance, communities may develop within an office to address a recurring set of problems or span across departments so that members of a community can interact with their peers and develop and maintain expertise that transcend the fragmentation existing in organizations. In this context, Wenger (1998) argued that such communities could help address the dynamic needs of knowledge or dynamic knowing, which requires the participation of people who are mutually engaged in the creation, refinement, communication, and the use of knowledge. Accordingly, CoPs represent the social fabric of knowledge. As discussed before, knowledge has many alternative perspectives of what knowledge is and how it is created. From the perspective of CoPs, knowledge is viewed as embedded in the community (Wasko & Faraj, 2000). Knowledge, therefore, can be treated as a public good that is socially generated, maintained, and exchanged within emergent communities of practice (see Brown & Duguid, 1991; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Knowledge from this perspective is also seen as an intangible resource that can be shared by displaying and manifesting experience and practical skills through social interactions (cf. section 2.2) among the members of the community who feel the responsibility to share rather than expect individual returns or personal benefits (Wasko & Faraj, 2000). Further, CoPs represent a community rather than an individualistic approach to knowledge by fulfilling a number of functions in respect to the creation, accumulation, and diffusion of knowledge in organizations (Wenger, 1998). A CoP is a node for exchanging and interpreting knowledge that provides a channel for moving this knowledge in the form of best practices, tips, feedback, etc. Also, it is a live way for retaining knowledge. In other words, unlike rigid ways of retaining knowledge like in databases or other structured systems, CoP preserves the tacit aspect of knowledge. In addition, Wenger (2004) highlighted three fundamental characteristics of CoPs that represent the foundation of a knowledge strategy in organizations. They are domain, practice, and community. The area of knowledge that brings the community together, gives it its identity, and defines the key issues that members need to address. It refers to the domain of the community. The domain implies something that needs to be explored and developed among members of a community rather than a task to be done. An example of this is what a team does or a network that is bounded by relationships (Wenger, 2004; Wenger, 1998). The community refers to the group of people to whom the domain is relevant. This group of people continues to interact and develop relationships that enable them to share knowledge and solve problems. The third characteristic of CoPs is the practice. Duguid (2005) believed that this practice has been black boxed in the literature of CoPs. It refers to the body of knowledge, tools, methods, stories, cases, documents, etc. which members share and develop together (Wenger, 2004). The combination of these three fundamental characteristics is what enables communities to manage knowledge. According to Wenger & Snyder (2000), the strength of CoPs is selfperpetuating. In other words, the domain gives a community a specific focus, the community builds relationships that enable collective action, and the practice anchors knowledge developed among the community. As they continue to maintain the combinative capability of these three characteristics, knowledge continues to be developed and the community empowered. ! 20 ! 2.5 Summary In this chapter, I discussed three main theoretical themes related to the focus of my research. These included social media's wiki technology, knowledge sharing within organizations, and CoPs. In each theme, I reviewed and discussed important theoretical aspects in the light of using wikis for knowledge collaboration and sharing by CoPs in organizations. I reviewed different aspects of using a wiki as a conversational knowledge management tool that enables flexible and dynamic sharing among members of CoPs. Accounting for such theoretical aspects is important and useful to create a link that maps them later into my research findings. Accordingly, this mapping would provide me with an opportunity to compare these aspects with new, emergent aspects in my findings about the use of wikis for knowledge collaboration and sharing within organizations. It would also help me in building upon existing theories to develop further insights into and perspectives of the phenomenon of using wikis in organizations. ! 21 ! ! ! ! Chapter III The Case at CCC ! 22 ! This chapter presents my empirical case at a large multinational organization called Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC). First, it provides a profile of the company, a description of the case, and Knowledge Management initiative. Then it provides a description of the Communities of Practice (CoPs) and presents the wiki platform, called Fanous, which is used by CoPs for knowledge collaboration and sharing. Finally, it gives a real example describing the use of the wiki in daily projects at CCC. 3.1 Quick Overview of CCC The case of my empirical inquiry took place at Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC). CCC, founded in 1952, is one of the first construction companies in the Middle East. Based in Athens, Greece, CCC is a large multinational contracting organization, is privately owned, and has over 160,000 employees from 60 different nationalities for its worldwide operations. It is mainly a construction company providing project management, engineering, procurement, and construction services for oil and gas petrochemical works, pipelines, building and civil engineering, marine works, and maintenance of petrochemical installations and underwater structures. The company performs distributed construction activities all over the world mainly in the Gulf and Middle East as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe, South and Central Americas, CIS countries, and the Caribbean region. In 2007, the Engineering News Record (ENR) magazine ranked CCC as the top construction contractor in the Middle East and the 13 international contractor worldwide. th 3.2 The Case at CCC The choice of CCC as a case of my empirical inquiry was motivated by a recent initiative that aimed at establishing a Knowledge Management (KM) department to be in charge of developing a collaborative platform to leverage knowledge and locate experiences at the company. This present case can be particularly unique and interesting since it comes after the boom in the number of employees at CCC, which has quintupled in the last ten years hitting an all-time record in the history of the company. Equally interesting, the KM Department introduced the wiki technology to serve as a medium where employees could exchange and share their knowledge with each other. This is an intriguing technology for me given my research interest and purpose. I had the chance to discuss and explore this initiative with key people at the KM Department where I found an interesting opportunity to examine the use of the wiki at CCC. The wiki was used by a large number of employees stationed in projects all over the world. These employees would work within specialized CoPs (cf. section 3.3.1) and exchange and share project-specific knowledge and experience with each other. Therefore, it was an intriguing opportunity to examine how these employees used the wiki and how it could help the company leverage the knowledge and experience of their stationed employees. In addition, the KM Department was interested in learning more about how to improve and sustain current communities as well as introduce new communities in the future. This has further increased our mutual interests in examining this case and planning for an empirical investigation to develop and obtain further understandings and insights into the wiki platform. The novelty of the case at the company, combined with richness of the environment and the interest in improving it, was a major reason for choosing it as my empirical case. ! 23 ! 3.3 Knowledge Management Initiative The global and distributed nature of CCC has been challenging as to how they can effectively leverage knowledge and expertise from a vast number of deployed employees and project teams all over the world. In this respect, CCC often used emails and IP telephony as the main channels of communication and knowledge exchange among employees. It also used an inhouse document and content management system (VBC) as a central repository for all CCC content. This system provided a framework where all projects and departments could create their own content management portals. These often included formal procedures and method statements that represented a variety of approaches used to address problems and challenges during projects. However, these systems were separated and also limited in terms of providing the ability for dynamic exchange and sharing of knowledge among large numbers of employees. It is worth mentioning that the company had increased the number of its employees from 35,000 in 2003 to 160,000 employees in 2009. Figure 2 shows the growth in the number of employees since the 1990s. It also shows the increasing complexity facing the management of knowledge at CCC. Figure 2: Increasing complexity of communication and KM at CCC This growth and leap in the numbers of employees has increased the complexity of communications between senior project managers and their employees, thus resulting in a lack of mutual understanding among them and also redundancy at work. Besides, the existing systems at the company were not helpful to record and communicate lessons learned or any reflections gained during project execution. Further, many employees were moved from one project to another or mobilized for different projects. Consequently, this has also increased communication difficulties due to the distribution of work and expertise. Due to these difficulties, the company was driven by several factors to establish a Knowledge Management (KM) Department to be in charge of providing a strategic backbone to performance at the workplace. These factors included intellectual capital improvement, human development, partnerships and supplier management, resource management, financial management, and risk management. The mission of the KM initiative is described as follows: “To build a ‘Knowledge Rich Culture’ by tapping into the wealth of expertise already within CCC to create a culture that embraces learning, sharing and innovation”. To that end, the KM leadership planned and executed the KM initiative over two foundational phases. The first phase aimed at establishing KM organizational processes, developing a knowledge portal and taxonomy, and adopting a performance management tool to ensure that objectives of the KM initiative are aligned with larger corporate objectives. ! 24 ! The second phase aimed at defining KM processes, introducing the initiative at the company, and developing an incentive and recognition framework. In this respect, the KM department became in charge of three main KM organization processes: connecting people to communities and experts, enabling and facilitating engagement and collaboration, and finally monitoring and reporting knowledge flow, KM health system, peoples’ behavior, and organizational dynamics. Following these two phases, community leaders and five CoPs were identified (see next section). An experimentation to develop collaborative tools for the knowledge portal was also undertaken (cf. section 3.3.2). Eventually, the ultimate aim of the KM initiative was to develop a corporate knowledge network that would enable people to share their knowledge and expertise, provide a collaboration platform for bridging knowledge gaps and developing new practices, and develop a directory of people or profiles for locating the experience at the company and access relevant problems and solutions. 3.3.1 CoPs at CCC The wiki started with five main CoPs which represented different technical specialities at the company. These CoPs provided the backbone for exchanging and sharing knowledge on the wiki platform. The design phase of CoPs involved designing knowledge sharing processes and workflows, identifying roles and responsibilities, identifying required IT capabilities, developing initial learning and development plan, creating performance measures, establishing reward and recognition plans, and developing a change management plan. These CoPs are described by the KM Department as: “formal or informal groups of people with a common purpose and common goals”. There were several characteristics of the members of these CoPs including members who shared common pursuits, problems, methodologies and language. Most members belonged to more than one CoP, and members of a CoP often had the same or similar professional roles but were not located in the same places or projects. In the early stages, each CoP would appoint a community leader, a prestigious role held by a well-experienced manager at the company, and whose responsibility was to establish the foundations of the community, nominate captains, encourage people to join, and recommend several knowledge areas to be discussed by community members. In addition to the community leader, each CoP involved community managers, captains, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The community manager was mainly responsible for guiding the community. Community captains who were active wiki users were often responsible for suggesting topics, monitoring contributions, nominating SMEs, encouraging members, etc. Expert employees in particular areas at the company had the role of a SME. These were members who belonged to a specific knowledge area within the community and were selected or nominated by community managers and captains. Their main role was to contribute to the community by sharing their expertise and also assist community captains in monitoring and validating contributions by other people. A visual structure showing the organization of CoPs and different levels of relationships among community members as well as the relationships with CCC leadership is shown in Figure 3 below: ! 25 ! Figure 3: Organization of CoPs in the wiki environment By and large, the initial aim of establishing the first five communities was to bring experts in several knowledge areas together and to pilot test the wiki as a platform (see next section) where they could share and exchange their knowledge and experiences. In addition, an important aspect of these communities was that they had ‘community meetings’ on a quarterly basis. Community managers and captains would meet to discuss and brainstorm different issues related to their community. These meetings served an important purpose for developing content on the wiki environment (e.g., creating new knowledge areas or removing inactive areas) and discussing and agreeing on different issues related to the community. These issues included nominating captains, validating contributions, such as method statements that might be controversial, suggesting new topics that would address new work challenges for the community, and also providing an opportunity to meet face-to-face with new colleagues and community members since most of them worked in different locations across the globe. In this stage, the wiki involved 11 communities and the KM Department had had plans to introduce 5 more and aimed at topping 50 communities, thus representing all knowledge areas and domains at CCC. The next section provides an overview of the wiki, which is the platform for CCC’s knowledge network, and describes CoPs operating in the wiki environment. 3.3.2 Overview of Fanous: The wiki platform at CCC The wiki platform at CCC is called Fanous. Fanous is an Arabic term which means ‘the lantern’, or metaphorically the oil lamp where the genie lives in fictional stories, which can provide enlightenment and many other valuable things. The KM Department launched Fanous in March 2008 to provide a platform for the corporate knowledge network that enables collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst employees at CCC. In this context, the wiki technology served as a foundational platform for several CoPs and enabled knowledge collaboration and sharing among members of these communities. The number of these wikibased CoPs was 11 and included pipe fabrication improvement on productivity and quality, hydrotesting and precommissioning, buildings from design to handover, mobilization with emphasis on remote and new areas, earthworks and plan productivity, contract administration and project control, training and career development, piping and equipment erection, integration with EP partners, construction HSE, and KM - Q&A - open forum. ! 26 ! These CoPs used the wiki to search for solutions to problems, methods, and lessons learned. The wiki was also used for collaboration to bridge knowledge gaps, draft documents, develop new areas of practice, bring innovation to market, and define new approaches and solutions to customer issues. Further, the wiki served as a dynamic channel for sharing insights, experiences, contact details, favourite documents, links, and other work-related resources among community members. ach CoP had its own knowledge space on the wiki platform where communitygenerated content is located and categorized. This content might be formal or informal and may include insights, experiences, lessons learned, technical problems, and formal method statements and procedures obtained during real-life projects. In fact, these types of content represented the know-how of community members which are made available for other employees at CCC through the wiki. ormally, each member would share with others, through the display of his knowledge onto the wiki, by writing up his experience in an article or a formal document. For instance, he may create an article describing a formal method statement on how to deal with particular construction processes, problems, and challenges. In doing so, the knowhow of community members was represented and shared with others through such formal method statements and procedures. lso, community members would share informal types of know-how such as insights, observations, and lessons learned from projects by creating and contributing new articles into the wiki. enerally, these types of contributions represented the subjective and tacit forms of knowledge, obtained and developed through continued interactions among employees in daily projects. l 11 CoPs would be presented in the main page of the wiki, which is called the dashboard. The wiki dashboard also included links to the latest hot topics, the most common topics discussed by each community, past issues of the KM monthly newsletter, members available online, and a search engine to look for articles that belong to several communities on the wiki. ch community had several knowledge areas and topics. These knowledge areas represented different topics within a community and included various contributions from community members including method statements, lessons learned from projects, descriptions of new techniques or technologies used in specific areas, etc. ch knowledge area was divided into subsections to enable the structuring and categorization of topics within a specific knowledge area. so each CoP had a directory of people for locating contacts of M s and suppliers. In addition, the wiki was open for both community members as well as for all other employees at the company. The wiki also provided members with the ability to track changes made by others so that they could collaboratively edit articles. However, depending on the level of accessibility, only particular community members were allowed to create and edit articles by adding new pages or editing existing content on the wiki. ll other employees were only allowed to read or view articles and comment on them. These employees might obtain accessibility to the wiki after submitting a membership form, or sometimes a project manager might request the KM Department to give his employees accessibility to the wiki. It is worth mentioning that the wiki was only accessible within an internal CCC network and was not available on the public web. This has caused challenges for the KM Department especially when project teams worked in places (e.g., desert) where network connectivity was not available. Furthermore, the KM Department had a K udit section, which was in charge of receiving and publishing contributions from members who could not access the wiki in particular environments such as the desert or the sea. In 2009, the wiki included 11 communities, 00 active members, 3,23 contributions, 5,4 0 views and downloads, 393 knowledge contributors and 5 daily average of online users. ! ! 3.4 Fanous in Action: A Real Example In order to provide a practical sense of how the wiki was actually used by community members at CCC, what kind of knowledge was being shared, how it was shared, and the benefits from sharing, I will present a concrete example based on my discussions with two mechanical construction managers. CCC is a project-driven company and there were many technical procedures and methods used to address several issues during these projects. These projects involved activities such as piping, fabrication, hydro testing, etc. This example will focus on piping. CCC was sometimes asked by its contractors and clients to perform cleaning and flushing of pipes. This can be done using a variety of methods and procedures including steam blowing, rupture disk, chemical cleaning, or water flushing. Each procedure requires particular equipments and also depends on the service or specifications of the proposed system (e.g., water or oil system). In this case, project members often discussed possible methods and procedures suitable to address that specific situation. What equipment they had to use, how they should use it, etc. are issues subject to discussions and different perspectives. The discussion of these issues might start because one of the engineers required some solutions to a problem. So, he could post a question on the wiki and others might contribute their experiences to this area (e.g., share a method statement or describe some lessons learned). The other way of starting a new article is when a project leader or member would publish offline discussions about particular project issues on the wiki to make it accessible to others in the form of method statements or procedures. These method statements represented the knowledge obtained during projects and described several ways to handle particular situations related to piping such as choosing high- or low-pressure compressors in specific environments. In other words, this can be described as technical knowledge and know-how of the community. These were two ways by which method statements are made available, through the wiki, to the rest of employees at CCC. In doing so, the wiki became a platform where employees could share, participate, learn and further discuss various issues. For instance, employees who would complete their piping projects used the wiki to contribute and share their experience with other employees who were involved in similar ongoing projects in other parts of the world. As such, employees could learn from each other and benefit by accessing and obtaining important solutions and insights into any potential problems in their projects and, therefore, save time and improve project performance. Moreover, when employees discussed these issues on the wiki, they observed interesting contributions to a specific area, which motivated them to look up for the contributors and seek to join their discussions on a regular basis. Interestingly, for instance, while reading or discussing a method statement or any other forms of contributions, one might decide to use the phone to call this expert contributor in order to discuss the subject more and also get introduced to each other. This important “know-who” process was enabled through discussions on the wiki and allowed for social networking with expert employees in real life, thus increasing interaction and collaboration among employees (cf. section 6.2.2). Furthermore, commenting on the contributions about particular subjects was an important resource for discussing different issues on the wiki and encouraging contributions by other members. ! 28 ! Often, community members tended to comment on articles that might be controversial such as when there was no consensus or there were different views about how a particular method statement should be applied or implemented. In addition, editing contributions on the wiki was also possible, for instance, to modify and adapt particular methods that won’t fit a project located in a cold area with very low temperatures since these methods might only be suitable in hot areas where pressure is high, given authorization is available. ! 29 ! ! ! ! Chapter IV Scientific Method for Research ! 30 ! The aim of this chapter is to argue for an interpretive scientific method based on my ontological and epistemological stances. It starts with a discussion of my ontological view of the world and epistemology of knowledge to show the philosophical basis of my knowledge claims and the choice of the scientific method. Further, it explains the actual process of inquiry which reflects my philosophies of the scientific method through presentation and discussion of the process of data collection and analysis. 4.1 Philosophical Roots of the Research As the title of this chapter suggests, it deals with the discussion of the scientific method used in this research. I chose to begin this discussion with a presentation of the philosophical roots of this research in order to reflect upon my knowledge claims as well as the choice of the scientific research method. The production of valid knowledge through research requires a reliable and effective scientific method to examine real phenomena (Starbuck, 2006). And for something to be considered scientific, it must use a scientific method of an agreed set of convictions (Goles & Hirschheim, 2000). It is this scientific method that distinguishes acceptable knowledge claims, which refer to normal science, from unacceptable knowledge claims, which refer to pseudo science (ibid). Further, Myers & Avison (2002) explained that all research is based on some underlying assumptions about what constitutes valid research and which research methods are appropriate. In this respect, the choice of a scientific method is often informed and determined by both the episteme of knowledge and ontology of the world; these two principles have long been the roots of any philosophical debates in science. They represent the roots of my research philosophy and underlie the choice of the scientific method in this research. The next two sections will focus on discussion of my stance of the epistemology of knowledge and the ontological view of what makes up the real world as well as reflection upon how this stance has influenced my choice of the scientific research method. 4.2 Ontological Stance My ontological view of the world can best be described through the social construction of reality by Berger & Luckmann (1991). In their treatise of the sociology of knowledge, they discussed how reality of everyday life is a social product shared with others. Reality, according to them, is socially constructed by concrete individuals and groups who serve as definers of this reality. This ontological stance satisfies the description of social constructionists’ view of IT artifacts by Lee (2004). In his discussion of the social theory and philosophy for IS, he explained: “... social constructionists believe that these human-made entities are social objects and, in being objects, are as real for human beings as any aspects of the physical and natural world. One’s beliefs about what comprises the real world have an effect on what one seeks to observe, what one subsequently observes, how one explains what one observes, and the reasoning process by which one performs each of these.” (p. 6). Accordingly, my perception of the world, from a social constructivist perspective, accounts for shared beliefs, meanings, and cultures to form part of the real world. Such a view is not confined to the laws of natural science that govern true reality (Lee, 2004). This also satisfies the view of Berger & Luckmann (1991): ! 31 ! “The developing human being, not only interrelates with a particular natural environment, but with a specific cultural and social order, which is mediated to him by the significant others who have charge of him.” (p. 66). In this context, my ontological view of the world emphasi es the social production of reality in the sense that reality is formed through social interactions and relationships among people within an organi ational or social context in which they live and work. Iivari et al. (199 ) pointed out that ontology in IS is concerned with information, human beings, technology, and human organi ations. In my case (cf. chapter 3), I have focused on understanding the reality of my research participants by exploring their perceptions of using the wiki as a means of exchanging and sharing knowledge with each other, understanding what it meant for them. I also examined their interpretation of the wiki as it provided them with the means to construct new understandings and establish relationships with other coworkers. Further, I investigated how they used it to express themselves to others and develop new meanings and knowledge of their work. These perceptions implied their values and beliefs of how they experienced the use of technology. They reflected a cultural and social diversity at the organi ion and also represented a picture of a shared reality that is socially constructed through ongoing interactions and shared activities among the research participants in their daily work. Most importantly, this shared reality was the basis of my interpretation of the social context where technology was used to enable social interactions and the production of knowledge and relationships. Therefore, my understanding of the problem situation emphasi es technology to form part of the real context where the research participants work and interact with each other. I have put emphasis on the contextual understanding of technology to make explicit the relationship between technology, people, and the social or organi ational context where the technology is used and also shaped by social interactions among people. Moreover, given the nature of the technology being studied in my case, it was treated as a social product since it is developed and shaped through ongoing contributions by community members. Hence, my belief in social reality, which consists of shared beliefs, values and meanings, shapes and informs my ontological view. And that is what makes up the real phenomenon in this research socially constructed. ventually, the research participants are conceived as definers of reality; the social and organi ional context is believed to provide a platform for multiple interpretations of reality as it is continually constructed and shared among people, and in being a means for social interaction, technology is treated as a product of the social construction of reality. 4.3 istemological Stance istemology is concerned with the theory of knowledge and how we acquire knowledge (Lee, 2004). The Greeks were the first to discuss the epistemology of knowledge. They made a classification of two types of knowledge: doxa that which was believed to be true and episteme that which was known to be true (Goles & Hirschheim, 2000; Hirschheim, 19 ). However, the answers to the questions about how we know what we know and how we acquire knowledge have remained essential problems of science since the time of the Greeks (Goles & Hirschheim, 2000). Berger & Luckmann (1991) believed that knowledge of everyday life is socially distributed and is possessed differently by different types of individuals. They further added that this social distribution of knowledge can become complex because of the fact that what I know can be unknown to others and vice versa, as people possess different knowledge and meanings which represent stocks of knowledge. ! 32 ! Guba & Lincoln (1994) argued that the answer to the epistemological question about how we acquire and think about knowledge is constrained by the ontological view of reality. Knowledge in this research represents experiences, skills, values, and beliefs, which form part of the reality. This knowledge is developed through social interactions as people continue to learn in their everyday lives and exchange their experiences and ideas with each other using technology. The emphasis on understanding social processes through which this knowledge is created and shaped is at the center of my inquiry in this research. These social processes provide the means by which knowledge is displayed and manifested and thus shared among people. Also, through these social processes, knowledge can be interpreted and understood in a larger social context. For instance, my research participants used the wiki to share their knowledge that was displayed and manifested (cf. Tsoukas, 2003) in the form of practical experiences, such as method statements or concrete solutions to problems, through continued collaborative interactions among them in the wiki environment. This raises an epistemological issue of how knowledge is represented, i.e., how a knowledge contributor could represent his intangible know-how and share his tacit knowledge onto the wiki with others or even how it is possible that tacit knowledge is made available to others. The tension between tacit and explicit knowledge has been addressed by Walsham (2005) and Tsoukas (2003) based on the ideas of Polyani, the inventor of the term tacit knowledge (see also section 2.2). Walsham (2005) explained that in an attempt to oppose the object view of knowledge, which implies converting knowledge into codified transmittable objects, knowledge management systems contain representations of action and reflection, which are deeply involved in human processes and communication and cannot be divorced from their context. In this manner, a wiki can be viewed as a platform for human action and reflection where shared knowledge is seen as representations of people’s experiences and skills. These are communicated through social interactions and thus made available to others. As such, this view implies that knowledge cannot be converted from one state into another and also emphasizes that tacit knowledge can only be displayed or manifested through social interactions among community members. It further emphasizes that displayed knowledge cannot exist by itself as it has its roots in tacit knowledge and cannot be independent from individual tacit knowing (cf. Walsham, 2005; Tsoukas, 1996; 2003). This satisfies Pan & Scarbrough (1999)'s view that knowledge needs to be seen as inscribed in conversations and social interactions within communities rather than a resource that is disseminated from a sender to a receiver. So even if a knowledge contributor writes documents into the wiki displaying his experiences and skills for the purpose of sharing with others, this knowledge cannot be seen an object because its meaning remains rooted in the tacit knowing power of this contributor. In addition, Walsham (2005) argued that people not only exercise this power in interaction, but they also learn from others through this interaction. This also satisfies knowing-in-practice by Lave & Wenger (1991) where individual learning takes place within communities that interact on an ongoing basis. 4.4 Methodological Stance: The Choice of the Scientific Method The choice of a scientific method depends on what I mean by science (Lee, 1989). Science, according to the Greeks, is a process of inquiry which transforms doxa into episteme (Hirschheim, 1985). My methodological stance or the choice of the scientific method for the process of inquiry, therefore, is informed by both my epistemological and ontological stances as well as the nature of the current research problem (Rowlands, 2003; Trauth, 2001). ! 33 ! For the sake of the latter influence, the research seeks to understand the ways by which people use a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing within an organizational context. Such a focus implies a complex social phenomenon as it involves multiple subjective meanings of technology and evolving interactions and relationships among people and with their environment. In other words, the complexity arises from subjective meanings and interpretations that people continue to assign to their interactions with each other, interactions through technology, and the influence of the social context. For instance, the research participants had different perceptions of the role of a wiki whether as an open platform that allows anyone to access the experience of others or as a controlled medium that is only accessible by selected employees. The wiki was also perceived either as a way to flatten or enforce hierarchy among employees. Thus, people construct different meanings and beliefs about their use of the wiki creating a complex social reality. Given my epistemological and ontological stances, I perceive this complex situation as socially constructed (cf. Berger & Luckmann, 1991). The processes of collaboration and knowledge sharing among individuals as well as the mediation of technology are considered ingredients of a reality which is a product of continued contributions and social interactions among community members in the wiki environment. More clearly, the development and growth of a wiki results from the contributions of community members which are shaped by their diverse interpretations, meanings, and beliefs of a wiki (cf. section 4.2). For instance, a community member who believed a wiki was open for the benefit of everyone might be willing to share his experience with others because of his sense of responsibility towards the organization. In contrast, an employee who believed that people used the openness of the wiki to expose themselves and show off might be more reluctant to share his or her knowledge with others. Thus, the complexity in this situation is manifested in multiple interpretations, beliefs, values, and meanings of the technology, which are all components of the reality constructed by community members in which they work and interact with each other. Hence, my ontological stance here emphasizes the social construction of reality. Pertaining to my epistemological stance, I am concerned with the understanding of the sources of knowledge as I discussed above. Since I view reality as socially constructed, knowledge as part of this reality is also socially constructed. In my case, employees usually obtained knowledge and experience through their involvement in different projects and professional training courses. The development of this knowledge was further increased by sharing individual knowledge and experience with others. In the case of using the wiki, for instance, the source of individual knowledge was the contributions made by other community members. These included new articles containing method statements, discussions, comments, etc. These contributions represented real-life experiences, and are created and developed through encountering problems and exchanging ideas and solutions in daily life projects. The continual contribution and sharing of knowledge through the wiki, thus, created means and opportunities for the social distribution and reconstruction of an already socially constructed knowledge. In addition, the above discussion of the complex nature of the research problem and its ontological and epistemological implications emphasizes the importance of the social processes comprising this situation. In this, understanding how a wiki is used by a large number of community members can be best achieved by obtaining deeper insights into these social processes and examining the social context where these processes take place. ! 34 ! Therefore, my choice of the scientific method was determined by the capacity of this method in helping me to understand subjective meanings and socially constructed interpretations as well as to capture recurring interactions by people in their respective social context. As such, an interpretive research method was best suited for my choice of the scientific method. The use of such a methodology helps in producing an understanding of the social context of the phenomenon and human meanings and interpretations (Rowlands, 2003; Walsham, 1995a). I summarize my methodological stance with an argument by Walsham (2006, p. 320): “…interpretive methods of research start from the position that our knowledge of reality, including the domain of human action, is a social construction by human actors. Our theories concerning reality are ways of making sense of the world, and shared meanings are a form of intersubjectivity rather than objectivity”. 4.4.1 Interpretive research method Klein & Myers (1999) made an important discussion that described interpretive research. In their paper, they presented and discussed a set of principles (see Table 2) for conducting and evaluating interpretive research in IS. I believe these principles provide a comprehensive foundational basis for my choice of an interpretive research method. However, while these principles provide a foundation for any work of an interpretative nature (Klein & Myers, 1999), they were not treated here as blueprints but rather as a source for thoughtful reflection during the inquiry process that helped me in addressing multiple issues that may arise in an interpretive investigation. As such, I will discuss each principle with respect to my research focus in order to reflect upon the application of interpretivism of my empirical inquiry. Klein & Myers (1999) explained that these principles are interdependent with the first principle of hermeneutic circle as the glue that binds them together. They further argued that all other principles could be applied iteratively in this circle to form a complex web of interpretations. Hermeneutics is defined as the theory or philosophy of interpretation of meaning and text (Cole & Avison, 2007; Butler, 1998; Lacity & Janson, 1994). As I sought to capture and interpret human meanings and understandings in the form of textual data, hermeneutics played an important role in providing me with an underlying philosophy for emphasizing the participants’ views, beliefs, and values as given by them. So the principle of hermeneutic circle was applied in a sense that helped me to form a whole understanding of the textual data obtained by interviews through an iterative circle of interpretation, understanding and explanation among the parts of this data and their interrelationships, (cf. Figure 6). Accordingly, this helped me to develop a new, shared meaning that emerged through the iterations of the hermeneutic circle of understanding (Cole & Avison, 2007; Klein & Myers, 1999; Butler, 1998; Walsham, 1995a). Concrete examples and descriptions of how I applied the hermeneutic circle can be found later in the data analysis section where I discuss the use of hermeneutics as an analytical tool. Concerning the principle of contextualization, a whole understanding of textual data should also account for the historical context by reflecting the influence of historical events and experiences on my present understanding in the write-up of the study. Cole & Avison (2007) argued that we understand new events in the context of what we already know. Therefore, the importance of understanding the historical context of events stems from the fact that my pre-understandings of them are transmitted and evolved via cultural mechanisms through time and history. ! 35 ! Principle Fundamental principle of the hermeneutic circle Description The principle of hermeneutic circle is considered to be foundational to all interpretive work of a hermeneutic nature. It suggests that we come to understand a complex whole from preconceptions about the meanings of its parts and their interrelationships. Principle of contextualization This principle emphasizes the main task of interpretive research that is to seek meaning and understanding in context. Principle of interaction between the researcher(s) and the subjects This principle emphasizes that facts in interpretivist research are produced as part and parcel of the social interaction of the researcher with the participants. Principle of abstraction and generalization This principle emphasizes that abstraction and generalization in interpretive research should be related and can be inferred from the study details and particulars as they were experienced or collected by the researcher(s). Principle of dialogical reasoning The emphasis of this principle is to confront personal preconceptions of the initial research design with the data that emerge during the research process. Principle of multiple interpretations This principle requires an examination of the influences that the social context has upon actions under study by seeking and documenting multiple viewpoints. Principle of suspicion This principle implies an understanding of issues behind the meanings and consciousness of the participants. Table 2: Set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive research (adapted from Klein & Myers, 1999) Butler (1998) described it as the ‘effective-historical consciousness’. The effect of historical events through lived experience often influences interpretation and hence understanding of phenomena. This is an important principle that applies to both the researcher and the participants of the research. For instance, during my investigation, I started my conversations with the participants with a general discussion of their background in using technology, experience level, roles and responsibilities at work, etc, in an attempt to understand the historical context of each interviewee and obtain deeper insights into various factors that influenced their interpretations and understandings of the wiki. In fact, this was necessary and at the same time useful to help me realize how the historical background, for instance, in using technology, influenced the willingness of participants to use the wiki. ! 36 ! Similarly, in order to address my preconceptions about the phenomenon under study, emphasis was placed on the perspectives given by the participants. This has helped both in reducing the influence of my pre-understandings and making the participants’ views more explicit. The hermeneutic analysis of my empirical data in section 4.7 provides a clear discussion of how this was achieved. The third principle focuses on the interaction between the researcher and his participants. Understandings possessed by both the researcher and the research participants are dynamic and evolving in the sense that new understandings might be constructed while interacting with each other (cf. Berger & Luckmann, 1991). Therefore, the influence on our mutual interpretations was not only limited to our previous understandings, but also to new emergent and evolving understandings which might be salient due to continued interaction between the researcher and his participants. In other words, my discussions with the participants, about their perceptions of using the wiki, has stimulated new understandings or even changed our previous expectations about this technology. At the beginning of the interview process, both the participants and I innately had various preconceptions and beliefs about the wiki technology. As I was moving from one participant to another, new emergent understandings became salient and our mutual perspectives changed. On my side, I tried to reflect upon these emergent understandings by modifying or adjusting interview questions in order to account for them and also be more just to the evolving process of understanding and interpretation. The fourth principle of abstraction and generalization is a major aspect of interpretive research that has been heavily discussed by many scholars (e.g., Lee & Baskerville, 2003; Klein & Myers, 1999; Walsham 1995a; Eisenhardt, 1989). Generalization is often considered to be the most important challenge for qualitative or interpretive research, especially with case studies, which was used in this research as a vehicle for my empirical inquiry (cf. section 4.6.1), due to the difficulty of treating large amounts of data that often represent relatively small samples of participants. It is referred to the validity of a theory in a setting different from the one where it was empirically tested and confirmed (Lee & Baskerville, 2003). In this context, one way to reflect upon the generalizability, in my interpretive research, is to show the distinction from positivist research. Unlike interpretivists, positivist researchers emphasize generalizability in the form of universal laws of human affairs with large statistical-based samples to be widely known as major catalysts for generalization (Lee & Baskerville, 2003). Nevertheless, generalization from interpretive research is different from positivist research both in terms of the production and use of theory (Klein & Myers, 1999; Walsham, 1995a). Walsham (1993) explained the emphasis of generalizability in interpretivism as follows: “… the validation of an exploration from an individual case or cases depends not on the representativeness of such cases in a statistical sense, but on the plausibility and cogency of the logical reasoning used in describing the results from the cases, and in drawing conclusions from them” (p. 15). In the same vein, Klein & Myers (1999) maintained that theoretical abstractions and generalizations from interpretive studies should be carefully related to the details and particulars of these studies as they were experienced and collected by the researchers. As such, the emphasis on the particular details in the data collected from my study together with a rich description of what has been said and observed are major enablers for generalizing the results from my research. ! 37 ! While it was quite difficult to treat and handle large amounts of textual data in this research, the breadth found in the data has provided me with detailed descriptions of the reality of my participants. In fact, it was these rich descriptions that helped me to delve into the particulars and most importantly integrate them together to develop a whole understanding that can possibly be generalizable into other situations. I used two mechanisms to ensure an adequate level of generalization in my research. First, I put emphasis on collecting rich and thick descriptions from the participants about their perceptions of a wiki. For instance, during my conversations with the participants, I was open to listen to general thoughts about their use of the wiki and even lengthy descriptions of technical examples from their daily work and how these were then reflected into the wiki. The second mechanism was the rich hermeneutical analysis of the empirical data (cf. section 4.7). This was also one effective approach to identify the details and particulars of the research context that helped me in developing a larger picture of the situation. In other words, generalizability of my research results has been addressed by emphasizing a deep presentation of particular instances in the context of the research. Describing multiple perceptions of the openness associated with wiki collaboration is a case in point. In doing so, the breadth of my research findings can be a catalyst to generalize them on other similar contexts. Further, since interpretive researchers are often guided by pre-understandings or prejudices about the phenomena under study (Butler, 1998), the last three principles combined are of considerable importance to the treatment of the influence of such self pre-understandings and prejudices that might cause a potential bias in the interpretation of textual data. Butler (1998) further described these pre-understandings and prejudices following the philosophies of Heidegger and Gadamer on phenomenology and hermeneutics by introducing the concept of tradition. Butler believed that tradition shapes an actor’s pre-understandings or prejudices in which the phenomenological concept of ‘lived experience’ describes the relationship between actors and their tradition as it provides the context of their understanding and contributes to the formation of their prejudices which might be true or false, accurate or inaccurate. In this respect, dialogical reasoning (Klein & Myers, 1999), critical reasoning (Butler, 1998), or the explication of prejudices (Cole & Avison, 2007) are all techniques to help interpretive researchers to be more transparent and reflective about their relative traditions or positions to the phenomenon under investigation. Such techniques would ensure covering up my intrinsic values and motivations that shaped the initial set-up of this research. It is challenging though to introspect myself in a sense of being more open and critical about my own beliefs as I might be accustomed to believe in particular predetermined ways. In practice, the principle of dialogical reasoning has been used as an alarming tool during both the collection and analysis of data to make myself aware of possible influences of my own pre-understandings and expectations on the interpretation of data. For instance, being specialized in the area of social media, it might be possible that I was intentionally or unintentionally led by my understandings to influence the perceptions of the research participants during interviews or even interpret the data in a way that would satisfy my own desires. While I cannot claim such influence has been fully avoided, I do claim that having the principle of dialogical reasoning in mind gave me awareness during my conversations with the participants and the analysis and interpretation of the textual data. A concrete example about this was my attempt to avoid questions that would drive my interviewees to give answers that align with my own expectations. ! 38 ! I was aware of the fact that the wording and tone of the questions might have an influence on the answers given by my interviewees. Also, I was asking questions that challenged my own assumptions about the wiki, thus getting the other perspective. So instead of asking a question with implicit assumptions that a wiki was useful for collaboration, and by that I would challenge my own desires, I tended to ask questions that would stimulate thinking of the other face of a wiki. Generally, the application of the principle of dialogical reasoning was manifested in the presentation of my interview questions. Regarding the last two principles of multiple interpretations and suspicion, they have also been effective mechanisms to ensure that prejudices and biases are avoided by accounting for different contextual and conflicting point of views as well as probing the meanings given by the participants to look for any false preconceptions. In my research, maintaining a certain degree of openness (Butler, 1998; Walsham, 1995a) was helpful for me to confront my own prejudices, be more willing to modify previous assumptions, and account for various other interpretations. In the same vein, theory development in interpretive case study research is often regarded as a subjective process due to the tendency of making interpretations based on self-preconceptions. However, Eisenhardt (1989) believed that the constant juxtaposition of conflicting realities tends to unfreeze thinking and therefore reduces bias in the generation of theory from interpretative research compared to theory development from incremental studies or arm-chair, axiomatic deduction. In this respect, between now and then, I asked challenging questions that helped me to probe the views given by the participants. For instance, if someone explained his views about the need to control the wiki, I would try to probe such a view by asking a follow-up question about the influence of control on the willingness of people to collaborate and share with each other. In doing so, my participants tended to provide clear and concrete explanations that supported the integrity and clarity of their views and beliefs. Finally, the discussion of the above principles aimed at reflecting upon the application of an interpretive method in my research and providing insights into how I carried out an interpretive investigation that accounts for human meanings and social influences in the context of understanding how people used a wiki for the collaboration and sharing of knowledge. In this manner, my investigation supported the argument provided by Walsham (1995a) that more interpretive research was needed in the future in order to account for human meanings and interpretations which are central to IS and the investigations of IS researchers. This is very much aligned with my stance of using an interpretive approach and also satisfies our call in Mansour & Ghazawneh (2009) for adopting a broader view in IS research that accounts for the social context of information systems. Klein & Myers (1999) also explained the importance of interpretivism to help in understanding human thought and action in social and organizational contexts. This ensures the potential of producing deep insights into the studied IS phenomenon. The next few sections will discuss the actual process of my empirical inquiry and explain data collection and analysis processes. 4.5 Process of Inquiry The inquiry process in this research was performed over two exploratory phases: theoretical and empirical, (see Figure 4). The theoretical phase of inquiry was divided into two stages: a theoretical review and an analytical review. The first stage was focused on exploring the field of IS and reviewing contesting views of the core focus of the field. ! 39 ! It aimed at understanding the implications of continued developments in IT capabilities for the core focus of IS research in the light of recent developments and evolution of social media. This effort was reported in Mansour & Ghazawneh (2009) (cf. Part II). The second stage was an analytical review of Wikipedia using the theory of distributed cognition. The focus of this analysis was to develop some preliminary understanding of the dynamics of group collaboration and social interactions in a large social media environment such as Wikipedia. This understanding aimed at obtaining some insights into how people collaborate and share knowledge through social media. In this context, the theory of distributed cognition was used as a theoretical lens through which I analyzed the collaboration process in Wikipedia. This analytical review was discussed in Mansour (2009) (cf. Part II) and addressed the first research question. The second phase of inquiry was built on my preliminary understanding of the theoretical phase in the sense of adopting an empirical approach that accounts for a broader view of understanding the social context of using technology. More importantly, my choice of an interpretive method for this empirical inquiry was informed by this account so as to emphasize a deeper empirical understanding of the social processes that take place during the collaboration and sharing of knowledge within communities. As such, this empirical inquiry aimed at examining the use of the wiki technology for knowledge collaboration and sharing at a large multinational organization. The ultimate goal of this inquiry (cf. Mansour et al., forthcoming) was to understand how the wiki technology was used by professional CoPs within an organizational context. This was achieved through exploring the perceptions of several employees and managers towards the introduction and use of the wiki for community collaboration and knowledge sharing. Accordingly, my empirical inquiry addressed both the first and second research questions. The following figure visualizes the process of inquiry and also shows the relationship between the research papers in different phases in respect to addressing the research questions: Figure 4: Visualization of the process of inquiry. ! 40 ! 4.5.1 The use of theory The use of theory varied during several stages of the current research work. Primarily, the use of theory has been guided by my interest in seeing what was and what was not available about the phenomenon of using social media in organizations given my initial assumption that the literature addressing this particular phenomenon was still in its infancy. So looking at the literature was necessary and thus marked the early stages of this research. Accordingly, I started with a review of existing theories, studies, and themes available in the literature. It was useful to look for research opportunities and also identify gaps to be filled by contributing more empirical knowledge and understanding on how organizations use social media to exchange and share knowledge amongst their employees. The framing and development of my research problem as well as the justification of why such research was needed have been two fundamental outcomes from the review of related theories and studies available in the literature (Creswell, 2009; Walsham, 1995a). Chapter 2 provided an overview of several theoretical considerations and related studies. However, the use of theory was not only limited to the early stages of framing the problem and justifying the need for this research. It was also used in the final stages in order to discuss emergent issues and themes in my findings and compare them with existing theories and themes from previous literature (cf. Creswell, 2009; Eisenhardt, 1989). In other words, existing theories and themes were used to map my research findings and results into similar and related research in the literature. Eisenhardt (1989) argued that comparing research findings and results with other previous related literature could increase internal validity by accounting to similar and conflicting results and findings and also stimulating further reflections and ideas of why such differences existed. As such, comparing the current research findings with the findings of previous literature has helped me to see where I could possibly fill existing gaps and what contribution and new knowledge have been made to the literature. Hence, the use of theory in both the early and later stages of this research was essential to draw deeper insights and implications into the studied phenomenon in the larger context of existing theories and related studies. It is important to mention that the current thesis is based on a collection of three research papers in which theory was used differently in each one. The discussion of how theory was used in these papers can be found in Chapter 5. The chapter also provides an overview of each of the three papers. The following sections will describe my empirical inquiry and present the data collection process. 4.6 Data Collection Process 4.6.1 Case study as a strategy of inquiry The primary vehicle of my empirical data collection was the interpretive case study. Given my choice of an interpretive methodology, an in-depth case study was selected as the most suitable strategy of inquiry for my interpretive investigation (Walsham, 1995a). The need and importance of a case study as a strategy of inquiry in this research arose from my desire to understand the complex phenomenon of using social media in organizations (cf. section 4.4) within a particular single setting (Yin, 2009; Eisenhardt, 1989). Therefore, it requires a deeper attention to obtain richer understandings and insights into evolving human meanings and actions. ! 41 ! Within IS, Walsham (1995a) argued that the importance of social issues related to computerbased IS has further increased the need for and adoption of empirical approaches, such as case studies, that focus on human interpretations and meanings. In the same vein, Myers & Avison (2002) maintained that case study research is particularly well suited in researching IS because the object of IS research has shifted from focusing on technical issues to organizational issues. Accordingly, case study research is considered to be among the most common and mainstream interpretive approaches in IS (Cole & Avison, 2007; Myers & Avison, 2002). Yin (2009) defined case study research as a distinctive form of empirical inquiry that allows investigators to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events such as individual life cycles, small group behaviour and organizational processes. Eisenhardt (1989) pointed out that a case study is a research strategy, which focuses on understanding the dynamics presented within single real-life settings. In this regard, the design of a case study may involve a single case or multiple cases and units of analysis (Yin 2009; Eisenhardt, 1989). In this stage of research, I focused on a single case design, (see Figure 5), with a single unit of analysis, i.e., individuals through whom I sought to provide and contribute descriptions of the situation, rich insights, and implications rather than generate a theory (Eisenhardt, 1989; Walsham 1995a). These contributions represent possible generalizations (cf. section 4.4.1) from my current case study and might thus be applicable to other similar situations. Figure 5: Single case study design (adapted from Yin, 2009, p. 46). Hence, my choice of using a case study as a strategy of empirical inquiry was determined by the need to gather data that help in capturing deeper insights and meanings from my participants. In doing so, I make sure the purposes of the interpretive investigation are achieved and also meet my main goal of understanding how people use social media in an organizational context. The next section describes the triangulation of multiple sources of data, which is one of the major strengths in case study research (Yin, 2009; Eisenhardt, 1989). This further supported my choice of a case study since it allows for obtaining deeper understandings of human meanings and actions. ! 42 ! 4.6.2 Data triangulation One of the major strengths in case study data collection is the ability to combine multiple sources of data (Yin, 2009; Eisenhardt, 1989). This process is described as data triangulation through which researchers attempt to combine and converge several sources of data to gather more evidence about the studied phenomenon. Yin (2009) believed that data triangulation allows researchers to address a broader range of behavioral and historical events. In addition, the use of multiple sources of data can help in increasing the validity and robustness of collected empirical data (Yin, 2009; Rowlands, 2003). In this respect, there are several data sources that can be triangulated in a case study. These include interviews, observations, documents, field studies, artifacts and archival records. (Yin, 2009; Walsham, 1995a). In my case, I have triangulated four main sources of data: interviews, field notes, participant observations, and documents. I started my empirical data collection with several in-depth semistructured interviews to obtain richer insights into my participants’ affairs and behavioral events. Interviews are considered the most important source of evidence in case study research (Yin, 2009; Walsham, 2006). Participants in these interviews were selected based on their experience, seniority level, activity of using the wiki, gender, age, community membership, computer experience, and geographical location. A senior KM specialist at CCC, who is also a co-author of Paper III, helped me in selecting research participants among the 700 members registered in all CoPs. After revising their profiles, we decided that only 28 members best match the selection criteria. These members were affiliated to at least one wiki-based CoP (cf. section 3.3.2) and were stationed in multiple locations and projects across the globe (e.g., Australia, Greece, UAE, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Oman). The range of their experiences at the company varied between ten up to thirty years. Further, these members had different roles and levels of activity within their communities (e.g., community leaders, managers, captains) (cf. section 3.3.1). Then, I send an interview invitation email to all these members to participate in my research case study. The email contained information about me, description of the focus and purpose of the case study, and other practical information related to voluntary participation, confidentiality issues, interviewing time, etc. I received twelve positive responses from senior employees and managers expressing their interest and readiness to participate in my case study. Pertaining to the interviewing process, I developed a case study protocol to guide my conversations with the participants (cf. Yin, 2009). This protocol was used as a tool to enable flexible control of the ongoing dialogue so that I could maintain a logical thread in asking questions and allow for interesting issues to emerge during the conversation. It contained information about the study as well as other procedural information. More importantly, it contained a variety of themes related to the wiki technology and its use for community collaboration and sharing. These themes, such as openness of the wiki, free editablity, knowledge sharing, and others, were derived from various sources in the literature (cf. chapter 2). Additional important themes, obtained through my discussions about the wiki platform with the KM Department, were also added into the case study protocol. The use of a flexible set of themes, instead of a structured set of questions, was useful to allow for a fluid stream of questions and the emergence of other important themes that informed my conversations with the interviewees. The total number of interviews was twelve including two face-to-face interviews. The two personal interviews were conducted during my first field visit. All interviewees were introduced in the purpose of the research and their consent was taken to participate in the interviewing process. ! 43 ! With the exception of two face-to-face interviews, during the first field visit, all the other interviews were conducted either via telephone or an online conferencing system (e.g., Skype) over one month. In this respect, the geographical distribution of my participants in different parts of the world was economically unfeasible and nearly impossible to meet them in person. While face-to-face interviews might provide the opportunity for closer interaction with the participants and account for facial expressions and body language, my online discussions with the participants allowed for observing the interviewees through a video camera. And while telephone interviews were limited to audio-based communication, my conversations were rich and informative. The length of both telephone and online interviews varied between 45 – 90 minutes and all interviews were recorded using an electronic voice recorder and later transcribed leaving me with 126 pages of transcribed text. The other sources of data were obtained during two field visits at CCC. Fieldwork is considered to be a fundamental basis for any interpretive study as it gives interpretive researchers the opportunity to observe and participate from within the site (Walsham, 2006). In the first field visit, I spent three days at CCC headquarters in Athens, Greece, to learn and observe their wiki and also to discuss my research collaboration with the KM Department. During this visit, I mainly observed how the wiki was structured and communities were represented. Several screenshots of the wiki were taken to document my observation. The observation of the wiki gave me richer insights into how several knowledge spaces were categorized and how community members interacted with each other through contributing articles and commenting on them. The second field visit was to CCC premises in Abu Dhabi, UAE. This study visit aimed at participating in one of the quarterly meetings of the hydrotesting and precommissioning community in order to observe how community members, including managers, captains, and normal members, contributed to the content of their community and discussed related issues in the wiki environment. My participation in this meeting was as a participant observer. Yin (2009) explained that a participant observer’s role in a case study provides a distinct opportunity to gain access to events or groups that are otherwise accessible to a study. Accordingly, I had the ability to understand the key role of community meetings in contributing to the development and growth of the wiki through mutual discussions of ideas among members during the meeting. Several field notes were collected during the two field visits for later examination. In addition, several forms of documents were obtained during the two field visits to further support my understanding of the wiki platform at CCC. I obtained documents mainly in the form of presentations prepared by the KM Department which described different aspects of its processes, communities, and the wiki platform. Also, general presentations of the company were obtained to learn additional information about various organizational activities. Further, several volumes of the monthly newsletter published by the KM department were also obtained. These newsletters were a useful source to gather statistical data about the number of contributors, top contributors, total contributions, total views and downloads, etc. in different communities. They also covered relevant information about the activities of each community and their community meetings. Generally, these documents were useful in helping me describe my case at CCC and provide concrete information about the company, the wiki platform, knowledge management initiative, and CoPs. A summary of several data sources used in this research is presented in Table 3 below: ! 44 ! Source Number Period Description Interviews 12 1 month 5 telephone interviews, 5 Skype audio-video conversations, and 2 face-to-face interviews. Field visits 2 5 days 2 field visits have been conducted. The first was at CCC headquarters in Greece mainly to observe the wiki and meet the KM people. The second was at CCC premises in UAE to participate in a quarterly community meeting. The first study took 3 days while the second was for two days. Several field notes were taken. Observation 2 3 days 1 day of observation of the wiki through an internal CCC network during the first study. Several screenshots of the wiki were taken. 2 days of participant observation during one of the quarterly community meetings in the second study. Documents 10 - 3 KM presentations, 3 public CCC presentations, and 4 volumes of the monthly newsletters Table 3: Summary of multiple sources of data 4.7 Data Analysis and Validation In the above discussion of my methodological stance (cf. section 4.4), I have shown that hermeneutics, and particularly the concept of hermeneutic circle, could provide a foundation for all interpretive work of a hermeneutic nature (Klein & Myers, 1999). I have attempted to present hermeneutics as an underlying philosophy of my interpretive research. However, while hermeneutics can be used as a philosophical foundation for or approach to human understanding, it can also be used as a mode of analysis (Cole & Avison, 2007; Myers & Avison, 2002; Butler, 1998). Myers & Avison (2002) explained that the use of hermeneutics as a mode of analysis suggests a way of understanding textual data with the basic question of ‘What is the meaning of this text?’. In this respect, Trauth & Jessup (2000) believed that the objective of interpretive research is to piece together people’s words, observations, and documents into a coherent picture expressed through the voices of participants. This process is well described through the concept of hermeneutic circle, which emphasizes a circular understanding and iterative interpretation of the textual parts and their relationships with the whole (Cole & Avison, 2007; Trauth & Jessup, 2000; Klein & Myers, 1999). So the objective of using hermeneutic analysis in an interpretive investigation of an IS phenomenon, such as social media, is to make sense of the organization as a text-analogue (Myers & Avison, 2002). A visual description of the hermeneutic structure of understanding is shown below, (see Figure 6), to make explicit the circle of understanding my empirical text-based data: ! 45 ! Figure 6: Structure of understanding (adapted from Cole & Avison, 2007, p. 823) As I continue to move through this circle, the parts of my data are consolidated into an emergent whole understanding of the phenomenon. In this manner, I reviewed and analyzed transcribed texts from my interviews with an emphasis on identifying the parts, represented by codes, and their relationships with the whole: understanding the use of the wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing. Two analytical procedures have been used to support the circle of understanding including open and axial coding (Rowlands, 2003). I have used open coding, a well-recognized analytical technique to develop meanings and themes in hermeneutic analysis (Rowlands, 2003; Trauth & Jessup, 2000). This was done in order to identify the parts through segmenting the data into codes which represented the perceptions and meanings of my participants. For instance, in each transcript, I first went through the text in a linear manner by reading and making notes on specific parts of the text. These parts were identified based on my interpretation of their significance and relationship to the overall aim of the study. Then I developed descriptive codes that represented the meanings of each specific part (e.g., I used the code ‘openness’ to describe what one participant said about how employees at the organization used the wiki to make their knowledge and experience open and accessible by everyone). Then, axial coding was applied by going back and forth across the text to enable connections among these parts and codes through a circular process of interpretation and understanding, thus allowing flexible adjustment and rearrangement of emergent themes and general explanations of relevant aspects of the phenomenon, (see Figure 6). This circular movement was performed after all the parts and codes were identified across each complete transcript. The circular movement helped me to clarify the connections among these parts and codes and then develop a whole understanding from combining them together. For instance, two or more codes about the openness of the wiki could be identified when I went back and forth across the transcript. Then moving across these codes allowed for a larger theme or understanding to emerge (e.g., barriers of openness to wiki collaboration). In fact, it was this circular movement that has helped me to make sense of the parts in respect to the whole and therefore develop a general understanding that accounts for the subjective meanings and interpretations of my participants. ! 46 ! Further, a cross-transcript analysis, using the same hermeneutic circle of understanding, was applied to enable an overall interpretation and understanding of several codes and themes that were identified in each individual transcript. I matched similar codes found in each transcript in order to draw general conclusions and ensure integrity in my analysis. While going through the codes in multiple transcripts, I was able to match similar codes and themes and make relationships among them, thus developing a general understanding of several themes. Eventually, the circle was a useful tool for analysis of my participants’ perceptions and views in terms of uncovering and understanding their meanings of using the technology and facilitating a cross-analysis of several codes and themes. However, this circular interpretation process was rather fluid and was determined by my subjective beliefs and values (cf. section 4.4). According to Walsham (1995a), what we call our data is in fact our interpretation of other people’s interpretations. He further argued elsewhere (Walsham, 1995b) that value-free data cannot be obtained in interpretivist research. He explained that this is because enquirers use their preconceptions to guide the collection process and most importantly both enquirers and research participants tend to change their preconceptions as they interact together (cf. section 4.4.1). Consequently, validity problems arise and their treatment becomes fundamental to ensure the validity of the research findings. Validity in interpretative research is essential as it addresses the subjective nature of data collection and analysis (Kaplan & Maxwell, 1994). In this respect, data triangulation is considered one important strategy to address construct validity problems (Yin, 2009; Kaplan & Maxwell, 1994; Lacity & Janson, 1994). Yin (2009) argued that the combination of multiple sources of evidence, through data triangulation, addresses validity problems by providing multiple measures of the same phenomenon. In my research, the triangulation of multiple sources of data (cf. previous section) provided an important remedy to validity problems. For instance, my discussions with the participants provided me with rich descriptions of the wiki platform and the way CoPs collaborated and shared knowledge with each other. However, despite their richness, these descriptions were rather vague. It was until I have conducted my observation of the wiki during the first field visit that I was able to develop a better understanding and a clear picture of how community members really collaborated and shared knowledge with each other. Similarly, the participation in one of the community meetings has helped me in obtaining a better understanding of the discussions among community members and how they shaped the development and evolution of the community content in the wiki platform. Therefore, the triangulation of data was one major approach to test its validity. Further data validity approaches included member checks or participant reviews (cf. Kaplan & Maxwell, 1994; Lacity & Janson, 1994). I managed to send a random number of interview transcripts to the participants for review and evaluation of the conversation. In addition, the emphasis on obtaining thick descriptions (Yin, 2009) and rich data (Kaplan & Maxwell, 1994) was an additional way to test my prejudices against detailed pictures revealed in the data. 4.8 Ethical Considerations Doing interpretive research is always faced with various ethical challenges and dilemmas due to the involvement of human participants in different social and organizational contexts such as the workplace. These challenges and dilemmas often implicate the chosen approach throughout the entire research process. ! 47 ! Given my choice of an interpretative approach that focuses on human actions and situations, it becomes essential to reflect upon a number of ethical issues that have been encountered during the interaction with my participants both during the interviewing process and the participation in one of the community meetings. According to Iivari et al. (1998), the ethics of research are the assumptions that determine the responsibility of researchers for the consequences of the research approach and its results. This statement implies the need for awareness not only during the data collection but also after the end result has been achieved. Walsham (2006) discussed three ethical issues that might arise when doing interpretive research. These issues are confidentiality and anonymity, working with the organization, and reporting with the literature. In doing interpretive research, confidentiality and anonymity of research participants have always been challenging ethical concerns. During my data collection, particularly during the interviewing process, confidentiality and anonymity issues were major ethical challenges for many reasons. y research participants were working at CCC as senior employees or managers on a higher level. These participants were selected with the help of the Department in charge of the wiki platform as well as CoPs (cf. section 4.6.2). It was thus difficult to maintain the identities of these participants for the people leading the Department. However, interview transcripts containing what had been discussed with each participant have been maintained given the participant demands that his or her views and ideas not be disclosed or made known to anyone. Although the participants information has been kept confidential, I can t claim their anonymous participation in this research. ost likely, being in higher positions at CCC would provide them with more confidence even if their identities were revealed. It might be argued that younger employees would be more concerned about their identities since they might be reluctant to make their views known to their superiors. Perhaps that was why almost all of the participants had no problem with revealing their identities and even giving their consent to disclose their views when I explained to them their right of confidentiality and anonymity at the beginning of each interview. It is also important to mention that one of the senior employees at the Department was the second author of Paper III, which created an ethical challenge for maintaining the transcripts of the interviews. He, however, had a limited role in describing the case and the wiki platform with an indirect involvement in the discussion of the findings. rthermore, since I used several organizational documents to obtain more understanding about the case, I had discussions with people whether I could use parts of the text, diagrams, and statistical data available in these documents and report them in my published work. I was not asked to maintain any of this information since some of it had already been public on the web or shared with other international organizations. Another ethical aspect was related to my involvement in the field in two instances. The first was, during a field visit to CCC headquarters in Athens. In that visit, the main data obtained for this research was the observation of the wiki. A senior specialist described the wiki for me and several screenshots were taken. I was permitted to get these screenshots as they mainly showed the structure of the wiki rather than the content. The second was during my participation in one of the community meetings held in CCC premises in the AE. I was invited to participate in that meeting in order to obtain a practical idea of how these meetings contributed to each community. During the meeting, I had the role of a participant observer with no influence or interference in the meeting. ! 48 ! Overall, my awareness of potential ethical issues that needed to be addressed during the research process was necessary to ensure a maximum degree of ethical conduct. One of the major issues in this research was avoiding harm and contributing something good to the research participants and the organization where they worked. It was observed during my discussions and interviews that my research had to some extent stimulated new understandings about the use of the wiki for the collaboration and sharing of knowledge for both my participants and the organization represented by the KM Department. This, I hope, would be considered a moral outcome that shows my ethical commitment to doing research. ! 49 ! ! ! ! Chapter V Papers and Findings ! 50 ! This chapter presents a summary of three published research papers which represent the basis of this thesis. Two of them are theoretical and one is empirical. The chapter provides an overview and findings of each of these three papers to provide a general understanding of the aim and focus of each. The aim of this chapter is to outline my research efforts and present the basis of the current thesis. 5.1 Theoretical Papers 5.1.1 Paper I: Research in Information Systems: Implications of the constant changing nature of IT capabilities in the social computing era - Overview: This paper is mainly a theoretical review of the works of many leading scholars in the field of IS. The aim of this review was to explore and understand distinct views of the core focus of IS research and argue for adopting a broader view that accounts for the social context of information systems. The motivation for this review was to examine the influence of the constant changing nature of IT capabilities on driving the scope and focus of IS research which continues to become broader due to more integration of technology in our everyday social and professional lives. The argument was based and influenced by recent technological advancements which represent the social computing era. This era involves the emergence of social media and the second generation of web technologies (Web 2.0) (Yates et al., 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). In order to argue for a broader view that emphasizes the importance of the social context of information systems, I first classified the views of many scholars of the core focus of IS research into two main views: the narrow view which argues for the IT artifact to be the core subject matter in IS (e.g. Benbasat & Zmud, 2003; Weber, 2003; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001) and the broad view which argues for taking a holistic view in IS research that accounts for social, cultural, structural, and economical aspects of information systems (e.g. Agarwal & Lucas, 2005; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001; Orlikowski & Barley, 2001). Then, I discussed the constant changing nature of IT capabilities and presented a number of views and conceptualizations of IT. In this respect, I showed how these views implied several changes in IT capabilities and reflected different ways of treating IT in IS research. Most importantly, I showed that continued technological changes and advancements are not only changing IT capabilities but also driving the focus of IS research. This is due to the fact that technology is taking different roles in terms of being more ubiquitous and integrated in the everyday lives of people. Three historical eras by Mathiassen (1998), used as an orienting framework for proposition of a fourth era (Creswell, 2009), were presented to show how developments in technology are creating new practices in organizations and larger societies. Equally important, Mathiassen (1998) argued that the evolution of systems development practice has increased the variety of technologies and the social dependence on IT applications. Finally, I presented the example of social computing to show the most recent technological developments and capabilities. After Mathiassen (1998), the example of social computing has been used to argue that increasing advancements in technology emphasize the need to have a broad focus in IS research by incorporating theories from other fields to study and understand not only the IT artifact but also new social challenges and implications created by evolving social computing applications. ! 51 ! Accordingly, I argued that a mere focus on the IT artifact could lead to the failure of developing, designing, and implementing information systems. Therefore IS researchers should account for various social issues that arise due to increased integration and use of technology in our everyday lives. Paper I is attached in Part II of this thesis. - Findings: The main outcome of Paper I was a proposal of a fourth era representing developments and changes in technology as shown in Table 4 below. This proposal was based on three previous eras proposed by Mathiassen (1998). Mathiassen (1998) explained that these eras represent historical changes in systems development practice and result from the evolution and emergence of new technologies and applications. The three eras summarize a survey of important changes in the last forty years. These eras included the purpose and justification of using IT, types of developed applications, used technologies, skills required by systems developers, and applied strategies for improving systems development quality. 2000s - Nowadays Authors Purpose Open strategies, social West (2003); Hall (2004); Wolpert & innovation, collective intelligence, Tumer (2000) collaborative practices Applications Social software and applications (desktop, web, and mobile) Parikh (2002) Technology Web 2.0, cloud computing, ubiquitous computing, artificial intelligence Vossen & Hagemann (2007) ; Vouk (2008) Negnevitsky (2001); Lyytinen & Yoo (2002) Skills Collaborative and sharing skills, Tapscott & Williams (2006) openness, user-generated content Improvement Social process improvements Lamp & Kling (2003) Constraints Organization, environment / social context Cronk & Fitzgerald (1997) Focus Social context / sociotechnical Yoo et al. (2008) Table 4: Recent changes and developments in technology in the fourth era of social computing (adapted from Mathiassen, 1998, p. 6) Then Mathiassen (1998) discussed these changes in each era; he showed how changes in systems practices have transformed the use of IT. Accordingly, the three eras of Mathiassen have provided us with a framework that serves as a basis for a fourth era that covers the period from early 2000 up to the present. This era aimed at providing a general overview of recent technological changes and advances particularly those that refer to the emergence of social computing technologies, namely, social media and Web 2.0. ! 52 ! Several change categories from Mathiassen (199 ) have been adapted to present changes in the social computing era. Other categories have also been included to provide an overall conceptuali ion of a new era of IS research. This conceptuali ation provided several changes pertinent to the purpose of using technology, types of developed applications and technologies used, skills required and possessed by users, improvements and constraints caused by social computing and the evolution of a broader focus for IS research. 1.2 per II: Group Intelligence: A Distributed Cognition Perspective Overview: This paper is an analytical review using the theory of distributed cognition in the context of a large social media collaborative environment: ikipedia. This theory was used as a broad explanation for behavioral processes which describe group processes and interactions (cf. eswell, 2009). The aim of the review was to analy e and examine the emergence of intelligence, as group cognition, among members of a social group supported by collaborative social media technologies. A ma or motivation for this paper was to understand how collaborative knowledge development and sharing, using social media, could lead to the emergence of intelligence on a group level. It was argued that learning is interactional in the sense that individual knowledge is a result of social interactions with others. Therefore, learning and intelligence are products of group interactions and are not limited to individual human minds. In this view, it was further argued that communication and distribution of knowledge among members of social groups might result in cognition to be distributed and shared among them and, therefore, lead to the emergence of group cognition that is not reducible to individual human minds. Accordingly, group cognition consists of a combination of cognitive processes which include group memory, problem solving, and decision making capabilities which sum up human intellectuality (Hutchins & lausen, 1996). To explain group cognition, the theory of distributed cognition helped in analy ing and understanding the flow of cognitive processes among group members as well as how these processes are distributed and shared through the collaborative construction of knowledge. kipedia was chosen as an example of a collaborative social media environment where knowledge is created and shared through collaborative contributions of many members. ocesses of collaborative knowledge construction have been shown to embody several aspects of the theory of distributed cognition. In this respect, the process of creating and sharing of knowledge in ikipedia involves iterative propagation of multiple ideas and states of people in the form of collaborative knowledge. Once shared, these ideas and states are altered by other people resulting in cognition to be distributed and shared among group members. More clearly, in the case of collaborative knowledge construction in ikipedia, people perform a variety of activities such as creating, editing and discussing collaborative knowledge. This knowledge represents the content of thoughts, meanings, and interpretations of people. The iteration of propagating and altering knowledge creates continued distribution of cognitive processes, which can be seen as cognitive organi ion. ventually, it was argued that cognitive organi ion could serve as a catalyst for intelligence to emerge on a group level. Findings: The main finding of this paper was the development of a process model conceptuali ng several cognitive based collaborative processes. This model aimed at describing several collaborative knowledge construction processes involved in the collaboration and sharing of knowledge in ikipedia (cf. Mansour, 2009). ! 53 ! The model includes five different processes, derived from the theory of distributed cognition, and represents several aspects of the theory (cf. Hutchins, 2000; Hutchins & Klausen, 1996). These processes are repeated patterns of activity, repeated distribution of access to information, repeated distribution of awareness, repeated distribution of information storage and repeated read backs and error-check. Each process is repeated or redundant in the sense of being continuous and iterative. The interplay between these five processes represents the collaborative construction of knowledge in Wikipedia which is based on the wiki technology. In this context, knowledge contributors are freely and openly allowed to contribute and shape knowledge (cf. Yates et al., 2010) for the purpose of developing articles collaboratively. As such, they are allowed to perform several activities, such as creating, shaping, and commenting, in an iterative manner. This also implies the ability to collaboratively access knowledge, distributed among knowledge contributors, and make refinements and error-checks to enhance contributed knowledge. In this manner, each process is iterated and driven by continued interactions among knowledge contributors. Eventually, the application of these processes characterizes dynamic and evolving collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge. These processes are thoroughly described in section 6.1.1 5.2 An Empirical Paper 5.2.1 Paper III: Wiki-based Community Collaboration in Organizations - Overview: This paper reports empirical results from an interpretive exploratory case study about the use of a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing. The aim of this study was to identify and explain factors that influenced wiki collaboration through the exploration of the perceptions of community members who belonged to several specialized wiki-based CoPs such as managers and captains. Empirical data collection took place at a large multinational organization called Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) which used a wiki as a collaborative platform for connecting stationed employees across the world and leveraging and managing their knowledge and expertise obtained from projects. In particular, the wiki was mainly used by members of professional wiki-based CoPs to contribute and share ideas, experiences, methods and best practices related to their projects. These CoPs represented different technical specialties at the company and were led by community managers, captains and SMEs. The wiki was also open for all employees at the company to read and comment but with variable degrees of accessibility. An interpretative case study was a vehicle for empirical data collection and multiple sources of data were triangulated to obtain further evidence for the results. The study included twelve indepth interviews with senior employees and managers. It also included two field studies through which there was observation of the wiki as well as participation in a community meeting of one of the eleven wiki-based CoPs at CCC. Further data was obtained through examination of organizational documents which included public organizational presentations, official KM presentations, and the KM monthly newsletter. A hermeneutic method was used to analyze qualitative data following the principle of hermeneutic circle. The validation of data was achieved through obtaining multiple measures of the situation by triangulating different sources of data, rich descriptions and member checks. ! 54 ! Finally, the outcome from this study was rich insights describing paradoxical or dual consequences of using a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing within organizational settings. These insights provided an empirical basis for further studies on a Ph.D. level, as discussed in chapter seven. - Findings: Paper III reported empirical findings on the use of the wiki for community and knowledge collaboration at CCC. These findings provided rich insights into how organizations used the wiki technology to enable and support collaborative practices such as gathering and sharing knowledge by their individuals and communities. The wiki was expressed in synonymous terms with Knowledge Management (KM) at the company as described by a group technical manager: “The basic principle of KM, first of all, is gathering of experience gained by the people in the company, which until KM was introduced, was the property of the individual and it was not spread. And the second step of KM was the systematic analysis of the subject and the spreading of this knowledge to selected users. So this is the only vehicle. One cannot spread such information to such a vast number of users by any other means”. In this respect, CCC used the wiki for specific aims and objectives, thus making it a formal tool for managing and sharing work-specific knowledge. One control project manager said: “…our knowledge management is very specific to CCC and is very applicable towards our own procedures.”. One mechanical construction manager explained: “We are not general users of the wiki; we have an aim for the use of the wiki. We use it efficiently and effectively in our work and socially in our community, the CCC community”. The wiki was mainly used by members who belonged to several CoPs to share their experiences and knowledge with each other and collaborate for solving problems and proposing solutions related to their work. This was described by one of the control project managers who explained how the use of the wiki enabled easy sharing and access to knowledge among members of CoPs: “It’s much easier now; If I mobilize to a new area, I can easily go to this CoP for mobilization to remote areas, and I can access a lot of information, and it’s not only this. I can share my problems with my colleagues on the other side of the globe”. Further, the wiki was also used to help people connect with each other and establish relationships with experienced community members. “…It will give me an opportunity to know more about these people, what their titles, or functions within the project or the company are. It introduces more people through this media instead of just sitting and knowing the persons around you”. However, the way the wiki was used by individuals and communities was influenced by various factors. These are mostly attributed to the nature of wiki collaboration among individuals and groups. For instance, the concept or nature of a wiki that allowed anyone to openly and freely contribute and edit others’ contributions. It was conceived by the research participants as one of the barriers to collaboration at the workplace: ! 55 ! “…it is not a formal tool to be utilized as a sort of communication ...It is not that much official source that I get something related directly to my job and take it”. Also, the issue of open wiki, where knowledge was accessible by everyone at the company, was a major aspect of the wiki for many of the participants. Accordingly, the open nature of wiki collaboration had a dual impact or multiple dimensions, thus serving as enablers or disablers for collaboration and knowledge sharing. One of the group plant managers at the company explained his stance towards an open wiki environment: “I did not support that thing when it fell in the hands of others. It will make us less competitive. I totally disagreed with that”. However, other participants said that in order for a wiki to help people collaborate and share, it had to be open and uncontrolled by everyone. In this respect, the head of R&D for open source development said: “…You need to create an uncontrolled space and you just allow people to go and talk ...If you want to make it formal, people will not talk. You need to make it really informal”. Further, issues related to the openness of wiki collaboration have been found to impact the willingness of people to contribute and share with each other through the wiki. On the one hand, a construction manager explained how openness might cause problems since everything could be seen by anyone in the wiki environment: “I don’t want to edit for him in front of many users. They will see that I have already edited his article ... He will consider that an insult in front of others”. On the other hand, one mechanical construction manager believed that the wiki has positively influenced his contributive and sharing behavior. He said: “…for my part, I feel it; I have more interest as I told you in giving information. I really feel my information is very valuable when I put it on the wiki and people are looking at it”. Also, the openness of wiki collaboration had a stimulating effect on the contributive and sharing behavior of community members in the sense that when they saw others contributing, they felt more motivated to do the same. A proposal leader said: “When you see more people participating, when you see more people writing, when you feel more confident that the people who will read your input know what you are talking about, you start to be more cooperative. I think this is what added and improved my perception”. Pertaining to the stimulation of the effect of community, open and transparent communication in the wiki environment was conceived by many of the participants to be one important means to connect with other employees and locate experienced members. The group quality manager said: “…The wiki itself has brought all the experts closer in the community. What I mean, now we know who the expert in our domain is, whom we can talk to about a particular issue...Now we understand that we belong to a community…”. ! 56 ! Although the above issues are considered to be enablers for wiki collaboration, challenges also arise because of the openness of the wiki. The group plant manager expressed his opinion about making knowledge open and accessible to everyone at the company: “I was really against such thing that we just had to fill pages because you know people simply would like to show their contributions uantity is sick sometimes”. This statement reflects concerns about the quality of contributed knowledge to the wiki environment since people might contribute to show off in front of a large number of users. The group quality manager had the following comment: “The more contribution on a particular topic, the more other members of the community would treat you as being the expert in this field. This is not necessarily true laugh because what we have to take into account is the quality of the contribution. Quantity can be huge but quality could be very low”. ch concerns have encouraged the introduction of validation and control rules to the contributions on the wiki. The group quality manager explained: “Once a piece of knowledge is submitted, a document for instance, it will be submitted to the knowledge expert who will then review it and he will have to say yes or no, to put it on the wiki or not. The wiki will have only the validated knowledge available for the user”. In addition, each community had regular meetings for its members where they could discuss and agree on several issues related to their content in the wiki environment. “...It is not only exchanging ideas online. We have meetings; ... people of these communities meet and discuss things, and the thing is that there is some kind of filtering and coming up with better ideas and coming up with consensus and agreement on these ideas, so it was not only writing and reading”. ! ! 57 ! ! ! ! Chapter VI Discussion and Implications ! 58 ! This chapter discusses several themes based on the three research papers included in this thesis. It first iscusses the collaborative construction of nowle ge that maps both aper II an per III. Then it iscusses the ual impact of wi i openness an the resulting enablers an inhibitors of nowle ge collaboration an sharing using a w i. The former iscussion resses the first research uestion while the latter resses both the first an secon research uestions. The chapter en s up with a mo el conceptuali ng nowl ge sharing with wi is. 6.1 Collaborative Knowledge Construction The collaborative construction of knowledge includes five different cognitive-based processes which represent several knowledge collaboration and sharing practices using a wiki (cf. Yates et al., 2010; Hutchins & Klausen, 1996). These processes are derived from the theory of distributed cognition and represent several aspects of the theory (cf. Hutchins, 2000; Hutchins & Klausen, 1996). Each process implies a different practice or activity of the collaborative construction of knowledge using a wiki. It is important to mention that each process is redundant in the sense that it is repeated continuously and iteratively (cf. Hutchins & Klausen, 1996). As such, the continuous iteration of these processes enables a dynamic collaborative construction of knowledge (Mansour, 2009). It also characterizes a cognitive organization created through iterative knowledge collaboration and sharing practices. Eventually, the dynamic and iterative ability to collaboratively create and shape knowledge on a wiki (cf. Yates et al., 2010; Cunningham, 2004) helps to maintain an evolving collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge. In this respect, Hendriks (2001) believed that for someone to learn or share knowledge, an act of reconstruction is needed. In other words, it takes knowledge to acquire knowledge and therefore to share knowledge. Such a process involves the acquirer of knowledge to reconstruct his own knowledge based on the new acquired knowledge from others. In this manner, knowledge, being an intangible asset, can be understood as shared. Most importantly, the reconstruction of knowledge requires knowledge owners to display their knowledge in a form that is suitable for reconstruction. However, understanding knowledge collaboration and sharing, using a wiki, goes beyond a limited sender-receiver relationship between knowledge owners and knowledge acquirers. Knowledge collaboration and sharing, using a wiki, involves multiple collaborative processes and a large number of knowledge “contributors” or “constructors” and “reconstructors” or “shapers”. This is because the wiki allows anyone to freely and openly create or shape content (cf. Yates et al., 2010; Cunningham, 2004). One may create or construct new content and many others can reconstruct this content through shaping (cf. Yates et al., 2010) allowing for an evolving process of the collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge. In Mansour (2009) and Mansour et al. (forthcoming), the wiki was discussed as a platform that would facilitate the collaborative construction of knowledge through which people engaged in several collaborative activities or practices embodying cognitive processes. In this context, collaborative knowledge construction aims to describe the collaboration of knowledge which involves joint creation, sharing, and application of knowledge on a wiki. ! 59 ! 6.1.1 Processes of collaborative knowledge construction The first process in the collaborative construction of knowledge refers to redundant or repeated patterns of activity (cf. Hutchins, 2000; Hutchins & Klausen. 1996). This process describes multiple activities related to the collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge on a wiki. It involves creating, editing, linking, and discussing knowledge, all rooted in the particular affordances of a wiki (Yates et al., 2010; Cunningham, 2004; Leuf & Cunningham, 2001). It also represents several knowledge management practices such as knowledge validation, formatting, distribution, and application (Bhatt, 2001). In the same context, Yates et al. (2010) described the process of shaping as a purposeful activity to transform existing knowledge on the wiki into more useful knowledge through rewriting, reorganizing, and integrating knowledge. As such, knowledge shaping on a wiki represents important collaborative knowledge reconstruction activities. Other scholars refer to shaping as open editing or refactoring (Rafaeli & Ariel, 2008; Cunningham, 2002) which also aligns with my conceptualization of collaborative knowledge construction and reconstruction through repeated and iterative activities. In my case, these activities can be observed when community members collaborate for the creation and sharing of knowledge using a wiki. For instance, any community member with access to the wiki could perform a variety of activities such as writing an article about specific procedures or methods, editing other methods contributed by other community members, and linking these procedures to other relevant procedures available on other pages. As more community members continue to contribute and shape knowledge (cf. Yates et al., 2010; Rafael & Ariel, 2008), these activities would be repeated iteratively allowing for a collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge on the wiki. The result of the iterative creation and shaping knowledge on a wiki is redundant or repeated storage of knowledge (cf. Hutchins & Klausen, 1996). This process facilitates the development of a dynamic and evolving knowledge base on a wiki. This knowledge is always updated, refined and stored. Repeated storage of knowledge is directly linked to the creation and shaping of knowledge. Since the wiki allows anyone to create and shape knowledge (Yates et al., 2010), it becomes natural for it to allow anyone to store knowledge. Collaborative writing using a wiki (cf. Forte & Bruckman, 2007) can describe the iterative process of storing knowledge since writing implies adding or publishing content onto the wiki. Yates et al. (2010) also described one important aspect of shaping wiki content: rewriting. The ability to rewrite and override what others have written results in repeated storage (or restorage) of content on the wiki. For instance, in my case, any contribution by community members was subject to change and editing. So anyone with accessibility could shape these contributions by adding new parts or making modifications in the content. This is a common scenario that typically occurs when anyone wants to contribute to a wiki (Yates et al., 2010; Wagner & Majchrzak, 2007). The dynamic storage of knowledge is considered one of the major capabilities of wikis compared to traditional collaborative media such as discussion forums or bulletin boards. Since people are capable of shaping knowledge using a wiki (cf. Yates et al., 2010; Rafael & Ariel, 2008), knowledge continues to be changed and updated (or constructed and reconstructed) through iterative and dynamic collaborative processes. This is related to what Hasan & Pfaff (2006) and Wagner (2004, 2006) described as conversational knowledge management by which knowledge is dynamically created and shared through collaborative writing and conversations. As such, the dynamic process of storing knowledge using a wiki is quite different from using traditional knowledge bases in which knowledge is rigid and structured and thus is difficult to update or change (cf. Yates et al., 2010, Wagner, 2006). ! 60 ! Given the dynamic nature of knowledge creation and sharing using a wiki, awareness becomes an important process for knowledge contributors. More clearly, as long as knowledge is being created and shaped, people need to be aware of any changes in the content of the wiki in order to maintain the iterative process that enables them to continue to create, shape, and share knowledge. The distribution of awareness (cf. Hutchins & Klausen, 1996) may have different dimensions in the context of the collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge using a wiki. For instance, awareness may refer to being informed of any new changes of the content. In my case, the wiki platform allowed for such awareness through sending automatic emails to all community members at anytime a new contribution or change occurred, thus leading to distributed awareness. Awareness can also refer to identifying who owns knowledge and expertise in a particular area. This issue has been discussed by other scholars in the context of knowledge sharing within globally distributed teams (e.g. Kotlarsky & Oshri, 2005; Riege, 2005). Our investigation (cf. Mansour et al., forthcoming) has revealed that the wiki was used as a social networking tool (cf. section 6.2.2) that allowed community members to locate expert contributors, through user profiles attached to their photos, especially within particular CoPs. This ability thus helps to increase awareness about expert contributors and their contributions by community members who will most likely seek to access these expertise and knowledge. Pertaining to accessing knowledge on the wiki, repeated distribution of access to knowledge is concerned with trajectories and pathways of knowledge (cf. Hutchins & Klausen, 1996). Within a collaborative knowledge sharing platform, such as a wiki, access to knowledge is repeated as long as more knowledge contributors perform different collaborative activities on the wiki. Similar to repeated storage of knowledge, this process is directly linked to the open nature of the wiki which allows anyone to create and shape knowledge (Yates et al., 2010). Since the wiki gives an opportunity for any community member to contribute and share knowledge, access to knowledge becomes a natural yet essential part of the collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge. In other words, the ability to create and shape knowledge by anyone (e.g., allowing community members in my case to freely edit and shape knowledge on the wiki) is essential to maintain the open and free accessibility to the wiki. As such, accessibility to knowledge on the wiki would ensure the distribution of knowledge among community members, which becomes a property of the community (cf. Wasko & Faraj, 2000). In the same vein, Bhatt (2001) believed that knowledge distribution is necessary for exploitation of knowledge and allowing organizational members to debate, discuss, and interpret knowledge through multiple perspectives. In other words, restricting access to the wiki might limit the distribution of knowledge, which may in turn limit the dynamic collaborative process of creating and shaping knowledge due to fewer knowledge contributors and shapers. For instance, in my case, access to knowledge was described as one of the challenges facing community members and was considered a barrier to flexible knowledge collaboration and sharing. While some community members were allowed to create and shape content on the wiki, others were only allowed to read and comment on this content. Additional access challenges to the wiki platform might also arise from a large amount of accumulated knowledge that may lack structure and readability resulting in difficulties to search for and access knowledge (Danis & Singer, 2008). This can refer to trajectories of where and how to find knowledge on the wiki (cf. Hutchins & Klausen, 1996). More on accessibility challenges and barriers can be found in section 6.2.1. ! 61 ! A final process of the collaborative construction of knowledge is redundant or repeated read backs and error-check (cf. Hutchins & Klausen, 1996). This is an important process that comes with social media technologies in general and the wiki in particular. It allows individuals and groups not only to write and display knowledge but also make it possible for a group of individuals to collaboratively refine and fine-tune knowledge available on the wiki. The ability to error-check knowledge collaboratively adds more dimensions to knowledge collaboration and sharing with social media because it allows for mutual assessment and monitoring of shared knowledge. So knowledge sharing using a wiki, from an error-check perspective, includes a collaborative effort to refine shared knowledge which becomes part of sharing not only the knowledge but also assessment and organizing capabilities. For instance, in my case, since anyone could edit, anyone could also check articles for errors and make improvements on the content. Also, the role of community captains involved a kind of collaborative “error-check” responsibility in order to improve content and maintain the quality of contributions. ! 62 ! 6.2 Dual Impact of Wiki Openness The impact of social media, in this case a wiki, on the collaboration and sharing of knowledge, is multifaceted (Mansour et al., forthcoming). Social media, like any other kinds of technology, may result in dual and paradoxical consequences in organizations (Robey & Boudreau, 1999; Orlikowski, 1992). My investigation of behavioral attitudes of community members who used a wiki as a platform to collaborate and share knowledge with each other showed a dual impact on knowledge collaboration and sharing (cf. Mansour et al., forthcoming). The duality of this impact is determined by both social interactions among community members as well as the wiki collaborative platform. Openness of wiki collaboration was particularly found to be a major factor that creates paradoxical consequences in terms of enabling or inhibiting knowledge collaboration and sharing. That is, openness might enable or inhibit social interactions among community members and at the same time enable or inhibit the use of the wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing. Openness, in this sense, can be seen as a function of social and technical practices (Benkler, 2006). In this respect, openness reflects a free process that provides anyone with the ability to freely use the wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing (Raman, 2006; Wagner, 2006; Stenmark, 2005). More specifically, openness allows community members to freely and openly perform various collaborative knowledge construction and reconstruction processes as described above. It also allows for a free flow and application of social interactions through joint creation and shaping of knowledge. In my case, members of any community, such as managers, captains, and SMEs had an open access to edit and shape content on the wiki. Also, anyone within or outside the community could see and comment on the contributions made by others and can participate, given accessibility is available, in creating and shaping knowledge collaboratively. All these processes occur openly in the sense that anyone can freely participate and engage in a joint and collaborative effort to co-create and shape knowledge. This is a quite different model from older “closed” models of knowledge collaboration and sharing using, for instance, discussion forums or intranets (Stenmark, 2008; Wagner, 2006). In such environments, there is a lack of joint ownership of contributions, limited social interactions, and a few administrators most often control knowledge contributions of others. In contrast, the wiki, being an open system (cf. Terranova, 2006) allows for a free collaborative creation and shaping of knowledge and thus enables joint control and ownership of knowledge (Stenmark, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006; Ipe, 2003). Section 6.2.2 will discuss the enabling impact of wiki openness in respect to allowing free sharing of knowledge, social networking opportunities, and other aspects that differ from conventional knowledge sharing technologies. Intriguingly, the definition of openness in the dictionary refers to having no enclosing or confining barriers and allowing accessibility to all sides, which in fact satisfies the current discussion of openness. However, this is not the case with open wiki collaboration and knowledge sharing. The next two sections will provide a thorough discussion of the dual impact of wiki openness by presenting a number of major factors that enable and inhibit knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki. ! 63 ! 6.2.1 Inhibitors of knowledge collaboration and sharing One important concern, related to inhibitors of knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki, is the quality of contributions made by community members (Yates et al., 2010; anis & Singer, 2008). Since the wiki is open and allows anyone to edit and shape shared knowledge, it might become difficult to monitor the accuracy and ensure reliability of knowledge (Stenmark, 2008). However, while the quality of shared knowledge was a concern for my research participants, it was not conceived a major inhibitor for knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki due to the application of control and monitoring rules within organizational settings. In my case, the application of such rules was motivated by the wiki openness. This openness was considered a risk on the quality of knowledge on the wiki. Accordingly, only a limited number of community members such as community captains and SMEs were allowed to edit and shape knowledge while many others only had limited abilities to read and comment on knowledge contributions. While controlling and monitoring knowledge on the wiki may ensure reliable and accurate contributions, it still negatively influences knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki. As such, openness of the wiki might create barriers to flexible and free access to knowledge on the wiki and eventually reduce knowledge collaboration and sharing among community members. Related to this is the structure, organization, and integration of shared knowledge. Openness may allow for increased contributions and sharing of knowledge, (to be discussed in the next section), but at the same time create structural and organizational challenges due to the accumulation of large and growing amounts of shared knowledge (Happel & Treitz, 2008) Participants in this research explained that sometimes articles on the wiki might lack a proper structure and comments may become lengthy. This might create difficulties to structure and organization of a growing and dynamic amount of knowledge and may thus lead to chaos and inconsistency (Danis & Singer, 2008). It can be argued that this would threaten the quality of knowledge as well as influence accessibility to knowledge in the sense of becoming difficult to search and find required content on the wiki as discussed before in section 6.1.1. The issue of structuring and organizing shared knowledge might refer to a technical inhibitor (e.g., fluid wiki structure) (Happel & Treitz, 2008), but can also be understood as a social inhibitor. For instance, an observation made during my investigation was that community members used the openness of the wiki and contributed knowledge because of vanity issues. More clearly, people may take the opportunity to contribute and share in order to show off in an open and public environment, like a wiki, in an attempt to attract others’ attention to their own contributions and achievements. My participants conceived such behavior as a threat to the quality of contributed knowledge since these contributions are motivated not by responsibility to share experience but by personal interests. It can be argued that such contributions might be difficult to integrate with other contributions made by others to achieve consistent, reliable knowledge and also raise questions about the ability of the community to collaboratively refine and shape knowledge in order to improve its quality (Yates, et. al, 2010; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). Openness, therefore, might encourage unintended behaviors (e.g., contribute to show off) that may result in mistrustful contributions and in creating technical challenges of structuring and organizing knowledge, which are rooted in social and behavioral practices. ! 64 ! Another important inhibitor is that openness of the wiki might discourage people from sharing their knowledge and collaborating with other community members. This inhibitor has many dimensions. For instance, the wiki by nature allows people to freely edit and change each other’s contributions. Many of my participants explained that they tended to be uncomfortable that someone else would change what they have shared because they believe that such changes might alter the original idea for which this knowledge was contributed and shared with others. In addition to this uncomfortable feeling, participants in this research have expressed uncertainty about whether they would continue to share or not if others continue to edit their own contributions. Many of them favored discussions and comments to agree on any potential changes before editing or shaping contributions. In this case, openness may decrease knowledge collaboration and sharing and most importantly impede the shaping of knowledge (cf. Yates et al., 2010). Eventually, one may argue that controlled or limited editability of a wiki might cause some stability in the wiki environment that might be counterproductive for a dynamic collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge using a wiki. A third important inhibitor is also related to the basic nature of the wiki that allows anyone to contribute and share. I found that people tended to avoid shaping or even commenting on knowledge shared by higher-level contributors (e.g., top managers or senior employees). The hierarchal organizational structure is, therefore, transferred into the wiki, which might negatively affect the democratic effect of the collaborative construction and sharing of knowledge (cf. Hasan & Pfaff, 2006). In fact, such tendency may undermine the principal understanding of a wiki because hierarchal influences might lead to the dominance of particular contributions and also impede flexible and dynamic knowledge collaboration and sharing. A knowledge contributor, for instance, will be reluctant to add anything or edit an article written by his manager, thus creating an atmosphere of indirect control and enforcing a top-down approach to knowledge collaboration and sharing (see Hedlund, 1994; Nonaka, 1988). In addition, it seems that the desire and willingness to share knowledge is not enough for people to contribute their knowledge to the wiki. People need to have confidence and courage to publicly contribute their ideas and experiences to an open platform that is accessible to a large number of people. In this respect, a number of participants in this research argued that even if they were willing to contribute knowledge and share it with others, the fact that the wiki was open for many people made them reluctant to share their knowledge and experience with others through the wiki. This was mainly either due to their lack of courage and confidence and/or feeling of shyness to do so in front of a large number of people as well as their tendency to favor personal or less disclosed interactions and contributions. This lack of confidence plays a negative role in enabling the collaboration and sharing of knowledge in the open wiki environment. Again, going back to the influence of hierarchy in the wiki environment, younger employees often lack confidence and courage to contribute in any form to articles made by their mangers or other senior employees. While their lack of confidence can be rooted in power issues such as hierarchal constraints (see Weiss, 1999; Hedlund, 1994; Davenport et al., 1992), it can also be further nurtured because of the openness of the wiki environment since managers may consider it an insult when a younger employee edits or even comments on their contributions in front of a public audience. ! 65 ! 6.2.2 Enablers of knowledge collaboration and sharing The other side of the dual impact of wiki openness is the enabling of the collaboration and sharing of knowledge among community members. An important enabling impact described by my research participants was their eagerness to use the wiki because it helped them to express themselves freely and voluntarily. The voluntary nature of using a wiki, in the sense of being open for anyone to freely use it for several collaborative activities, played an important role in attracting community members to share knowledge. The wiki being open for anyone (Cunningham, 2004) provides members, who are willing to share, with an opportunity to share their knowledge with others freely and easily. This might be attributed to the low cost of sharing knowledge that may influence people in the sense of being more willing to share (e.g. Tedjamulia et al., 2005; Cabrera Cabrera, 2002; Dyer obeoka, 2000). It also aligns with the basic understanding of knowledge sharing being a voluntary act of making knowledge available to other people (Lee Al-Hawamdeh, 2002; Davenport, 1995). Further, since knowledge contributed to the wiki is open and accessible to anyone, community members tend to feel satisfied when their experiences and ideas are available for the community and can be read and used by anyone else. Many of my research participants, especially managers, explained the importance of this feeling and its positive influence on their contributive and sharing behavior. Their main point was that the wiki provided them with an opportunity to convey their long experiences by making them open and easily accessible to others, which, therefore, makes them satisfied since they feel responsible for sharing their experience with younger employees at the organization. It is important to mention that knowledge contributors can realize the usefulness of their contributions and feel the satisfaction in sharing with others through receiving many comments containing constructive reflections on their contributions or via phone calls from fellow community members who recognize their expertise and are interested in learning more from them. The openness of the wiki also fosters the effect of the community. That is, the wiki serves as a platform for open social interactions (e.g., knowledge shaping) that are visible to everyone in the community. Thus, community members are mutually influenced by these interactions, motivating them to actively join and engage with others in the collaboration and sharing of knowledge. For instance, I found that the ability to see other community members active in contributing their knowledge and discussing issues with each other had a motivating influence on those who were less active, like lurkers, thus encouraging them to be more active and contribute more to the community. In a similar sense, the effect of the community had a positive impact on reducing hierarchal constraints that impede knowledge collaboration and sharing using wikis as discussed above. Participants in this research explained that they were influenced and more motivated to shape and comment on contributions made by higher-level managers because they could see confident members commenting and shaping these contributions. Therefore, the community effect created an atmosphere of confidence and motivation among community members and that played an important role in reducing hierarchy and eventually increasing knowledge collaboration and sharing. Further, part of the community effect is that community members can become closer to each other through allowing for social networking opportunities (see also Pfaff & Hasan, 2007) and the creation of new relationships. ! 66 ! In this respect, I found that visible and open contributions to the wiki, such as adding new articles, commenting, shaping, discussion, etc., allowed community members to start identifying experts in particular domains and then create relationships with them whether through regular joint contributions and interactions (e.g., comments and discussions) or even offline interactions through the phone or during community meetings. Such interactions helped in fostering the feeling of satisfaction by knowledge contributors, discussed above, as well as increasing opportunities for recognition and reciprocity within the community (Bartol & Srivastava, 2002; Orr, 1990). For instance, when community members identify an expert knowledge contributor through his regular contributions to specific knowledge domains, one may decide to call him, after finding his profile information on the wiki, in order to discuss work-related issues together. This will result for both of them in creating a new relationship and an increased sense of satisfaction and recognition by the knowledge contributor. In general, these interactions and relationships might be attributed to informal and formal opportunities which facilitate and motivate knowledge sharing (Ipe, 2003). Informal opportunities include personal relationships and social networks which facilitate learning and sharing knowledge ahapiet Ghoshal, 199 rown Duguid, 1991). In other words, these informal opportunities facilitate the creation of relational learning channels ( ulke aheer, 2000). For instance, a relational channel is created when a community member decides to call one of the expert contributors, allowing them to establish a new relationship and learn from each other. In contrast, formal opportunities include training programs, structured work teams, and technology-based systems which facilitate the sharing of knowledge (Ipe, 2003). They are also called purposive learning channels ulke aheer, 2000). In my case, an example of formal opportunities was community meetings. Community meetings facilitate the creation of purposive learning channels ( ulke aheer, 2000) when community members meet and share their experiences with each other. In addition, it can be argued that such relationships (e.g., social networking among community members through the wiki, community meetings, phone calls, etc.) would further motivate people to collaborate and share knowledge with each other. These relationships provide opportunities to build mutual trust and foster openness among community members. These are critical factors to knowledge collaboration and sharing (Kramer, 1999 von Krogh, 199 ). They can also provide opportunities for community members to show respect and make friendships, which can in turn positively influence their contributive and sharing behavior within the community ( ahapiet Ghoshal, 199 ). Accordingly, the development of these relationships can strengthen members’ commitment and belonging to the community (Wenger Snyder, 2000) since it becomes a source of knowledge and relationships. In this respect, many of the participants in this study described the community as a family where they felt responsible to share with other community members and see the potential of reciprocity and recognition, thus fostering their relationships with each other and with the community. This accordingly motivates knowledge collaboration and sharing (Ipe, 2003 Schultz, 2001 ahapiet Ghoshal, 199 ). ! 67 ! 6.2.3 Classification of enablers and inhibitors of knowledge sharing To sum up the above discussion of enablers and inhibitors of knowledge collaboration and sharing, I will present a classification of these enablers and inhibitors based on three major factors selected from among four knowledge sharing factors identified by Ipe (2003). These factors are based on a comprehensive review of theory and research related to knowledge sharing from the knowledge management and organization literatures. The use of these three factors can be useful to classify enablers and inhibitors of knowledge collaboration and sharing and also to map them into related literature. These factors are the nature of knowledge, motivations to share, opportunities to share, and the culture of the work environment. Each factor is divided into sub-factors. The first factor, the nature of knowledge, involves tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacitness of knowledge (cf. Walsham, 2005; Tsoukas, 2003) impedes knowledge sharing while explicit knowledge can be easily shared. A sub-factor of the nature of knowledge, the value of knowledge is an emotional ownership of knowledge that is driven by individual status, career prospects, and reputation. The second factor, motivations to share, involves internal factors, such as power and reciprocity, and external factors such as the relationship with the recipient (cf. section 2.3.3). The third factor is opportunities to share and this involves purposive learning channels that refer to formal opportunities to share. These channels, which include training programs, structured work teams, and IT systems, facilitate the sharing of knowledge and relational purposive channels, and relational learning channels. The latter refer to informal communications which allow the building of trust, friendship, and respect among people. It is worth mentioning that Ipe (2003) also described a fourth general factor of knowledge sharing: culture of the work environment. He explained that all other factors are embedded within the specific culture of the workplace. In this respect, I chose to focus on the first three specific factors since they could be useful to frame enablers and inhibitors of knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki and map them into the literature. However, the culture of the work environment remains the general context which is represented by the dual impact of wiki openness. This openness frames all enablers and inhibitors for knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki. The classification of these enablers and inhibitors are summarized in Table 5 below: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 68 ! Categories Enablers Nature of knowledge: (tacit and explicit knowledge; value of knowledge). - Inhibitors Realizing the value of knowledge by managers motivated them to share it with others, through the wiki, and release their ownership over their experience. - - Lack of structure and lengthy contributions might influence the “tacit and explicit” aspects of knowledge. Uncomfortable feeling, together with uncertainty to continue to share due to the free editablity on the wiki, are related to the value of knowledge and the sense of “knowledge ownership”. Motivation to share: internal factors including power and reciprocity; external factors including relationships and rewards. - The community effect represents both internal and external motivational factors for sharing. Internal factors are related to power issues in the sense of reducing hierarchal constraints. Also, internal and external factors are related to social networking in the sense of bringing members closer and increasing reciprocity and recognition. - Internal factors are represented by hierarchal constraints and the influence of power and status relationships (e.g., younger employees are reluctant to comment or shape contributions by their managers). Opportunities to share: formal opportunities including training, structured teams, and IT; informal communications. - Formal opportunities are related to community meetings; Informal opportunities include telephone conversations with expert contributors - NA Table 5: Classification of dual enablers and inhibitors of using a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing (adapted from Ipe, 2003) ! 69 ! 6.3 Social Media Approach to owledge Sharing In this section, I will explain my understandings of knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki in a conceptual model that represents a social media approach to knowledge sharing. This model provides a conceptualization of the collaborative construction of knowledge as well as factors influencing knowledge collaboration and sharing. It aims to describe several aspects related to the use of the wiki as a platform for community members to collaborate and share with each other. These aspects build upon theoretical (Mansour, 2009) and empirical observations (Mansour et al., forthcoming). The main focus of the model is on emergent relationships that take place during the collaboration and sharing of knowledge among community members. Such relationships emerge due to the constitutive entanglement between the social and technical dimensions of knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki (Orlikowski, 2000) as will be shown in Figure . I will explain this argument by presenting three conceptual levels of the model, coupled with empirical examples from the current case to support the conceptualization of this emergent entangled relationship (Orlikowski, 200 ). In my case, the wiki served as the technical infrastructure underlying knowledge collaboration and sharing processes. The aim of this technical infrastructure or knowledge architecture was to enable communication and interaction between community members (cf. Pan & Scarbrough, 1999). hatt (2001) believed that a technical system could enable the conversion of data to information. In this respect, the wiki provides an infrastructure for a collaborative platform that allows community members to interact and collaborate for oint creation and sharing of knowledge. For instance, community members used the wiki for a variety of collaborative processes such as contributing knowledge by creating new articles, commenting, discussing, and shaping knowledge. In this manner, the wiki provides a support structure that enables the accumulation of knowledge, supports ongoing interactions among community members, and provides the resources for nurturing a community infrastructure ( enger, 200 ). Accordingly, the wiki represents a community system that supports the state of being sociable in which community members find it easy and comfortable to achieve common community goals such as sharing mutual experiences (Phang et al., 2009). The technical infrastructure is represented by the lower part of the model in Figure . The other central aspect that represents the social dimension of knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki is oPs (cf. nger, 200 , nger et al., 2002). This is related to what Pan & Scarbrough (1999) termed as infoculture. Infoculture refers to the stock of background knowledge which actors take for granted and which is embedded in the social relations surrounding work group processes. Pan & Scarbrough (1999) argued that this kind of cultural knowledge defines constraints on knowledge sharing. In my case, infoculture represented fundamental characteristics of oPs including domain, community, and practice ( enger, . For instance, each community had a specific domai an area of knowledge that brings them together (e.g., hydrotesting and precommissioning). Then there was the community that consisted of a group of people for whom the domain was relevant (e.g., top managers, senior and unior employees, and SM s). This community played an important role in defining the boundaries between the inside and the outside and in determining the quality of relationships among its members. ! ! For example, within each community, there were expert members specialized in several community-oriented knowledge areas related to the particular domain of the community (e.g., expert hydrotesting engineers). These members developed mutual relationships through their regular interactions to address common practical problems and share mutual experience, thus giving them unique identities as members belonging to a particular community. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 71 ! ! Figure 7: Knowledge collaboration and sharing with wikis ! 72 ! This is related to the practice which even brings community members closer since their relationships are not only defined by common interests or domain but also by their actual and practical activities at work. These activities may include mutual methods, cases, tools, stories, etc. For instance, the hydrotesting community members are often engaged in similar practices and may also encounter similar problems and experiences in their daily life pr ects, thus encouraging them to keep interacting and sharing these experiences with each other through the wiki. The social level in the upper part of the model shown in Figure represents this social dimension. The discussion above implies an implicit relationship between both the technical and social levels. The wiki on the technical level provides an infrastructure for enabling and supporting interactions and relationships of the community on the social level. This relationship involves the emergence or enactment of new structures constituted and reconstituted in recurrent social practices on the wiki (Orlikowski, 2000). For instance, community members may use the wiki for various collaborative practices such as creating articles, commenting on articles, organizing and integrating content, editing content, etc. The flexible and dynamic nature of a wiki drives the emergence and enactment of new structures since it allows community members to engage in such recurrent collaborative and social practices, allowing them to structure their use of the wiki in multiple ways. mpirical evidence supporting this argument is the dual impact resulting from multiple interpretations of the role of the wiki in knowledge collaboration and sharing (cf. Mansour et al., forthcoming). I found that the way community members used the wiki created paradoxical or dual consequences (cf. Robey & oudreau, 1999; Orlikowski, 1992) influencing and constraining knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki (cf. Mansour et al., forthcoming). The dual impact of wiki openness is represented by two opposing arrows surrounding the circle containing several collaborative knowledge construction processes in Figure above (cf. sections 6.1 and 6.1.1). For instance, community members had multiple interpretations for the impact of wiki openness. Openness might serve either as an enabler or inhibitor for knowledge collaboration and sharing as discussed earlier. These can be seen as enacted or emergent enabling and inhibiting structures within recurrent social interactions which determine and shape how community members use the wiki. Hence, new emergent structures, represented by the middle level in the model above, involve a set of rules and resources that govern or structure community actions and the use of the wiki (Orlikowski, 2000). Pan & Scarbrough (1999) referred to this level as infostructure of formal rules which govern the exchange between the actors on the network providing a set of cognitive resources whereby people make sense of events on the network. The rules represent enabling and inhibiting factors (cf. sections 6.2.1 and 6.2.2) influencing the resources the collaborative knowledge construction processes (cf. sections 6.1 and 6.1.1). oth rules and resources are instantiated in recurrent collaborative practices (e.g., knowledge shaping on the wiki). This is what makes the relationship a kind of constitutive entanglement rather than an interplay or interaction (Orlikowski, 200 ). There is a recursive, intertwined relationship between social practices of community members and the wiki platform which determines how they interact and share with each other and how they shape knowledge on the wiki (cf. osonen & ianto, 2009). As such, the duality of wiki openness provides a manifestation of how the social and technical levels are intertwined driving the enactment and emergence of new structures governing knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki. ! ! Implications for Theory and Practice 6. 1 Theoretical Implications Many theoretical implications have emerged during my investigation of the use of the wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing within a corporate organizational context. These implications could be summarized into two main themes. The first theme is related to the implications of wiki openness while the second is related to the implications of the spontaneous and voluntary nature of oPs. Pertaining to the first theme, much has been discussed in the literature about the shift or the departure from the top down traditional thinking and hierarchal and structural constraints that impede flexible and dynamic sharing of knowledge. There is also a general sense in the literature that emerging social media technologies, such as wikis, enable the democratization of knowledge sharing in organizations by giving away power to people (e.g. Hasan & Pfaff, 2006; Wagner, 200 , 2006). Interestingly, many observations in this research revealed a different view about openness and the lat organization. In this respect, it is true that a wiki does enable openness and allow for a free and flexible sharing of knowledge. ut within an organizational context, openness might be limited by control rules and procedures dictated by the organization and the top management. In fact, it has been observed that while the wiki was open for anyone at the company, and this satisfies the principal theoretical understanding of the wiki, openness was still tailored towards hierarchal considerations. In other words, while the wiki was open for all, not everyone could exercise the basic principles of a wiki ( unningham, 200 ) such as free and open editing of articles. In my case, the wiki was open to perform editing, shaping, and other processes that had a real impact on shared knowledge only for top managers and experts. For instance, a manager was allowed to edit any contribution on the wiki because he was considered a reference for knowledge in a particular area while other fresh or younger employees were only allowed to read what he had contributed. Theoretical arguments of openness and democratic sharing of knowledge (e.g. Yates et al., 2010; Ariel & Rafaeli, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006; Wagner, 200 , 2006), therefore, need to be reconsidered because social media technologies can also be controlled and people may not have the power to do more than minor commenting, even if this is possible. The emerging understanding of openness needs to be carefully examined in the sense of understanding the conditions of openness, balance between control and openness, and implications of openness for existing structures and cultures in organizations. Intriguingly, hierarchal and structural constraints seem to be salient when introducing open technologies, like a wiki, in organizations. That is, people such as project managers, senior employees, and experts seem to have more power and influence in wiki based communities. For instance, young community members did not have the courage and confidence to comment or edit, if possible, contributions made by members who are higher in rank and position. In other cases, it might be that senior members did not accept comments or edits by other younger members motivated by the fact that the wiki was a public and open environment where a large number of people can easily observe comments and discussions, thus considering any forms of contributions an insult. Therefore, hierarchal thinking, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is transferred into the wiki environment impeding the flexible, dynamic, and open collaboration and sharing of knowledge and creating structural community barriers. ! ! In addition, the dichotomy between existing theories of hierarchy and control and philosophies of openness has many implications on open and democratic collaboration and the empowerment of people using social media technologies for both individuals, communities, and organizations. These implications are of great importance to understand given the increasing adoption of social media technologies and the determining impact on the success of introducing and implementing such technologies in organizations. 6.4.2 Practical Implications Organizations often struggle to cope with increasing developments in technology and adopting new technological solutions to improve their productivity and sustain their competitive edge. They might for such purposes be eagerly willing to support their business processes and practices by introducing new systems or improving existing systems. This is a fact given that most organizations today perform distributed operations and compete on a global level. This makes it imperative to use some sort of technology. In case of using a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing, organizations are faced with further challenges that need to be addressed in order to drive a successful introduction and implementation of this kind of open technologies. For instance, organizations need to focus on nurturing an open environment that motivates employees to share their knowledge and experiences publicly with each other. Equally important, openness might seem for top management a threat to their organizational competitiveness and concerns might be raised whether to be open or not. In this respect, organizations may need to be aware of the balance between control and openness in order to succeed in using a wiki for dynamic and flexible sharing of knowledge. The introduction of control and monitoring rules by the organization, in order to ensure the reliability and accuracy of contributions, might have a negative impact on the democratic effect of wiki openness. If an organization limits access to the wiki, for instance, to managers and senior employees, others will miss the opportunity to contribute and share their experiences. This will nurture unequal sharing within communities by giving opportunities for those with higher status and positions to enjoy dominance in the wiki environment at the expense of the others. In doing so, a wiki that is supposed to enable democratization, flexibility, and engagement might be transformed into a structured and controlled environment that is counterproductive for dynamic knowledge collaboration and sharing. Eventually, organizations are required to develop strategies that support and align with openness in order to achieve the purposes of using a wiki. For instance, developing strategies which maintain equal sharing opportunities among community members, support community engagement, and facilitate openness and transparency. In addition, organizations need to give away power to people when they establish communities to drive the collaboration and sharing of knowledge among employees. Instead of trying to manage and control these communities, by assigning seniors to lead others, efforts should be directed to create conditions for which employees could spontaneously and voluntarily develop, self-organize, and engage in these communities. Accordingly, organizations need to nurture an environment conducive not only to sharing knowledge but also to openness among senior and junior employees in order to reduce hierarchy and increase transparency among them as well as encourage voluntary and free engagement and participation within communities. ! 75 ! ! ! ! Chapter VII Conclusions and Further Research ! 76 ! 7.1 Conclusions At the beginning of this research, two questions were raised in order to address the purpose of developing an understanding of the ways, by which communities used a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing, and to identify factors that would influence their use of the wiki in an organizational setting. The first question was: how do organizations use social media for knowledge collaboration and sharing practices among individuals and groups at the workplace? My investigation of this question revealed that a wiki was used for open knowledge collaboration and sharing that allowed for the collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge. The wiki enabled members within CoPs to collaborate openly with each other for the joint creation, sharing, and shaping of knowledge. The dynamic and fluid nature of the wiki gives a free, recursive nature of these collaborative processes and eventually enables an evolving process of collaborative knowledge construction and reconstruction, thus sharing of knowledge. In fact, the openness of wiki collaboration can be understood by this recursive nature since it allows for the development of multiple interpretations of the role of the wiki and the emergence of new structures that influence knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki. Equally important, the wiki serves as a social platform that allows for dynamic and flexible social interactions among community members. As such, the ability to freely and openly interact within the community further supports the collaborative construction and reconstruction of knowledge by community members. In being a social platform, a wiki can help in the creation of new relationships among community members, thus fostering commonality and increasing mutual trust and friendships within the community. These are all critical factors for enabling and sustaining an evolving process of construction and reconstruction of knowledge. It has also been observed that there was an entangled relationship between the wiki and the members of the community in the sense that social practices of these members were rooted and determined by the openness of the wiki platform. Such relationship shaped collaboration and interactions among community members and entailed various emergent factors, thus having a dual impact on how community members used the wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing. The dual impact of wiki openness represents these emerging factors that might have an enabling or inhibiting impact on using a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing. These factors provide an answer to the second question: what are the consequences and implications for individuals and groups of using social media for knowledge collaboration and sharing? The use of a wiki for the collaboration and sharing of knowledge was found to be multifaceted. This is primarily linked to the openness of wiki collaboration that provides individuals and groups with recursive abilities for both creating knowledge and interacting with each other. The openness of the wiki that allows for free creation and shaping of knowledge as well as transparent and visible social interactions among community members creates a kind of paradox. While openness can be an enabler for knowledge collaboration and sharing, it can also be an inhibitor. The enabling and inhibiting influences on the ways people interact and share have a determining impact on valorizing the open, flexible, and recursive nature of the wiki into knowledge collaboration and sharing. In addition, it can be argued that the openness of the wiki has changed the common understanding of knowledge sharing and widened the scope of knowledge sharing and management practices. ! 77 ! Instead of understanding knowledge sharing as a deliberate act of making knowledge available to others that involves linear knowledge management practices, knowledge collaboration and sharing, using a wiki, can be understood as an evolving social process involving recursive and dynamic social interactions among members of communities of practice through which knowledge is collaboratively constructed and reconstructed and thus shared. This comprehensive process also emphasizes the role of the wiki in enabling or inhibiting these recursive processes going beyond a mere emphasis on social enablers and inhibitors, such as power and trust, which have been extensively discussed in the literature. As such, a wiki in this case is not only conceived as an artifact embedded in a social context but it is treated as a context for social interactions and the evolution of collaborative knowledge. Overall, the argument raised earlier in this research was that social media is changing the ways people work and interact with each other. This could be true to some extent. The role of technology has changed and what people can do with new technologies has also changed in terms of widening and supporting the scope of their interactive and collaborative activities on the web. 7.2 Further Work This research precedes further research work on Ph.D. level and also lays the foundation for more empirical investigations. The current understanding of knowledge collaboration and sharing opens up new horizons for more comprehensive research that builds up on current findings and digs deeper into further aspects of using social media for knowledge collaboration and sharing. Further work is needed to investigate more aspects of the openness of wiki collaboration. The openness of social media technologies in general and the wiki in particular is an attractive area to study its impact on knowledge collaboration and sharing. Given the dual impact of wiki openness within organizations, it becomes necessary to understand how to manage openness in order to achieve and maintain flexible knowledge collaboration and sharing among members of CoPs using a wiki. In fact, it can be argued that openness is one major aspect of all social media technologies which might trigger further research not only to understand knowledge sharing with a wiki but also to study other kinds of social media such as blogs to examine their impact on people in different settings. Further research work is also needed to understand the influence of organizational structures and cultures on people using social media for sharing knowledge. How people are influenced by the structure and culture to openly share knowledge using a wiki at the workplace is an important question to understand since these aspects have not yet been examined in the present research. I believe that understanding such aspects would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the interplay between existing organizational structures and cultures and the enactment of new organizational arrangements due to the dual impact of wiki openness. The importance of accounting for such new arrangements might provide new perspectives about potential changes of how people perceive knowledge sharing and what is different about using social media to share knowledge in organizations. Equally important, going beyond understanding how knowledge is shared to examine the outcome of sharing knowledge with social media for individuals, communities, and organizations is necessary to contribute to an understanding of how these different actors might perceive advantages and disadvantages of social media. ! 78 ! In addition, CoPs are major users of social media for the collaboration and sharing of knowledge among their members. It could be interesting to see how these communities evolve in a collaborative environment such as a wiki. For instance, understanding how communities organize themselves using social media (e.g., a wiki), for the purpose of enabling and managing the collaboration and sharing of knowledge among their members, may provide important insights into the influence of community structures on knowledge collaboration and sharing. It can also provide insights into how communities may serve as vehicles for knowledge sharing in organizations. To sum up, sharing with social media is still wide open for further research and the above suggestions only represent a little of what can be learned about social media in organizations. However, these suggestions may provide valuable contributions to both theory and practice. The attainment of such contributions will be the purpose of my research on Ph.D. level. 7.3 Final Remarks It is of great value to end up this thesis with a few remarks and reflections upon theoretical and practical contributions of this research. One major aspect of wikis that has been dominant throughout the entire research process is openness. Openness seems to be the most important and salient property of using wikis in organizations. In fact, it can be argued that openness represents the shift from a traditional, static web into a dynamic and evolving platform since it creates means for free, flexible, and active participation and engagement among individuals and groups. In this respect, my research contributes to the understanding of this transformational shift by providing rich insights into wiki openness and its critical impact within organizational settings. Accordingly, I believe that a theory of openness would be of a great potential to understand further aspects of technological openness within and outside the boundaries of organizations. The phenomenon of social media is increasingly growing and understanding such phenomenon can be approached by developing new theories that account for technological openness. The current research provided some initial insights that could serve as a basis for developing such theories. Further, I have discussed before that wiki openness might serve both as an enabler and inhibitor for free and flexible knowledge collaboration and sharing using a wiki. This dual impact of wiki openness creates a paradox for the understanding of implications and consequences of technological openness for organizational culture and structures. A theory of openness should also account for this paradox in order to help both researchers and practitioners in designing and managing their models of openness. I believe, for instance, that management scientists and strategists need to seek an understanding of the dual impact of openness on developing business models aimed at enabling and supporting open-driven work processes and environments. In this respect, this research has also contributed to the understanding of this dual impact or paradox by discussing several enablers and inhibitors of wiki openness. 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Molde, orway. [2] Book Cha te selected for ublication in an IRIS32 ecial issue book. [3] In Pa er I, I ha e layed a leading role in fo ulating the focus and u ose of the a er. I was also in charge of aking a re iew of scholarly IS literature in order to de elo the theoretical basis for the e a ination of the new de elo ents in the social co uting era. In addition, I also discussed these d o ents based on the theoretical basis. ! 89 ! ! ! ! ! Research in Information Systems: Implications of the constant changing nature of IT in the social computing era! Osama Mansour Växjö University, Sweden. osama.mansour@vxu.se Ahmad Ghazawneh Jönköping International Business School, Sweden. ahmad.ghazawneh@ihh.hj.se Abstract. The discussion of the core identity of IS research is dominated by a heated controversy between the narrow and the broad views. The paper reviews different perspectives of the core identity of IS and stand in with the broad view. It argued that the constant changes and developments of IT capabilities dynamically drive the core focus of IS research and thus a broader view should be adopted. The paper presents the recent changes and developments of IT in the social computing era where we have shown how recent developments have widened the scope of IS research by involving multiple social aspects of investigation. The paper concluded by proposing some properties of IS research in this era. Keywords. The core identity of IS research, IS, Changes in IT capabilities, Social Computing, Broad view, Narrow view, IS research, Social Context, IT artifact. 1 Introduction The discussion of the core identity of IS has been dominant by a heated controversy by leading IS scholars (e.g. Benbasat & Zmud, 2003; Agarwal & Lucas, 2001, Weber, 2003, Orlikowski & Iacono, 2005; Orlikowski & Barely, 2001, El Sawy, 2003) and others. In essence, a thorough review has been conducted in attempt to classify the main views of the core identity of IS. These views have been categorized into narrow and broad views. On the one hand, the narrow view is focused on the IT artifact as the core subject matter in IS research. On the other, the broad view calls for widening the scope of research by acknowledging the diversity of theories and including multiple aspects associated with the social context in which the IT artifact is embedded and evolved. ! ! ! In this sense, the paper tries to explore this controversy by discussing different approaches and philosophical understandings in an attempt to argue for adopting a broader view in IS research. The paper discusses the positivist, interpretive, and critical philosophy approaches to examine their characteristics in respect to the social context of IS. In order to argue for adopting a broader view in IS research; we have presented the recent changes and developments in the current era, social computing era. Our argument is of a social constructivism taste in the sense of viewing IT systems as social products shaping the social world. Such view implies a broader sense in IS research. At this respect, we tried to touch upon the controversy between the narrow and the broad views by reflecting on the constant changing nature of IT. In order to explicate our stance, we have discussed and presented the recent changes in IT in the social computing era, which represents the fusion of IT in our everyday lives. The paper ends up with proposing a number of properties for IS research which represent a fourth era based on three previous eras that have been discussed by Mathiassen (1998). 2 Origins of the information systems ‘discipline’ The field of Information Systems (IS) is a relatively new area of study – about 30 years – it has been mainly initiated as a response to various challenges that characterize the developments of new technological innovations. Since the field’s inception it formulated itself to be used, adopted and defined broadly with different interests, subjects, domains and sciences, such as, computer science, management science, and organizational science (Baskerville & Myers, 2002; Avgerou, 2000). Thus, IS is considered to be a multi or inter disciplinary field. In this sense, the field of IS has a variety of possible reference disciplines that could deal with, this reflects on IS researchers who need to remain updated and receptive to a wide range of potential new perspectives, methods and approaches, on the issues with which they are interested and concerned (Jones, 1997). There are several prominent identifying features that play considerable roles in the establishment process of IS. The establishment of two major research journals: (1) MIS Quarterly, and (2) Information Systems Research in 1977 and 1987 respectively. Also the initiation of two major research conferences: (1) the International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS), and (2) the European Conference of Information Systems (ECIS) in 1980 and 1993 respectively (Avgerou, 2000). The field then has widely spread as an autonomous academic field in the Americas, Europe, and Australia. However, limited IS research is produced in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Several IS scholars have thought that IS is an applied discipline drawing upon other fundamental disciplines i.e. computer science (Baskerville & Myers, 2002; Avgerou, 2000). This disciplinary nature of IS has been an object of discussion among scholars to define IS as a discipline governed by a set of rules, fundamentals, cumulative tradition, and routine practices (e.g. Jones, 1997; Galliers, 1992; Mingers & Stowell, 1997; Weber, 1999; Alter, 2003). ! ! ! In this sense, alongside the establishment initiatives and continuous developments, there have been different attempts reflecting on IS as a discipline. For instance, Weber (1999) argued that the term discipline implies control and rigor, and foundations or cores are essential to exercise them in IS. He further argued that foundational knowledge is a condition to be called a discipline and without them there is no discipline. However, Avison & Elliot (2006) adopted the definition ‘a branch of instruction or learning’ for the term discipline but rather expressed their reluctance to use it in a rigid way in a sense that implies control and obedience for IS. In contrast to these views, Baskerville & Myers (2002) have a different idea about disciplining IS. They argued that that the field is no longer emerging and has come of age, and time has come for IS to act as a reference discipline to other disciplines. These contesting views about IS being a discipline can be rooted in the lack of a philosophical basis for IS. The philosopher, Thomas Kuhn, discussed the concept of scientific paradigms as disciplinary matrix (Ladyman, 2002). Kuhn explained that this matrix includes a set of answers for fundamental questions about what comprises the real world in the eyes of any scientific community. He further argued that the scientific community learns these answers in the course of their education before they start scientific inquiry and therefore prepares them for research and provides them with a framework within which the science operates. Hence, since and through the establishment process of IS, controversy has been prevailing in the discussions of the core identity of IS. The lack of a solid philosophical basis and the uncertainty surrounding the disciplinary nature and the focus of IS research are natural causes for this controversy which is discussed in this paper. 3 The social context of IS There is no doubt that efficient and effective management of information requires some modern Information and Communication Technologies. However, in the field of Information Systems, technology is one of the main cornerstones but not the entire building or the essence. Information systems are essentially social systems that include information technology as an aspect (Land, 1994; Walsham et al., 1990), which is emphasized in the IS studies that are dedicated to study the social and technical aspects of organizations (Orlikowski & Barley, 2001). Many researchers such as Agarwal & Lucas (2005) suggested that “IS research should adopt a more-holistic view of the social systems (groups, organizations, societies) that we study” (p. 390). Others such as Keen (1980) argued that every research topic in the field of MIS touches on non-technical concern as social aspects. Thus, we believe, that in order to illustrate the complete picture of our research topic and to support our viewpoints, we should give attention to the social context of IS. According to Land (1994) the real world where Information Systems exist, consists of people, objects (concrete that are concerned with actual use or practice, such as machines; and abstract which are considered apart from concrete existence, such as budgets), rules (such as, procedures, frameworks, processes), norms (such as, ways of ! ! ! thinking, acting or practice), and commands (such as a computer software or application). These Information Technology applications are just one part of the whole picture of the means that are required in a given work task or activity. Thus, the social context is formulated to be engaged and take place in the entire debate and disputation concerning IS, and is considered as a vital part of any discussion that scholars can not overlook. This is clearly emphasized when researchers tend to define IS, such as Avison (1997) who emphasizes the role of the social aspect of IS in his definition: ‘A system which assembles, stores, processes, and delivers information relevant to an organization (or to society) in such a way that the information is accessible and useful to those who wish to use it, including managers, staff, clients, and citizens. An information system is a human activity (social) system which may or may not involve computer systems.’ (p.115). As a result, the social context became a central element of the IS tradition in Research and Practice. 3.1 IS research As stated earlier, IS research is a multi or inter disciplinary field, and it is a social rather than an entirely technical science. The foundations of this research topic can be found in various sciences, such as, philosophy, organizational, behavioral and natural sciences (Galliers, 1994). Generally, researchers, such as, Hevner et al. (2004) categorized the IS research in two science paradigms: behavioral science and design science. The behavioral science paradigm is seen to “develop and verify theories that explain or predict human or organizational behavior” and the design science paradigm is seen to “extend the boundaries of human and organizational capabilities by creating new and innovative artifacts” (ibid, p.75). From the definitions of those two paradigms, it is clear that the social context is the base in which both paradigms work on: (1) theories developed in the ‘behavioral science paradigm’ explain the human or organizational behavior which are parts of the social context of the real world, and (2) the innovative artifacts created under the ‘design science paradigm’ are mainly created to be used within a particular social context which affects their use, adoption and deployment. Scholars also categorize IS research into two main approaches: positivist and interpretive. Those two approaches are mutually accepted and relevant to the IS research aspects, since the nature of the IS field combine both social and technical organizational aspects (Probert, 1997). However, it seems that there is diversity when it comes to adopting those approaches. From an abstract point of view, North America and Europe are two main scientific campaigns that adopt different IS approaches. Galliers (1997) and Benbasat & Weber (1996) as well as other researchers recognize that North American researchers mostly adopt the positivist approach in IS research, while European scholars adopt the interpretive approach. ! ! ! We are not holding an intention to debate those approaches or make a comparison supporting one in favor of the other; rather we would like to touch upon their interrelation with the social context. According to Orlikowski & Baroudi (1991) the social context is considered as one of the focal limitations of the positivist approach; concentrating on objective reality and neglecting various influence factors of the social context, such as, time, politics, culture, and the researcher and his/her instruments may lead to an incomplete picture of the IS studied phenomena and its social context. The interpretive approach has an opposite view of the social context; researchers adopting this approach seek to obtain in-depth understanding of the IS phenomena through increasingly recognizing social and organizational aspects of the studied subject. Furthermore the reality, which is asserted by those researchers, is considered mainly as a social product (Avison, 1997). The boundaries of social aspects in IS research seems to be more open than any other aspects; it emphasized itself within a new third research approach that has been identified by Orlikowski and Baroudi (1991). This new approach ‘Critical Philosophy’ attempts to evaluate and transform the social reality under investigation in critical ways. This approach is concerned with two main issues: (1) criticizing existing social systems, and (2) revealing contradictions that may inhere within their structure. The social reality that this approach deal with is understood to be mainly produced and reproduced by humans, taken in consideration various objective properties which usually tend to dominate human experience (Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991). In this critical approach, the relationship between theory (research) and practice lays in the researcher’s role which is to bring to awareness the restrictive conditions of the status quo, and in so doing it initiates change in the social relations and practices (Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991). In the next section we discuss IS practice and the role of social contexts. 3.2 IS practice The nature of the IS field impacts its influence on practice, this nature creates interrelated close links between practitioners and the developing knowledge by researchers that shaped the development, deployment, integration and management of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in organizations and business (Avgerou, 2000). However, it should be pointed out that both the use of IS as well as the IS development faced various challenges throughout the history of IS research. And these challenges shift the coverage of IS practice from one trend to another. Mathiassen (1998) identified these challenges in three historical eras, where new trends lead to additional challenges in each era. Table 1 below illustrates these three main eras: ! ! ! ! Era 1! Era 2! Era 3! Period! Early 60s – Mid 70s! Mid 70s – Late 80s! Late 80s – Late 90s! Purpose! Productivity and! efficiency Individual and! group effectiveness Strategic and! Collaborative Applications! Automation! Separate systems Support Integrated! systems Embedded systems Strategic systems! Process Integration Collaboration Technology! Main frames! Batch Processing Databases Distribution! PC’s Local networks Graphics Expert systems Global networks! Multimedia Mobile computing Standard software Skills! Programming! Management Analysis! Design Collaboration Domain! Architectural Improvement! Methods and tools! Project management Quality assurance! CASE Process! improvement Constraints! Hardware/Software! Software/User! relations User relations! /Organization environment Focus! Technical! Users! Environmental! ! Table 1: IS practice challenges in three eras – (modified after Mathiassen, 1998, p. 71) It can be noted from this table that during the first era, the IS was practiced as a technical discipline where the two focal purposes were mainly to increase the productivity and efficiency of automated applications. In the second era there was a shift from technology towards its use, where the main focus was on end-users and groups by improving their practices and increasing their effectiveness of using different technologies. And during the third era, IS practice became more focused on business and collaborative strategies as new technologies within specific domains had been introduced, such as, global networks multimedia, and mobile computing. It can be also noted that IS practice is becoming more focused on social contexts, this is indicated while it has been shifted from one era to another. In the first era the focus was mainly technical (software/hardware) which is not supposed to have a direct and clear relation with the social context at that time. Then the second era, introduced users and their relations, and moving to the third deeply introduced the focus on user, organization and their environments that show a high level of social context concentrations. ! ! ! 4 The core identity of IS research: broad vs. narrow A heated discussion has been dominant among scholars about the core identity of research in Information Systems (e.g. Benbasat & Zmud, 2003; Baskerville & Myers, 2002; Agarwal & Lucas, 2005; Keen, 1980; Avgerou, 2000; Weber, 2003; El Sawy, 2003; Galliers, 1997; Alter, 2006; Orlikowski & Barley, 2001; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001; Nambisan, 2003). The dialectic between these scholars can be found in their distinct views of whether the core identity of IS research should be broad or narrow. The critical differences between these two views are major motivations to write this paper in an attempt to reveal some of their implications in the era where computing becomes social. The narrow view that is adopted by scholars such as (Benbasat & Zmud, 2003; Weber, 2003; Avgerou, 2000; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001) has been oriented to the IT artifact as the core focus of IS research. In their Nomological net which conceptualizes the boundaries of IS research, Benbasat & Zmud (2003) have placed the IT artifact in the forefront. Also, Weber (2003) argued that IT is the platform or resource to build IS however there is a lack of IT centrality in IS research. Other scholars such as Orlikowski & Iacono (2001) have provided different views of the focus on the IT artifacts based on examining IS literature published at the ISR. They found that the IT artifact is black boxed and that there is a need for theorizing about the IT artifact. Scholars adopting the narrow view argue that IS research should study how IT artifacts are designed, how they are used and evolved, and how they impact and impacted by the context. A number of controversial issues have been raised by these scholars to argue and reason for their views. First, they argue that the interdisciplinary nature is not a valued quality and that it impacts the reliability and trustworthiness of knowledge produced by IS research (Avgerou, 2000). Second, the lack of internal cohesiveness and the diversity of theoretical perspectives (Weber, 2003; Avgerou, 2000; Benbasat & Zmud, 2003; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001) result fragmented theoretical underpinnings which therefore threatens the distinction of the field, distract IS researchers from their goals, and may result more contribution to other disciplines rather than IS (Benbasat & Zmud, 2003; Avgerou, 2000). Third, lack of clear reference disciplines and underlying philosophy of IS (Keen, 1980; Galliers, 1997; Weber, 2003). This argument is based on the need for IS to be established as a scientific discipline owning its own core and unique theory. See table 2 that represents scholars and issues of the narrow view: ! ! ! IS Scholars! Narrow Views! Issues! Benbasat & Zmud (2003)! The IT artifact should be in the forefront of IS research.! Weber (2003)! IT is the resource or the platform to build IS. Lack of centrality on IT.! Orlikowski & Iacono (2001)! The core subject matter is IT. IT! artifact is black boxed. 1.Interdisciplinary nature is not a valued quality and the field lacks distinct theoretical core.! 2.Lack of reliability and trustworthiness of knowledge produced by IS research. 3.Ill-identified reference disciplines and lack of internal cohesiveness. ! Table 2: Summary of scholars and issues of the narrow view of the core identity of IS. However, we believe that the IT artifact is part of the whole in the sense that it is integrated in a social context and this requires IS research to take a broader view. The broad view focuses on the interplay between social and technical aspects where the IT artifact is embedded and evolved in a dynamic social context. By this, we support a number of scholars adopting the broader view of the core focus of IS research (e.g. Agarwal & Lucas, 2005; Orlikowski & Barely, 2001; Alter, 2006). Agarwal & Lucas (2005) acknowledged the interdisciplinary nature of IS research and call for IS to strengthen its ties with other disciplines in an attempt to support a broader view of IS research. They expressed their opposition of the Nomological net provided by Benbasat & Zmud (2003) as well as the errors of inclusion and exclusion. Their reasoning behind this opposition is that the level of Nomological density is limited and wondered if research that lies within the boundaries of the Nomological net can be related to IS. The risks that IS research could be too narrow and simplistic, overlook important organizational variables, and weaken the scope of research are reasons behind their opposition. They also expressed that IS researchers are better in doing interdisciplinary research because they understand the true essence of technology rather than social scientists. In this sense, they argued that an academic discipline such as IS should be judged on the basis of its contribution of new knowledge that could enhance human lives. Orlikowski & Barley (2001) discussed the interplay between information systems and organizational studies to show how the two fields can learn from each other. Such interest in connecting the two fields is based on their view of technology as social and artificial artifacts that are embedded in a complex, interdependent social, economic, and political environment. ! ! ! They emphasized the sociotechnical nature of technology which requires a global understanding of technical systems, social processes, and interactions. Moreover, they call for getting insights from the institutional theory that can help IS researchers in developing structural and systematic understanding of technology in dynamic and evolving contexts. At the same time Orlikowski & Iacono (2001) expressed their view of the IT artifact as the core focus, they tended to be more balanced in their view calling IS researchers to take technology as serious as the context and capabilities. The black-boxed IT view which results from their examination of IS literature as mentioned above was accompanied with their call for paying attention to the social, economical, and political aspects of IT. Their view of technology as embedded in an evolving and dynamic system requires IS researchers to theorize about the IT artifact and then to incorporate theories. The IT theorization process, according to their view, considers the IT artifact as not static but rather dynamic embedded in a social context, and consists of multiple components. See table 3 that summarizes scholars and issues of the broad view: IS Scholars! Broad Views! Issues! Agarwal & IS should take a holistic view and 1. The field should be judged by Lucas (2005)! strengthen its ties with other its contribution to other fields. disciplines. ! 2. A narrow focus on the IT Orlikowski & IT theorizing first then artifact may lead to failure of IS, Iacono (2001)! incorporate theories. Technology limit the scope of research, and is embedded in a dynamic and topics become too simplistic. evolving social context.! 3.Understand the Orlikowski & Interplay between IS and transformational changes caused Barely (2001)! organizational studies. Advocate by IT on social systems. for technical and social dynamics of organizations.! Table 3: Summary of scholars and issues of the broad view of the core identity of IS. 5 Constant changing nature of IT The discussion of the broad view that we adopt in this paper about the focus of IS research might take a different taste. This is due to the current state of technology in this era. The era of social computing characterizes what El Sawy (2003) has coined as one of the three faces of IS research that is the fusion view. He reflected on this by viewing IT as fused in the environment in hidden ways. Nowadays, we witness increasing changes and developments in the fields of ubiquitous computing, mobile computing, social software, and ambient intelligence which represent computing technologies embedded in objects surrounding us. ! ! ! Such changes and developments have a considerable impact on the IT capabilities which result IT to be more fused and integrated in our environments and supports a wide range of our daily interactions and tasks. We would particularly focus our argumentation on the technological implications of the recent developments and changes of IT capabilities in the social computing era by emphasizing the sociotechnical nature of IS research. A number of scholars have reflected on the changes of the IT capabilities such as (El Sawy, 2003; Keen, 1980; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001; Agarwal & Lucas, 2005). El Sawy (2003) provided three faces of IS research as follows: 1. Connection view: IT supports people in doing their work, but if neglected, work can continue. 2. Immersion view: IT is immersed in the environment and cannot be separated from work. People are highly dependent on IT and if neglected work cannot be continued and completed. 3. Fusion view: IT is fused in the environment in hidden ways. Another reflection that might be similar in the way of viewing the changes in IT capabilities is provided by Orlikowski & Iacono (2001). Their examination of IS literature has led them to identify five conceptualizations of the IT artifact which represent alternative views of how IS researchers have treated technology in their research. 1. Tool view: The tool view views the IT artifact as not problematic and independent variable. The focus is on the type of using IT either for information processing, enhance productivity, shift social relationships, etc. 2. Proxy view: focusing on one or few aspects of IT including logics about: human understanding of technology, diffusion of technology in organizations, the extent to which technology is integrated in the social system, and the monetary measures of technology that is the value of technology to organizations. 3. Ensemble view: a packaged view of technology including tasks, people, policies, devices, and how technology is the way it and how it is used. 4. Computational view: focuses on the computational power of IT disregarding how people interact with technology. 5. Nominal view: technology is absent and only mentioned by name. The IT artifact is neither dependent nor independent variable thus it’s an omitted variable. Additional views can be found by Keen (1980) who argue that the field has been driven by the changes in technology. Also, Agarwal & Lucas (2005) pointed out that technology is always about changing and transforming organizations and environments. ! ! ! These views reflect the changing nature of IT capabilities. However, we believe that each phase as presented by El Sawy (2003) and the views by Orlikowski and Iacono (2001) represent not only the changing in the nature of IT capabilities but also the changes in the focus of IS research. IS research focus is by itself driven by the changes in IT. The different views/phases provided by El Sawy (2003) implies that changes in IT capabilities have changed the focus of IS research as he discussed the focuses of each phase. In the connection phase research is focused on the IT artifact, in the immersion phase research is focused on the context, systematic relationships, and mutual interdependence, and finally in the fusion phase he suggested that the focus should be to break down IT and work into finer granularities. Moreover, the views provided by Orlikowski & Iacono (2001) represent how IS researchers treated IT. We would say that their views also imply the changing nature of IT capabilities that impact the focus of research. Each view represents different IT capabilities enabling new functional tasks and continuously shifting and driving the focus of IS research. The fact that technology is constantly changing, we believe, is driving the focus of IS research. Continually, technology is advancing and introducing new opportunities to support and mediate human interactions and tasks in their different contexts. This fact is constantly proved by the amount of advancements and developments in computing and web technologies. Consequently, the focus of IS research cannot be fixed on the IT artifact and it’s dynamically driven by the changes in IT capabilities which introduce new contexts, designs, usages, and goals. Therefore, to be able to better understand and acquire reliable knowledge by IS research and contribute to the development of human lives; IS research should adopt a broad view involving all aspects that result from the changing nature of IT capabilities. El Sawy (2003) viewed the fusion phase as an integration or fusion of computing technologies in hidden ways in the environment. The current era characterizes this phase in the sense of the increasing human use of technology and the wide range of IT applications almost found everywhere. Our next discussion represents the recent developments and changes in IT capabilities by explaining the current era of social computing and how the current technologies are characterized by new changes and capabilities. We will argue that research in IS should be sociotechnical oriented in the sense that IS researchers adopt a broader view to be able to study multiple aspects of existing and emerging technologies. 6 Social computing: adopting a broader view Our intention from discussing social computing is to represent the recent changes and developments in an attempt to acknowledge and support the broad view of IS research and how these changes impact the focus of research in IS and requires researchers to maintain a broad view to handle new changes and adapt to new focuses. A wide range of social software applications and social web technologies have emerged introducing new ways of interactions and communications, enabling large-scale collaborations and ! ! ! participations, collaborative creation of knowledge, and transforming organizations (Tapscott & Williams, 2006; McAfee, 2006). Much have been discussed about new concepts of collaborative work such as open innovation, collective intelligence, knowledge networks, information foraging, etc (e.g. Surowiecki, 2005; Tapscott & Williams, 2006; Mao et. al, 2007) Mao et al. (2007) referred back to the past and present ideas of social computing. They discussed two distinct foci by early social computing initiatives: one focus on the technological issues, interfaces, user acceptance, and social effects around group collaboration and online communication. The second focus was on the computational techniques, principally simulation techniques, to facilitate the study of society. They also reflected on the tremendous expansion of the scope of social computing in recent years in both software research and practice. Moe et al. (2007) reflected on the expanded scope of social computing and the diversity of its theoretical underpinnings as follows: “Social computing is a cross disciplinary research and application field with theoretical underpinnings including both computational and social sciences… social computing has emphasized technology development for society on one hand and incorporating social theories and practices into ICT development on the other. To facilitate the design of social-technical systems and enhance their performance, social computing must learn from sociology and anthropology and integrate psychological and organizational theories” (p. 2) In this sense, we would reflect that social computing characterizes the current developments which stimulates IS researchers to incorporate diverse theoretical perspectives to understand emerging phenomena. Undoubtedly, focusing on the IT artifact as the core focus of IS research in this current era would lead to failure in designing, deploying, and implementing information systems due to the necessity of including multiple social influences of technical systems. Thus, IS researchers are driven by the developments and changes in IT leading them to adopt a holistic focus of researching information systems. Bostrom & Heinen (1977) emphasized the adoption of the socio-technical approach to overcome organizational behavior problems. He mentioned that: ‘The technical system is concerned with the processes, tasks, and technology needed to transform inputs to outputs. The social system is concerned with the attributes of people (e.g., attitudes, skills, values), the relationships among people, reward systems, and authority structures. It is assumed that the outputs of the work system are the result of joint interactions between these two systems.’ (p. 1). Lee (2004) discussed natural science and social constructionism in terms of how researchers from both fields perceive the real world. He explicated the differences between IS researchers who subscribe in natural sciences which views the physical and natural world as the true reality. ! ! ! In contrast, IS researchers who believe in social constructionism view human aspects such as shared beliefs and culture to form part of the real world. Most important, he reflected on the two types of researchers as follows: ‘…social constructionists believe that these human-made entities are social objects and, in being objects, are as real for human beings as any aspects of the physical and natural world. One’s beliefs about what comprises the real world have an effect on what one seeks to observe, what one subsequently observes, how one explains what one observes, and the reasoning process by which one performs each of these.’ (p. 6) From a social constructivist perspective, we can view current social software systems as social products originating not only from the interaction between the social and technical systems but the fusion of both systems in the environment where technology is shaping the social world Moving to a practical side of ‘social computing’ we adopted the concept of ‘Open Innovation’ which we referred to earlier as one of many new approaches that enhances the collaborative work. The attention devoted to this new approach has been recently grown, both in academia as well as in practice. Chesbrough (2003) was the first to coin the term describing the shifting of companies from their own traditional innovation processes (closed innovation) to the new innovation model, so called ‘Open Innovation’. The main argument is that organizations can not afford to rely on their own internal research and knowledge, but should instead become open, and combine internal and external ideas, knowledge, solutions, paths, and so on; to advance the development of new and current technologies, products and services (Chesbrough, 2003; Chesbrough et al, 2006). Eric von Hippel (1988) identified four external sources of knowledge: (1) universities, governments and private research labs (2) suppliers and customers (3) competitors (4) other nations. We think that these sources of knowledge in addition to internal ones can execute the main aim behind ‘open innovation’. As a result this would support our viewpoint regarding adopting a broader view of IS. This is because the broader view can act as a stand stage for scholars and practitioners who aim to work collaboratively by adopting knowledge from various sources. More clearly, there are various philosophical, ontological and epistemological standpoints associated with those external knowledge sources that are created by humans holding different views of the world, scientific understandings, and acting in different social contexts. Thus, and in that way we think that the broader view can cope with all these stratified aspects. 7 Proposing a new IS era: a fourth era Earlier in this paper we have tackled the three IS eras proposed by Mathiassen (1998) and presented the changes of IT capabilities in the social computing era. We think that there is yet a place for a fourth era where: (1) social computing is the stand and base platform of our practice and research, (2) collaboration, sharing and openness (Open ! ! ! Innovation) are the main activities that are performed under the platform, and (3) IS broad view and all related concepts are the research strategies that can deal with research and practice activities in this era. See the following table. Period 2000 – Nowadays Authors Purpose Open Strategies; Social Innovation; Collective Intelligence; Collaborative Activities West (2003) Hall (2004) Wolpert & Tumer (2000) Applications Social Software and Applications (desktop, web, and mobile) Parikh (2002) Technology Web 2.0; Cloud Computing; Artificial Intelligence; Ubiquitous Computing Vossen & Hagemann (2007) Vouk (2008) Negnevitsky (2001) Lyytinen &Yoo (2002) Skills Collaborative and Sharing Skills; Openness; User-Generated Content Tapscott & Williams (2006) Improvement Social Process Improvement Lamp & Kling (2003) Constraints Organizational Environment / Social Context Cronk & Fitzgerald (1997) Focus Social Context / Socio-technical Yoo et al. (2008) Table 4: Properties of IS research in the fourth era. The focus of our proposed era is the social context of IS where the interplay between socio-technical aspects take place. The purposes in this era are centered on four key issues: open strategies, social innovation, collective intelligence and collaborative activities. These purposes can be achieved and fulfilled by the implementation of various social technologies that lay under the social computing approach. This deeply supports our basic believe that the IT artifact is part of the whole in the sense that it is integrated in a social context and this requires IS research to take a broader view. 8 Conclusion The main aim of this paper is to reveal the distinctive features and properties of the IS broad view and how this view can fulfill the requirements of current IS research which mainly centered on social aspects. To carry out our aim we firstly debated the social context of IS and its role in both practice and research. Then we tackled the core identity of IS research based on the broad and narrow views letting ourselves out of having an academic enemy. After that we thoroughly discussed the constant changing Nature of IT revealing the current state of technology. ! ! ! This current state leads us to the concept of social computing that shape the current research and practice of the IS field, and illustrating how the IS broad view is the definitive choice to be adopted for this type of current research state. Based on our arguments, literature reviews and abstract conclusions we had the ability to propose a new era in the IS world which acts as supportive position to our discussion. 9 Further Research Our current discussion about the core identity of IS research might be limited to the American point of view of this matter. The tradition in IS research has been different when looking at the American and European research. Such difference can be found in the methods used or the worldviews driving research. At this respect, further research is needed to highlight these differences and to reflect upon the different perspectives of the core identity of IS research in both the United States and Europe. The importance of such research stems from the necessity to establish common grounds of IS research by attempting to examine the gaps between two different traditions in IS research and the impact on the field. References Agarwal, R., Lucas, H. (2005). The information systems identity crisis: focusing on highvisibility and high-impact research. MIS Quarterly, 29 (3), pp. 381 – 398. Alter, S. (2003). The IS Core — XI: Sorting Out the Issues about the Core, Scope, and Identity of the IS Field. Communications of the AIS 12 (41), pp. 607 – 627. Alter, S. (2006). Work systems and IT artifacts – Does the definition matter?. Communications of the AIS, 17, pp. 299 – 313. Avgerou, C. 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] [] Group Intelligence: A Distributed Cognition Perspective Mansour, O. (200 ). roup Intelligence: A istributed cognition perspective. Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Intelligent Networking and Collaborative Systems (INCo 200 ), IEEE Computer ociety, November 4 arcelona, pain, pp. 250. Conference roceeding. ole author. ! ! ! ! ! ! Group Intelligence: a distributed cognition perspective Osama Mansour School of Mathematics and Systems Engineering, Växjö University Växjö, Sweden. osama.mansour@vxu.se Abstract—The question of whether intelligence can be attributed to groups or not has been raised in many scientific disciplines. In the field of computer-supported collaborative learning, this question has been examined to understand how computer-mediated environments can augment human cognition and learning on a group level. The era of social computing which represents the emergence of Web 2.0 collaborative technologies and social media has stimulated a wide discussion about collective intelligence and the global brain. This paper reviews the theory of distributed cognition in the light of these concepts in an attempt to analyze and understand the emergence process of intelligence that takes place in the context of computer-mediated collaborative and social media environments. It concludes by showing that the cognitive organization, which occurs within social interactions serves as a catalyst for intelligence to emerge on a group level. Also a process model has been developed to show the process of collaborative knowledge construction in Wikipedia that characterizes such cognitive organization. processes that are distributed across the members of a social group [9]. These cognitive processes are involved in memory, decision-making, inference, reasoning, learning, etc which sum up human intellectuality [10]. A collaborative system can be viewed as - a large cognitive system involving multiple people interacting with each other and a wide range of artifacts to perform an activity [21]. Hence with the increasing developments in collaborative and knowledge sharing technologies [25], the focus on group intelligence is a compelling issue to explore how state-of-the-art technologies may influence human cognition. Therefore the paper tries to examine how social media and collaborative technologies mediate cognitive processes of a group of people and the influence on the emergent intelligence. A thorough review of the theory of distributed cognition has been conducted and different aspects of the theory have been examined to show how cognitive processes take place within a group activity supported by social media technologies. This will contribute to understanding how cognition is distributed and shared among groups and the influence of the flow of cognitive processes on intelligence. Keywords: Group Intelligence, Theory of Distributed Cognition, Social Media, Web 2.0, Collaborative. I. II. THEORY OF DISTRIBUTED COGNITION INTRODUCTION Edwin Hutchins has developed the theory of distributed cognition in a simulation experiment of an airline cockpit (c.f. [10]). In this experiment, Hutchins views the cockpit as a large cognitive system with emergent cognitive properties. These properties emerge as a result of interactions of the crewmembers, interactions between the crew and the artifacts, coordination mechanisms, and the propagation of information in the form of representational states (i.e. mental state, state of knowledge) across representational media that is the main concern of the theory ([8], [10], [21]). The propagation of information in the form of representational states refers to the transformation of information during the conduct of a group activity [21]. Representational media is located within individuals (e.g. memory, knowledge, skills,), within group members (e.g. shared meanings), and in the physical structure (e.g. tools such as social media) ([8], [9]). These representational media have different properties that constraint the required cognitive processes to communicate representational states [10]. Therefore, the emphasis is on the propagation of information in the distributed cognition theory as this process entails group meanings, which form the emergent properties of the system ([8], [10], [23]). In this sense, Rogers [21] explained that the distributed cognition approach seeks to explicate the complex interdependencies between people and artifacts in their work activities, of which an important part is identifying the problems, breakdowns and the distributed problem solving processes that emerge to deal with them. Intelligence has always been a controversial term when discussed in the context of collaborative environments in an attempt to attribute it to groups. This is because it is habitual to attribute thoughts and intentions to individuals and to reduce group phenomenon into actions by the individual members of the group ([7], [9], [23]). In this paper, group intelligence refers to the aggregation of individuals’ distributed cognitive processes over a common platform in the form of socially shared knowledge and meaning. It is opted that intelligence is a property that emerges during a group activity and thus it is an attribute on a group level. The paper uses the term group intelligence rather than collective, collected intelligence or any other terms based on the idea that all these terminologies refer to intelligence that takes place during a social group activity. The current era of social computing which represents the emergence of an assortment of social media applications that support collaboration, knowledge sharing, social networking, and self-organization ([5], [17], [20], [25], [30]) has stimulated a wide discussion about concepts like collective intelligence, crowdsourcing, global brain, etc ([15], [24], [25]). Consequently, there is a need for a profound understanding and examination of how intelligence can be achieved by groups supported by social media technologies. At this respect, distributed cognition (c.f. section II) has been a focus by researchers where they discussed different aspects of intelligence that emerge within the social interactions of group members (e.g. [9], [23], [26]). In this sense, the use of the distributed cognition approach can be found in the fields of semantic web, distributed artificial intelligence, and ambient intelligence [7]. Distributed cognition means cognitive !"#$%$"&!'$(#'#$")%!*+,&-%%*.*,%%!*/000 12/*3%-33%!)/4526-,%%!-'! ! Hutchins and Klausen [10] emphasized the importance of the distributional characteristics of information, which are essential to maintain intersubjective understandings and shared meanings. Intersubjective understanding emerges when individuals’ !247 ! knowledge gets shared during a group activity to form a shared resource for their distributed negotiations, interactions, and the development of shared meanings ([9], [23]). At this respect, a major aspect of this theory is that it moves beyond understanding individual cognitive processes to reach an understanding of cognition that occurs on a system or a group level ([8], [9], [19], [21], [22]). Therefore, the distributed cognition approach takes the whole system as a unit of analysis rather than studying the components of the system ([9], [19], [21]). Stahl [23] reflected on the issue of the unit of analysis as methodological rather than ontological where the focus should be the group rather than the individual member of the group. Three kinds of distribution of cognitive processes are involved with the theory of distributed cognition: cognitive processes distributed across the members of a social group, cognitive processes may involve coordination between external and internal (material and environmental) structure, and processes maybe distributed through time ([8], [9]). To sum up, distributed cognition approach seeks to understand the organization of large cognitive systems, which could be seen as sort of cognitive architecture on a group level. To understand intelligence, we need to consider such larger systems where the parts get assembled together to achieve tasks and develop shared meanings [9]. These tasks and shared meanings could not be achieved by a sole individual and may influence human cognition on a group or community level ([9], [26]), which therefore impact their ability to collectively solve problems and make decisions. shared tasks, one can speak of the group itself as learning” (p. 322). In this view of interactional learning, the source of individual knowledge is the group. Stahl [23] provided a number of views on learning from the field of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) that represent diverse sources of knowledge and meanings both from individuals and groups. These different views of learning may provide some perspectives on the propagation of information both internally inside an individual mind or externally through the interaction among individuals and with physical artifacts, which is central to the theory of distributed cognition. In this sense, Smith [22] argued that groups have more potential to remember information rather than individuals due to transactive memory creating a larger distributed memory capacity than an individual can possess. Also, he reflected that the communication and distribution of information among group members helps to effectively search for diverse information which can potentially improve the overall group performance. As a result, cognition emerges on a group level due to the distribution and communication of knowledge between group members, which may result an amplified cognition that is not reducible to the individual mind. Further, the emergent group cognition consists of group memory, group problem solving, and group decision-making abilities, which form the basis for non-reducible group intelligence to individuals. However, in order to achieve and maintain group intelligence, there is a need for an effective communication and collaboration media so that cognition is distributed and shared by groups. The next section discusses different aspects of Web 2.0 and social media technologies, which may provide platforms for the propagation and communication of information. III. GROUP INTELLIGENCE The question of how cognition could be examined on a group level has been raised in many scientific disciplines such as social psychology and cognitive science ([7], [10], [23]). The traditional conceptions that view cognition as limited to the individual mind and that learning and thinking only occurs on an individual level, have led to difficulties in understanding intelligence on a group level ([1], [7], [9], [23]). However, there is an increasing number of approaches proposing that human cognition is not solely found inside an individual brain but also involves interactions with other minds ([7], [8], [21], [22]). These approaches are focused on the cognition of larger systems that emerge on a group level. Theories of distributed cognition, extended mind, and situatedness are focusing on the extension of individual cognition to involve interconnections with other minds and the ability to form patterncompleting and pattern-creating actions [6]. In this sense, distributed cognition is a confluence with collective or group intelligence and cognition could be understood as collective intelligence that is cognitive processes and structures that emerge at the social level [7]. IV. WEB 2.0 AND SOCIAL MEDIA It might be said that the vision of the global brain has been reached in this current era of social computing. The global brain is an intelligent network formed by the people of this planet together with the knowledge and communication technologies that connect them together [7]. This vision is manifested in the application of a variety of Web 2.0 and social media technologies. Web 2.0 is a generic term that refers to a variety of social computing applications such as Wikis, blogs, peer-to-peer downloading, social networking, etc ([17], [25]). The underlying concepts of Web 2.0 technologies involve the architecture of participation, collaborative knowledge construction, network as a platform, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, etc ([2], [6], [11], [14], [17], [20], [25]). The significant impact of Web 2.0 technologies lies in connecting large numbers of people and in their flexibility that allows people to appropriate their features in a way that enable them to link and share their individual tacit knowledge, which represent individual cognitive processes, and align this knowledge with the social context of producing group knowledge [13]. This knowledge is not reducible to individuals as it contains multiple ideas and interpretations that have been processed and manipulated by other people. Many researchers have reflected on the capabilities of Web 2.0 or social web and the potential for augmented social cognition, collective intelligence, and wisdom of crowds ([2], [6], [20], [24], [25], [27]). Web 2.0 environments reflect the concept of networks of practice. Electronic and networked communities of practice represent large applications of Web 2.0 and social media technologies with their rich knowledge exchange and social interactions. Wasko and Faraj [28] defined electronic networks of In contrast to traditional conceptions of learning and thinking, many researchers viewed knowledge as a result from social construction that is achieved by individuals rather merely individual observation ([1], [7], [22], [23]). This has led to the idea that individuals learn due to social interactions with other individuals in the course of a group activity [23]. A simple example to clarify this is about a newborn learning child. In the early childhood, a child starts interacting with adults and artifacts around him. Over time, the child starts to learn and develop new functional skills that would allow him to function in the absence of adults. Therefore, learning could be seen as interactional. At this respect, Argyris and Schön [1] mentioned “Learning is a term applicable to individuals within the context of a group, but when individuals learn to interact with one another so as to carry out !248 ! ! practice as “a self-organizing, open activity system focused on a shared practice that exists primarily through computer-mediated communication.” (p. 3). In this sense, Web 2.0 environments support large number of individuals who voluntarily choose to be part of online social communities and engage in open activities where they share their knowledge to help solve problems of common interests. The properties of these technologies reflect a major notion, which is the propagation and distribution of shared knowledge within social interactions. This notion is implied in the theory of distributed cognition where group cognition takes the form of shared knowledge. In this sense, Touzet [26] explained, “…we can just about to conceive distributed cognition as sum of contextual intelligences operating as a whole structure.” Based on the conceptions of Web 2.0, a Web 2.0 collaborative system could be seen as a single and large structure integrating multiple groups and communities with common interests where they communicate and share their knowledge. This results cognitive processes of these groups to be distributed and are manifested in collaborative knowledge. Collaborative knowledge is rich of multiple ideas, meanings, and interpretations, which externalize the contents of thought, and is embodied in the coordination of our identities in a social and collaborative context [22]. Consequently, Web 2.0 environments mediate the distribution of our cognitive processes and support our social interactions in a sense that the knowledge transformed across members of the groups, from a distributed cognition perspective, can be viewed as a form of group intelligence. Such group or social Intelligence can result from social learning that is interactional, which in turn illuminate augmented social cognitive processes. The next section discusses Wikipedia, which is based on the Wiki technology and has been rising as the largest online encyclopedia ([4], [12], [15]) to explain the processes of largescale collaborative knowledge construction and decision-making. 1) and every aspect is cognitive-ingrained. Figure 1 above visualizes theoretical aspects of the theory of distributed cognition that represent sequential and iterative processes of collaborative knowledge construction in Wikipedia. The process model describes processes that take place during a cognitive activity, which is continuously executed by a group of people for collaborative knowledge construction. These processes entail propagation of multiple states of people. People are performing these processes iteratively. Each process is associated and altered by cognitive abilities of everyone resulting cognitive processes to be distributed across the group. Such distribution characterizes a kind of cognitive organization, which is created and maintained through social interactions and connectivity that are represented by arrows in the process model. The iteration and recurring efforts in the process of collaborative knowledge construction in Wikipedia create a cognitive feedback loop leading to some sort of organization. According to Robert (1964 cited in [9], p. 2) that “such social organization could be seen as a sort of architecture of cognition at the community level”. This iterative process and cognitive organization in Wikipedia implies a kind of - social capital, which is embedded within networks of social structure ([18], [28]). Social capital is a term used in community studies, which highlights the central importance of networks of relationships that provide a basis for trust, cooperation, and collective action (ibid). Nahapiet and Ghoshal [18] argued that social capital facilitates the creation of intellectual capital based on the idea that networks of relationships constitute a resource for the social conduct and provide the members of the groups with collectivity-owned capital (Buordieu, 1986, p. 249 cited in [18]). In this sense, they referred to intellectual capital as “…the knowledge and knowing capability of a social collectivity, such as an organization, intellectual community, or professional practice.” (ibid, p. 5). The community of Wikipedians is supported by the Wiki technology that constitutes the structure or the platform for their social interactions and collective actions. This helps to maintain the growth of social capital through enabling knowledge exchange and intellect leverage that is represented and combined in large numbers of articles. The cognitive characteristics of the community represent its memory capacity and the ability to manage and retrieve information, which can be determined by looking at what information is there, where it is located and how it moves in the community (ibid). In this sense, figure 1 represents a sequence of representational states leading to movement of information in Wikipedia. Hutchins [9] explained that such movement of information has an impact on the organizing behavior and coordination of the group and also depends on their assessment of own states of knowledge and others. Also, repeated patterns of activity may lead to the consolidation of functional assemblages and the result can be individual learning or organizational learning [9]. He further added that an important property of aggregate systems is that they may give rise to forms of organization that cannot develop in the component parts. Hence one may argue that the cognitive organization is by itself an intelligent effort enabled by Web 2.0 environments and also serves as a catalyst for intelligence to emerge on a group level. A. Wikipedia: A Process Model The Wiki technology refers to a simple website that enables everyone to collaboratively create, edit, tag, and link content ([11], [12], [16], [25]). "#$%&$'&(! )'((#*&+!,-! '.(/0/(1! 2.*#'(#3!#$/(3! .4'&5#3! $/+.%++6! "#$%&$'&(! $/+(*/7%(/,&!,-! '8'*#&#+! "#$%&$'&(! +(,*'5#!,-! /&-,*9'(/,&! "#$%&$'&(! $/+(*/7%(/,&! '&$!'..#++!,-! /&-,*9'(/,&! "#$%&$'&(! #**,*:.4#.;! Figure 1. Process model describing the processes of collaborative knowledge construction in Wikipedia. In this sense, articles in Wikipedia are collaboratively created and content is refined and filtered in an iterative manner. Everyone can contribute knowledge to a particular subject ([12], [16]). Other people may change or edit the content according to their experiences in each subject. Continuously, this iterative process of refinement embodies social knowledge that is communicated and shared with self-organized communities of Wikipedians involving decision-making processes especially when topics are controversial. Topics that are controversial require collaborative assessment and consensus, which may involve argumentations and discussions over the Wiki until a peer-reviewed article is reached. Any changes to the content can be seen by group members and are aware of them. Such collaborative process of creating and communicating content in Wikipedia embodies different aspects of the theory of distributed cognition (see Figure VI. CONCLUSIONS In this paper, the theory of distributed cognition has been examined in the context of computer-mediated environments in an attempt to address the question of how intelligence can emerge on a group level. The theory provides some perspectives on the emergence process of intelligence through examining the !249 ! ! distribution of cognitive processes across the members of social groups. Particularly, the theory has been examined in Web 2.0 environments, which entail rich social interactions and cognitiveingrained collaborative processes. The cognitive organization that is achieved through the propagation of knowledge, division of labor, and ongoing social interactions across the group results augmented social cognition and therefore serves as a catalyst for intelligence to emerge on a group level. This cognitive organization results due to the distribution of cognitive processes and is manifested in collaborative knowledge. The resulted collaborative knowledge is rich of multiple ideas, meanings, and interpretations of everyone within the group, which helps to enhance the ability of making decisions and solve problems and is not reducible to any of the members of the group. Furthermore, in order to provide an example of cognitive organization, a process model has been developed that describes the different processes involved in collaborative knowledge construction in Wikipedia. The model visualizes different theoretical aspects of the theory of distributed cognition. It also shows how different cognitiveingrained states propagate throughout the whole process creating a cognitive feedback loop leading to architecture of cognition at the community level. [9] Hutchins, E. (2000) Distributed Cognition. IESBS. [10] Hutchins, E. & Klausen, T. (1996). ‘Distributed Cognition in an Airline Cockpit’. In Middleton, D, Engeström, Y. Communication and Cognition at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 15-34. [11] Kane, G., Fichman, R. (2009). The Shoemaker's Children: Using Wikis for Information Systems Teaching, Research, and Publication. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 33, pp. 1-22. [12] Lee, M., Lan Y. (2007). From Web 2.0 to conversational Knowledge Management: Towards Collaborative Intelligence. Journal of Entrepreneurship Research. Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 47-62. [13] Leonardi, P. (2007). Activating the informational capabilities of information technology in organizations. Organization Science, Vol. 18, pp. 813-831. [14] Li, Q., C-Y Lu, S. (2008). Collaborative tagging applications and approaches. IEEE Multimedia, Vol. 15, pp. 14-21. [15] Libert, B., Spector, J. (2007). We Are Smarter Than Me. How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business. 1st ed., Wharton School publishing. [16] Mader, S. (2007). Wikipatterns. Weily Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana. [17] McAfee, A. (2006). Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. MITSloan Management review. Vol. 47, pp. 21-28. [18] Nahapiet, J., Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage. The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Apr., 1998), pp. 242-266. [19] Nardi, B. (1992). Studying context: A comparison of activity theory, situated action models and distributed cognition. Proceedings East-West Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. August 4–8, St. Petersburg, Russia. pp. 352–359. [20] O’Reilly, T. (2005). Web 2.0: Compact definition – O’Reilly Radar. [Online]. Available at: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/web-20 compactdefinition.html [Accessed 15 January 2009] [21] Rogers, Y. (2006) Distributed Cognition and Communication. In The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics 2nd Edition. Oxford, pp. 181-202. [22] Smith, E. (2008). Social relationships and groups: New insights on embodied and distributed cognition. Cognitive Systems Research, Vol. 9, pp. 24-32. [23] Stahl, G. (2005). Group cognition in computer-assisted collaborative learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Vol. 21, No. 2. (April 2005), pp. 79-90. [24] Surowiecki, J. (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few. Abacus, London, UK. [25] Tapscott, D., Williams, A. (2006). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Penguin Group, Inc., New York, N. Y. [26] Touzet, J. (n.d.). Distributed cognition or intelligence? Patterns of group thought within online graduate-level coursework. Paper submitted for OISE/UT CTL1608F06 [27] Wang2, F., Zeng, D., Carley, K., Mao, W. (2007). Social computing: from social informatics to social intelligence. IEEE Computer Society, Vol. 22, pp. 79-83. [28] Wasko, M., Faraj, S. (2005). Why should I Share? Examining Social Capital and Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Networks of Practice. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 35-57/March 2005. [29] Wood, L. (2005). Blogs & Wikis: Technologies for enterprise applications?. The Glibane Report. Vol. 12, 2-9. [30] Yukihiro, K. (2007). In-house use of Web 2.0: Enterprise 2.0. NEC Technical Journal. Vol. 2, p. 46-49. VII. FURTHER RESEARCH Theories of social psychology and cognitive science are of great benefit and importance for the communities of CSCW and CSCL. Such theories provide diverse and enlightening perspectives of group dynamics, adaptive behavior, networks of social relationships, and studies of mind. These perspectives are essential to enhance our understanding of collaborative and group processes especially with increasing developments of computing technologies that facilitate social interactions and group work. Therefore, further research stemming from these theories is needed to further increase our understanding of group dynamics. In particular, these theories are useful to explore more about group and collective intelligence, which are prevailing concepts in the era of social computing. References [1] Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978) Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley. [2] Chi, E. (2008). The social web: research and opportunities. IEEE Computer. Vol. 41, pp. 88-91. [3] Flor, N.V., Hutchins, E. (1992). Analyzing Distributed Cognition in Software Teams: a Case Study of Collaborative Programming During Adaptive Software Maintenance. In Empirical Studies of Programmers: Fourth Workshop, eds. J. Koenemann-Belliveau, T. [4] Gloor, P., Copper, S. (2007). The new principles of swarm business. MITSloan Management Review. Vol. 48, pp. 81-84. [5] Grossman, M., McCarthy, R. (2007). Web 2.0: is the Enterprise ready for the adventure? Issues in Information Systems. Vol. VIII. No. 2, pp. 180-185. [6] Gruber, T. (2008). Collective knowledge systems: where the social web meets the semantic web. Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web. Vol. 6, pp. 4–13. [7] Heylighen, F., Heath, M., Van Overwalle, F. (2004) The emergence of distributed cognition: a conceptual framework. Proceeding of Collective Intentionality IV, Seina (Italy). [8] Hollan, J., Hutchins, E., Kirsch, D. (2000). Distributed Cognition: Toward a New Foundation for Human-Computer Interaction Research ACM Transactions on HCI, Vol. 7, pp. 174196. !250 ! ! ! ! ! ! Paper III [1] [2] [3] Wiki-based Community Collaboration in Organizations [1] Mansour, O., Abusalah, M., Askenäs, L. (forthcoming). Wiki-based Community Collaboration in Organizations. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities & Technologies (C&T2011), June 29 – July 2., Brisbane, Australia [2] Conference Proceedings; acceptance rate 20% - 25%; the conference is held once every two years. [3] My responsibilities in Paper III included writing up the paper, collecting and analyzing empirical data, presenting and discussing the findings, and drawing conclusions from these findings. ! 91 ! ! ! ! ! Wiki-based Community Collaboration in Organizations Osama Mansour Linnaeus University, Sweden osama.mansour@lnu.se Mustafa Abusalah Consolidated Contractors Company, Greece mabusalah@ccc.gr ABSTRACT Social media technologies are increasingly used within organizational settings. Particularly, organizations continue to adopt and use wikis for enabling collaboration among their professional communities of practice. At this respect, the current paper reports results from an interpretive case study focusing on the use of a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing at a large multinational organization. It examines how the wiki is used by members of several professional communities of practice through interviews, observations, field studies, and documents. It concludes by showing that the openness of the wiki has a dual impact on wiki collaboration and also discusses how the wiki might serve as both an enabler and inhibitor for community and knowledge collaboration. Keywords Community, Wiki, Collaboration, Openness, knowledge sharing, Organizations. INTRODUCTION The impetus for organizations to use social media has been increasing recently. This is because the growth of social media has become a major technological evolution that transforms the way individuals and groups work and interact together [12]. Accordingly more organizations are adopting and using different social media tools at the workplace to enable collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst their employees ([36], [17]). The wiki as one type of social media is defined as a simple dynamic web page that is open for anyone to share and discuss personal knowledge in a collaborative manner. As such, the wiki is increasingly used for different internal knowledge management purposes in organizations ([36], [9], [30]). Most often, the wiki is used in organizations by virtual communities of practice (CoPs) [36], which are central to knowledge management strategies [3]. For instance, Hasan & Pfaff [10] and Wagner [28] described the wiki as a conversational knowledge management tool that is used by CoPs to address specific knowledge needs. Given its flexible nature, the wiki has also been described as a lean approach to web-based content management allowing multiple users to collaborate for the shows how the use of the wiki has enabled more ! ! Linda Askenäs Linnaeus University, Sweden linda.askenas@lnu.se participation and knowledge sharing in an organization that wanted to activate its intranet. Yet, despite the recognition by managers of the value of knowledge ([19], [34], [35]) and the need to develop knowledge management strategies in their organizations, they are still unclear about how to do that [34]. Several attempts by organizations to use information systems in order to manage their knowledge have resulted digital junkyards [34]. Stocker et al. [24], for instance, found that organizations using wikis struggle with the dilemma of a knowledge-sharing environment. While some managers perceive higher benefits from using wikis to transfer and manage knowledge [24], others tend to be uncomfortable with the idea that their content is open and accessible by large numbers of users [30]. In the same vein Danis & Singer [8] argued that the uncoordinated use of wikis by many users may result chaos such as distrusted content, difficult navigation, and inconsistency among wiki pages. As the number of organizations introducing and using wikis is growing, still only a little amount of empirical knowledge is available about this phenomenon ([5], [24], [8], [23], [17]). In contrast, many empirical studies examining wikis are often found in other contexts mainly in education and Wikipedia, which are fundamentally different contexts than the workplace ([24], [8]). Given the paucity and need of an empirical understanding of using wikis in an organizational context and the importance of this emerging phenomenon, the current paper focuses on the use of the wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing by several CoPs at a large multinational organization. It explores and examines the perceptions of senior employees who serve as community managers and captains in different professional wiki-based communities and seeks an answer of how they react and behave towards the introduction and use of the wiki. As such, the paper is based on an interpretive exploratory study including multiple sources of data such as interviews, field notes, documents, and observations. The ultimate aim is to identify and explain factors that influence the use of the wiki as a shared medium for community and knowledge collaboration within organizational settings. Hence the unique contribution of this paper is providing novel understandings about using wikis in organizations. Mainly the paper contributes rich insights of wiki openness and its influence on how communities use a wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing at the workplace. ! RELATED LITERATURE Wikis Wikis for Community Management The first exposure to wikis was in 1994 by Ward Cunningham who wanted to have a platform for software developers and designers to collaborate and share knowledge ([22], [23]). A wiki, a Hawaiian word means quick, refers to a simple dynamically updated web page that is open for anyone to add, edit, discuss, and track content. It consists of hyperlinked pages that allow anyone to collaborate openly for the creation and modification of knowledge ([36], [9], [19]). One of the unique attributes of wikis, which differs from pervious technologies, is the free or open editability that enables anyone to edit others’ contributions in order to improve readability, organize pages, and integrate ideas [36]. In a similar sense, Yates et al. [36] referred to the process of rewriting, reorganizing, and integrating wiki content as “shaping”. The defined shaping as a purposeful activity that transforms existing knowledge on the wiki into useful knowledge. Nowadays one of the most famous examples of the wiki concept is the large online encyclopedia called Wikipedia [9]. Wikipedia well represents the concept of open wiki collaboration, as it is an outcome of the many voluntary contributions made by Wikipedians ([11], [31]). Wikis are increasingly used in organizations by virtual communities of practice [36]. In this respect, Ardichvili [3] explained that CoPs are gaining popularity as a vehicle of collective learning and knowledge creation within organizations. A community of practice (CoP) is defined as a group of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise, who deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis ([32], [34], [33]). Wikis in Organizations Perhaps the term that best describes the use of wikis in organizations is Enterprise 2.0. Andrew McAfee [18] coined this term to represent organizations that build and use social media or web 2.0 technologies namely wikis, blogs, and others at the workplace. The use of wikis in organizations is far different from how it is used in other contexts such as educational settings or open environments like Wikipedia ([8], [23]). Many scholars (e.g. [11], [20], [29], [10], [28], [16]) discussed several possibilities of using wikis within organizational settings. For instance, Majchrzak et al. [17] conducted a survey focusing on the corporate use of wikis. They provided a list including several activities supported by the use of the wiki such as communities of practice and user groups, ad-hoc collaboration, e-learning, project management, etc. Others such as ([10], [28], [29]) described wikis as conversational knowledge management technologies. A wiki as a conversational knowledge management tool represents an end-user developed approach that is based on collaboration and conversation ([10], [29]). In the same vein, Kosonen & Kianto [16] argued that wikis represent a socio-technical approach to managing knowledge that enables a multitude of knowledge-work processes, combines communication and personal information management, and makes knowledge work more visible. However, Danis & Singer [8] argued that the open nature of the wiki might introduce difficulties for organizations, for instance, to manage their content, which may result chaos, inconsistency, and difficult navigation. Other scholars discussed trust problems [14] and vandalism and malicious edits [9] of wiki content due to its free, open nature. In the following section we describe how a wiki is used by Communities of Practice. ! ! Collaboration and Knowledge Wenger & Snyder [33] explained that CoPs differ from other forms of organization e.g. project teams or formal work groups in terms of purpose, belonging, and bond among community members. The purpose of CoPs is to exchange knowledge and develop capabilities. Members of the community select themselves to participate with others, and passion and commitment are bonds that hold them together. Ardichvili [3] explained that one of the most recognized benefits of CoPs is their ability to allow for the generation and dissemination of tacit knowledge, which is hard to communicate, as it is intuitive and embedded in a specific context. He referred to CoPs as a platform for sharing and internalizing tacit knowledge. Within organizational settings, Ardichvili [3] further argued that CoPs play a central role in the knowledge management strategy. However, Wenger [32] explained that CoPs need a technological infrastructure that enables members to communicate regularly and accumulate documents. In this respect, Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) refer to a class of information systems applied to managing organizational knowledge. They are IT-based systems developed to support and enhance organizational knowledge creation, storage, retrieval, transfer, and application [2]. As such a wiki represents one kind of KMSs that allows members of communities of practice to create, share, and aggregate their knowledge into a new intellectual and organizational capital [36]. Wagner [28] explained that conversational knowledge creation using wikis emerged as the most popular way for organizations to create knowledge in the context of online communities. Accordingly wikis can be used for several collaborative activities. For instance, Majchrzak et al. [17] reported that organizations might improve their collaboration, work processes, and knowledge reuse using wikis. Also experienced organizational members might gain reputational benefits from sharing their experiences with others. Yet, organizations are often faced with several challenges when using wikis. For instance, Happel & Treitz [9] discussed wiki proliferation that represents several side effects of wiki growth such as old and outdated content, redundant information, and poor linkage between content. They argued that such problems might result a lack of acceptance of the wiki by new users and loss of existing users. Also, Yates et al. [36] explained challenges for understanding the motivation for knowledge shaping that is critical to maintain the evolution of knowledge on a wiki. ! As the modern economy runs on knowledge ([33], [35]), knowledge management is considered one of the major sources of competitive advantage in modern organizations [28]. Knowledge management is defined as the process of identifying and leveraging the collective knowledge in an organization for competition purposes [2]. Knowledge, in the sense of communities of practice, is an accumulated outcome of the ongoing process of exchanging and contributing knowledge to the community [32]. Other scholars have discussed different perspectives of knowledge (e.g. [13], [2]). Wenger [32] viewed communities of practice as the social fabric of knowledge and argued that CoPs are the cornerstones of knowledge management. He identified three characteristics of CoPs that represent the foundation of a knowledge strategy in an organization. First, domain, which is the area of knowledge that brings the community together, gives it its identity, and defines the key issues that members need to address. Second, community, which is a group of people for whom the domain is relevant and involves members who interact and develop relationships that enable them to address problems and share knowledge. Third, practice, that is the body of knowledge, methods, tools, stories, cases, documents, which members share and develop together. The combination of these three characteristics is what enables CoPs to manage knowledge. At this respect, wikis as an end-user approach can enable the combination of these characteristics by allowing members of CoPs to jointly create and share common knowledge and experiences [29]. Hence a wiki as a free, open technology may provide a flexible platform that helps community members engage in voluntary collaboration and enable dynamic interactions among them. The remaining parts of this paper focus on examining the wiki environment and explain factors influencing wiki collaboration. RESEARCH APPROACH In this research we chose to be explorative since only a little or no research aimed at empirically examining the perceptions of managers of using wikis in organizational settings. In other words, the paper aims to explore the phenomenon of using wikis in organizations inductively. This choice is stimulated by both the nature of the problem being a new and complex social phenomenon and the likely high-degree of its uncertainty due to the paucity of empirical knowledge [25]. Thus the study adopts an interpretive approach to research. It emphasizes, in a phenomenological sense, that an interpretive understanding of human experiences can be derived from data collected in real-life settings [21]. As such, the process of collecting and analyzing empirical data is informed by this interpretive philosophy that aims to produce a deeper understanding of the phenomenon as given by the participants ([27], [6], [26]). An in-depth exploratory case study research strategy has been the vehicle of our process of inquiry. It is used to help us in capturing interpretations and meanings that our participants assign to their interactions as a community in real-life settings [26]. ! ! Such an approach would help us in obtaining a clear and deep understanding of the perceptions and attitudes of our participants by uncovering recurring processes and meanings of their ongoing human activity. In the following sections we present and discuss the context of our case as well as the processes of data collection and analysis. Description of the Case The study took place at Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), a large multinational contracting organization, which has over 160,000 employees distributed all over the world. The organization is headquartered in Athens, Greece and has offices in the five different continents. Teams of senior and junior employees including project managers, mechanical engineers, technicians, etc. perform a variety of civil and mechanical construction projects such as building harbors, airports, tunnels, and Gas and oil plants in different contexts. These teams might work in the middle of the sea or the desert. The size of these teams may vary depending on the size of projects ranging from 2000 employees in smaller projects up to 30,000 employees in larger projects. Due to this distributed nature of the organization and the dispersion of project teams, top management started to think of how to leverage and manage dynamic knowledge and experience of such a vast number of employees. It is worth mentioning that the company has increased its employees in the last ten years from 35,000 up to 160,000. This explosion in the number of employees has further stimulated top management to think about flexible ways for capturing and managing knowledge and experience at CCC. In this respect, CCC mainly used a document management system for storing and organizing its knowledge into structured documents and reports. This system was ineffective to allow for dynamic collaboration and sharing of knowledge and experiences. Consequently, top management has decided and supported the establishment of a Knowledge Management (KM) department that is responsible for developing and managing a shared platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing at CCC. Thereafter, the KM department was officially established as of July 2007. The KM department, after eight months of planning, launched the wiki, which is called ‘Fanous’ that is an Arabic word means “The Lantern” in March 2008. In order to put the wiki into operation, the KM department established a core team of senior employees and top managers. This team represented well-experienced organizational members who have been working at CCC for a long time. The team aimed at providing a basis for building and cultivating different specialized communities as well as promote the use of the wiki amongst their employees. Then the wiki started to operate with five professional communities of practice (CoPs), as they refer to them in the company. Each community is specialized in a particular domain and is led by a community manager and a number of community captains. Also there are Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who are expert employees within the domain of the community. ! All these members are selected based on their seniority and level of experience with full accessibility to add, edit, comment, and change contributions on the wiki. Other people at the company can access the wiki but with roles limited to reading and commenting on the articles due to control measures. Each community has its own space on the wiki that includes community pages where community members collaborate and share knowledge with each other. Members can also contribute to other relevant communities on the wiki. In addition, all CoP members receive daily notifications to keep them updated of any new contributions. In 2009, the wiki included 10 CoPs, 700 active members, and 3237 contributions. Wiki as a Knowledge Management Tool at CCC Document Management Systems represent a traditional approach of storing, organizing, and searching for organizational knowledge at CCC. This knowledge can be accessed based on access rights criteria. Yet, the adoption of an innovative knowledge sharing platform requires a collaborative, social oriented medium that facilitates flexible knowledge collaboration and sharing. In order to satisfy this aim, the KM department decided to use a wiki as a collaboration knowledge management tool. The wiki consists of several spaces that belong to different CoPs. Members of these CoPs are distributed across different regions and projects within a particular field and they use their wiki space to collaborate, explore ideas, and discuss work problems. The advantage of using a wiki over other collaboration tools such as forums is that all CoP members can edit articles published by other members; so more than one member can collaborate to prepare an article. Also contributors can track changes of their articles through wiki versioning. This practice is very important as it provides a dynamic basis for CoPs to collaborate in order to produce method statements that describe best practices, work flows, work procedures, etc. [1]. As we discussed before in the introduction, uncoordinated contributions to the wiki may result chaos. To address this challenge, the wiki was designed based on spaces. Each space is used by a particular CoP and is organized hierarchically based on areas and topics related to that CoP. Any new contribution will be categorized under the related topic. This method of categorization allowed community members to easily navigate and locate contributions. Further, the wiki contains contributions that are collaboratively created by more than one author while other contributions are based on personal or organizational experience and contributed by a single author. To audit the quality of contributions and to inspire additional coauthoring and editing, the KM department employed “content review workflow”, which was implemented after the completion of this study, to produce high-quality contributions. This does not mean that some contributions are void or invalid. But, for instance, two different contributors might author the same method statement in two different ways. When a user accesses the wiki to search for this method statement, he wants to pick up the best practice out of these two method statements. ! ! Captains of each CoP can use the “content review workflow” to obtain best practices and to ensure the integrity of contributions. In addition, the wiki is semi moderated so that members can only author articles that are related to work. Yet, it is very unlikely that a comment or an article is deleted from the wiki due to lack of relevance. Data Collection Process The selection of participants for our research marks the early stages of the data collection process. The main criteria for selecting our sample include the seniority level, membership in different wiki communities, level of activity, computer skills, etc. We used emails to send invitations to several employees who match our criteria. These emails contained general information about the purpose of the study and other practical information related to the interviewing process such as voluntary participation, privacy and confidentiality issues, interviewing time, etc. The resulted sample of participants who responded to our emails was twelve self-selected senior employees and managers with a range of experience between ten years up to thirty years. Many of these participants have a three-year experience of using the wiki and serve either as community managers who lead the community, or community captains who are active wiki users in suggesting topics, monitoring contributions, encouraging members, etc. in different specialized CoPs in the wiki environment. Only a few others are lurkers who may read the wiki quite often but seldom make any contributions. Further, most of our participants hold university degrees ranging from a Bachelor up to the Ph.D. mainly in construction and engineering related subjects. In respect to computer experience, many of our participants have modest computer knowledge with varied experiences in using social media technologies such as Facebook, Wikipedia, and LinkedIn. By and large, participants in this research represent seniors with varied levels of activity in the wiki. When the wiki was first introduced, most of these seniors were selected by the KM department to be part of a core team in order to motivate a “grassroots” initiative for using the wiki at CCC. This particular sample of senior participants was important to understand evolving perceptions of using the wiki since its introduction. The primary vehicle for our data collection was the in-depth semi-structured interview. However, we have triangulated multiple sources of data including interviews, field notes, organizational records, and participant observations. The triangulation of multiple sources of data has been useful to address a broader range of behavioral issues [37] and increase the robustness of our data [21]. Given the geographical distribution of our participants in different parts of the world, ten interviews have been conducted either via telephone or an online conferencing system e.g. Skype. Only two face-to-face interviews have been conducted during the first field visit. The average interviewing time was one hour and all interviews have been recorded and transcribed for later analytical purposes. A case study protocol has been used to guide us throughout the ! data collection [37]. This protocol included a general overview of the study and also several themes and issues to frame our questions and discussions with the interviewees. These themes have been mainly developed based on the literature of the wiki technology (cf. sections 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) and also through our preliminary discussions with KM specialists about the wiki platform. For instance, themes related to the openness and free editability of the wiki have been the basis for asking questions about their impact on collaboration and knowledge sharing at the workplace. Instead of using a pre-defined set of questions, these themes allowed us to freely explore the perceptions of our participants and also discuss other emergent issues during the conversation. In other words, we used a fluid stream of questions rather than rigid to follow the line of inquiry [37]. Then we started to go back and forth across the text in order to create connections among these parts in order to develop a whole understanding. While moving through a circle of understanding we have been able to identify several interconnected perspectives and themes that explain the phenomenon. Both open and axial coding were combined to drive this circle of understanding through identifying the themes and their relationships [21]. For data validation, a number of random interview transcripts have been send to the interviewees who agreed to receive them in order to validate the conversation and revise their views. We have been able to receive their views that the transcripts well represent their perceptions of the wiki. No modifications have been requested or made by the interviewees. Further sources of data were obtained during two field visits at the company. The first visit was at CCC headquarters in Athens, Greece and the second was at CCC offices in Abu Dhabi, UAE. During the first visit we carried out an observation of the wiki platform with the help of the second author who works at the KM department. Our observation of the wiki has helped us to get deeper insights of how different communities are structured and categorized into specialized areas and also understand how community members interact with each other. Also, field notes have been taken both during the observation of the wiki and our discussions with the head of the KM department and other KM specialists. These notes mainly contained information about issues and challenges related to the wiki such as how the wiki works, the introduction of new communities, sustaining the current communities, etc. Our research findings provide rich insights of how organizations use the wiki technology to enable and support collaborative practices such as gathering and sharing knowledge by their individuals and communities. Our participants described the wiki in synonym terms with KM as one of the Group Technical Managers explained the role of the wiki in managing knowledge at CCC: The second visit aimed at participating in the 10th quarterly meeting of the ‘hydro testing and precommissioning’ community. Our role as participant observers was useful to obtain an insider view of these meetings [35] as we have been observing actual discussions and interactions among community members while exchanging ideas and experiences related to the content of their community on the wiki. In addition, we have obtained several electronic volumes of the monthly newsletter published by the KM department. The newsletter includes a variety of information related to community updates, featured articles from different wiki communities, and monthly statistics about top contributors and contributions This information was a useful resource to provide us with additional insights of communities’ activities. Data Analysis and Validation Perhaps the concept of hermeneutic circle discussed by Klein & Myers [15] best describes the process of analyzing our collected data. The concept of hermeneutic circle is foundational to all interpretive work [15]. It emphasizes that a whole understanding of the phenomenon can be achieved through circular understanding and interpretation of its parts and their interrelationships ([7], [15], [4]). Based on this, each interview transcript was reviewed and several segments or parts have been identified and examined. ! ! FINDINGS “The basic principle of KM first of all is gathering of experience gained by the people in the company, which until KM was introduced, was the property of this individual and it was not spread. And the second step of KM was the systematic analysis of the subject and the spreading of this knowledge to selected users. So this is the only vehicle, you cannot spread to such vast number of users such information by any other means”. In this respect, CCC uses the wiki for specific aims and objectives, which makes it a formal tool for managing and sharing work-specific knowledge. A Control Project Manager said: “…our knowledge management is very specific to CCC, and very applicable towards our own procedures.” Also a Mechanical Construction Manager explained: “We are not general users of the wiki, we have an aim from the wiki to use it efficiently and effectively for our work and socially for our community, for CCC community” The Group Technical Manager provided an example from his community that focuses on pipe fabrication and technology improvements. He explained: “...there are already about 620 entries and these entries maybe specifications, maybe specifically written articles by the participants or by others ... they found the subject very interesting and participated with their long experience.” The wiki is often used by members who belong to several Communities of Practice (CoPs) to share communityspecific experiences and knowledge with each other and collaborate for solving mutual problems and proposing solutions related to their work. One of the Control Project Managers described this through his experience in the mobilization community as follows: ! “it’s much easier now, if I mobilize to a new area, I can easily go to this COP, community of practice, for mobilization to remote areas, and I can access a lot of information, and it’s not only this, I can share my problems with my colleagues on the other side of the globe.” cause him problems if he comments or edits contributions by an upper management person: Further, the wiki is also used to help people connect with each other and establish relationships with experienced community members: On the other, a Mechanical Construction Manager explained that the wiki has positively influenced his contributing and sharing behavior. He said: “…it will give me an opportunity to know more about these people, what are their titles, or functions within the project or the company. So it is introducing more people through this media instead of just sitting and knowing the persons around you”. “…for my part, I feel it; I have more interest ... in giving information. I really feel my information is very valuable when I put it on the wiki, and people are looking at it”. Open and transparent interactions among community members through the wiki was perceived by many of our participants to be one important mean to connect with other employees and locate experienced members. A Group Quality Manager said: “…the wiki itself have brought all the experts closer in the community. What I mean, now we know who is the expert in our domain, whom we can talk to about a particular issue...Now we understand that we belong to a community…” However, the way the wiki is used by community members was influenced by various factors mostly related to the open nature of wiki collaboration within communities. For instance, the voluntary nature of a wiki that allows anyone to openly and freely contribute and edit others’ contributions was conceived by our participants as one of the barriers for wiki collaboration. As such, a Construction Manager said: “…it is not a formal tool to be utilized as a sort of communication ... it is not that much official source that I get something related directly to my job and take it”. Also, the idea of an open wiki where knowledge is accessible by anyone at the company was a major concern for many of our participants. One of the Group Plant Managers explained his stance towards an open wiki: “I did not support that such thing when it falls in the hands of others will make us less competitive, I totally disagreed with that”. Other participants had a different stance and explained that a wiki needs to be uncontrolled and open for everyone in order to enable flexible and dynamic community collaboration. In this respect, the head of R&D for open source development said: “…you need to create an uncontrolled space and you just allow people to go and talk ... if you want to make it formal, people will not talk, you need to make it really informal”. Further issues related to wiki openness show that it has an influence on the willingness of people to contribute and share with each other through the wiki. On the one hand, a Construction Manager explained how wiki openness might ! ! “I don’t want to edit for him in front of many users, they will see that I already attended his article ... he will consider that an insult in front of others”. A Mechanical Manager generally reflected his view of the openness of the wiki as follows: “Some people don’t share because they don’t like their ideas to be discussed openly on the wiki because anyone can open the it and see the discussion. I believe that those people don’t have enough experience; anybody who has confidence in himself will participate in the discussion.” In the same vein, the openness of wiki collaboration stimulates the effect of the community in the sense that when community members see others contributing, they feel more motivated to do the same. A Proposal Leader said: “When you see more people participating, when you see more people writing, when you feel more confident that the people who will read your input know what you are talking about you start to be more cooperative. I think this is what added and improved my perception”. While many of the above issues can be seen as enablers for wiki collaboration, challenges also arise because of the openness of the wiki. For instance, a Group Plant Manager expressed his opinion about making knowledge open and accessible by anyone at the company as follows: “I was really against such thing that we just fill pages because you know people simply would like to show their contributions, quantity is sick sometimes”. This statement reflects concerns about the quality of contributed knowledge on the wiki since people might only contribute to show off in front of a large number of users. A Group Quality Manager commented on this: “the more contribution on a particular topic, the other members of the community, they treat you as being the expert in this field. This is not necessarily true (laugh) because what we have to take into account is the quality of the contribution. Quantity can be huge but quality could be very low”. Such concerns have encouraged controlling contributions on the wiki. The Group Quality Manager explained: “Once a piece of knowledge is submitted, a document for instance, it will be will be submitted to the knowledge expert who will review it and he will have to say yes or no, to put it on the wiki or not. The wiki will have only the validated knowledge available for the user”. ! In addition, each community has regular meetings for its members where they can discuss and agree on several issues related to their content in the wiki environment. “...it is not only exchanging ideas online, we have meetings, we go and people of these communities meet and discuss things, and the thing is this is some kind of filtering and coming up with better ideas and coming up with consensus and agreement of these ideas, so its not only writing and reading” DISCUSSION Wikis for Community Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing Our findings reveal that the wiki is used for open collaboration and knowledge sharing but to some extent in a controlled manner. There is a mixed attitude towards the use of a wiki for open collaboration as many of our participants explained that the wiki should be open for all but at the same time some rules of control such as monitoring and reviewing contributed knowledge should be applied. Mainly, this is because the organization leans toward a formal use of the wiki with specific and clear objectives in order to ensure a reliable application of the wiki at the workplace. This situation can be described as a kind of controlled openness. In the same vein, our participants strongly expressed their satisfaction with the wiki as a dynamic medium that allows knowledge and experience to be accessible by a large number of people at the company. We also noticed that the nature of the wiki as an open and voluntary tool was useful to stimulate people to share their knowledge and experiences as well as enrich their sense of belonging and responsibility to the community cf. [33]. This is an intriguing aspect of the wiki especially when compared to other types of collaborative technologies in organizations. The wiki has given experienced people the chance to share their experiences and make it accessible to a large number of people for the benefit of the organization. In addition, by providing communities with a shared place, the wiki has enabled community members to connect with each other and identify who the expert is within a particular community and therefore strengthens their attachment and belonging to the community as it becomes a source of relationships with experienced members and useful knowledge to their work. Behavioral Issues in Organizational Wiki-based Community Collaboration Behavioral issues of using the wiki for open management and sharing of knowledge were salient throughout our discussions with several managers. These issues have a considerable impact to some extent on the use of the wiki for community collaboration and knowledge sharing. As reported by other scholars (e.g. [36], [3], [35]) several barriers and motives might influence the contributions of people to communities of practice. In this respect, we found further issues related to barriers and motives of using and contributing to the wiki by CoPs. The openness of the wiki has a dual impact on knowledge collaboration and sharing by community members. ! ! For instance, the open nature of wiki collaboration might deter people from contributing and sharing their knowledge, even if they are willing to do so, because they are not comfortable with exposing themselves to the public cf. [30] or an unknown audience. These people have two characteristics. First they might be a kind of people who do not accept criticism or might not accept the comments made by others to edit or shape their contributions cf. [36]. Second it might be that they feel shy to expose themselves to a large number of people or prefer personal communication as a personal trait. Related to this, there is a lack of confidence and courage to comment on contributions made by higherlevel contributors, as people do not feel comfortable to publicly discuss or comment on issues contributed by senior people who are higher in rank and experience. As a result hierarchy and ascendancy are carried out to the wiki environment and might serve as barriers to wiki collaboration. Also, the assumption that people might take the opportunity to contribute in order to be proud of themselves in the open environment was conceived to be a threat to the quality of contributed knowledge. Further, the voluntary and informal nature of wiki collaboration can also be a barrier to share and contribute to the community in the sense that people do not see the wiki as part of their jobs. At this respect, a number of our participants expressed the need for organizational pressure to consider the wiki as a required tool at the workplace. In contrast, while the openness of the wiki has created several barriers to collaborate and share, it has also attracted people to freely express themselves and openly collaborate and share their knowledge with others. This has made it easier for the community to access knowledge and locate experiences. More important, people feel that their knowledge is more valuable when it is open for others who read it and then use it in their real work, which therefore provides them with extra motivation to collaborate and share with others. Moreover the openness of the wiki was an important factor to stimulate the effect of the community within community members. So when people see others contributing and sharing they become motivated to do the same which to some extent reduces the constraining effect of hierarchy and increases collaboration and sharing. In the same vein, we found that open wiki collaboration has enriched the sense of the community at the organization. The openness of wiki collaboration has made people closer and more connected in the sense that they can socially interact with each other and meet new people who might be experts in relevant areas. Consequently, the wiki is considered as a source not only for knowledge but also for relationships with knowledge contributors, which might emerge during open discussions and commenting on the wiki among community members. In respect to quality issues, the openness of the wiki was not considered a threat on the quality of contributed knowledge by many of our participants who are in favor of a controlled wiki environment cf. [10]. ! While many of them explained their concerns about these issues, being an internal and controlled environment that is only accessible, in the sense of being able to change and edit content, by selected experienced organizational members made the wiki a secure medium for sharing reliable and trusted knowledge. At this respect, there are many forms by which the organization controls the wiki such as monitoring and reviewing contributions by community managers and captains as well as KM specialists, discussing contributions during community meetings, and defining various accessibility measures. In other words, there is a level of control applied to the use of the wiki in organizational settings, which limits any potential quality problems that might exist because of its openness and free editability. In addition, the sense of responsibility by experienced organizational members has driven openness at the company in the sense that the wiki has given them a chance to make their experience public and accessible by everyone. Once this experience is available on the wiki, the nature of work, which requires employees to look for different procedures and methods necessary to do their jobs, drives them to join wiki communities in order to access and benefit from this experience. Both the nature of work and the sense of responsibility are driven by open wiki collaboration but are also vehicles for openness. Understanding this dual impact of wiki openness is increasingly important as more organizations are adopting wikis at the workplace. This importance stems from the fact that openness as a major wiki property may have a determining impact on the success or failure of implementing a wiki as a medium for collaborative practices in organizations. Therefore more research is needed to further examine the duality of wiki openness and the eventual enactment of paradoxical organizational structures and cultures. It is also recommended to conduct longitudinal studies that focus on examining gradual behavioral changes of community members in respect to open wiki collaboration. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to acknowledge the KM department at CCC represented by Dr. Amr El-sersy and Dr. Mustafa Abusalah for their generous cooperation and endless support for my empirical research. I also wish to thank and express gratitude to all participants in this research for sharing their precious time and insightful discussions. In addition, I thank my supervisors and all colleagues and research fellows for their support and insightful comments. REFERENCES 1. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK This paper aimed at examining and explaining factors that influence the use of the wiki for knowledge collaboration and sharing by members of communities of practice within organizational settings. In this respect, the openness of the wiki was found to be one major factor that has a dual impact on determining peoples’ behaviors and attitudes towards the use of the wiki at the workplace. As such, the open nature of wiki collaboration was both a barrier and an enabler for community members to collaborate and share with each other. The hindering impact of openness can deter or lead to less collaboration that may result from the lack of comfort by people to openly contribute and share their knowledge in front of a large number of fellow employees or an unknown audience. This might be caused by the fact that these people are not willing to accept others’ comments and edits or they feel more comfortable with personal and less disclosed communication. Also, hierarchal constraints are carried out to the wiki environment, which may prevent people from editing and commenting on articles by their superiors in public. In contrast, the enabling impact of openness has helped in attracting more contributors and the creation of new relationships among community members through the effect of the community that results from transparent interactions. 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The Swedish Research School of Management and Information Technology MIT The Swedish Research School of Management and Information Technology (MIT) is one of 16 national research schools supported by the Swedish Government. MIT is jointly operated by the following institutions: Blekinge Institute of Technology, Gotland University College, Jönköping International Business School, Karlstad University, Linköping University, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Lund University, Mälardalen University College, Stockholm University, Örebro University and Uppsala University, host to the research school. At the Swedish Research School of Management and Information Technology (MIT), research is conducted, and doctoral education provided, in three fields: management information systems, business administration, and informatics. Licentiate Theses 1. Johansson, Niklas E. (2004) Self-Service Recovery - Towards a Framework for Studying Service Recovery in a Self-Service Technology Context from a Management and IT Perspective, Licentiate Thesis KUS 2004:3, Karlstad University, 2. Ekman, Peter (2004) Affärssystem & Affärsrelationer - En fallstudie av en leverantörs användning av affärssystem i interaktionen med sina kunder, Licentiate Thesis No.25, Mälardalens universitet. 3. Wrenne, Anders (2004). Tjänsteplattformar - vid utveckling av mobila tjänster inom telekommunikation, Licentiatavhandling, KUS 2004:4, Karlstads universitet, Centrum för tjänsteforskning. 4. Wismén, May (2004). Kunskapsprocesser inom hälso- och sjukvård - en studie av kunskapsintegrering mellan laboratorium och dess kunder, Licentiatavhandling, KUS 2004:10, Karlstads universitet. 5. Stoltz, Charlotte (2004). Calling for Call Centres - A Study of Call Centre Locations in a Swedish Rural Region, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1084, IDA-EIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 6. Abelli, Björn (2004). Theatre Production - A System Development Process, Licentiate thesis No. 30, Mälardalen University. 7. Maaninen-Olsson, Eva (2004). Det gränslösa projektet - En studie om förmedling och skapande av kunskap i tid och rum, Licentiatavhandling nr. 41, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, Uppsala Universitet. 8. Sällberg, Henrik (2004). On the value of customer loyalty programs – a study of point programs and switching costs, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1116, IDA-EIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 9. Stockhult, Helén (2005). Medarbetaransvar - ett sätt att visa värderingar: En konceptualisering av medarbetarnas ansvar och ansvarstagande i callcenter, Licentiatavhandling nr. 1, Örebro universitet, Institutionen för ekonomi, statistik och informatik. ! ! 10. Vascós Palacios, Fidel (2005). On the information exchange between physicians and social insurance officers in the sick leave process: An Activity Theoretical perspective, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1165, IDA-EIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 11. Keller, Christina (2005). Virtual Learning Environments in higher education. A study of students’ acceptance of educational technology, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1167, IDA-EIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 12. Ahlström, Petter (2005), Affärsstrategier för seniorbostadsmarknaden, Licentiatavhandling, No. 1172, IDA-EIS, Linköpings universitet, Tekniska Högskolan. 13. Dahlin, Peter (2005). Structural Change of Business Networks – Developing a Structuration Technique, Licentiate Thesis No. 49, Mälardalen University. 14. Granebring, Annika (2005). ERP Migration Structure – an Innovation Process Perspective, Licentiate Thesis No. 50, Mälardalen University. 15. Cöster, Mathias (2005). Beyond IT and Productivity – How Digitization Transformed the Graphic Industry, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1183, IDA-EIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 16. Horzella, Åsa (2005). Beyond IT and Productivity – Effects of Digitized Information Flows in Grocery Distribution, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1184, IDA-EIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 17. Kollberg, Maria (2005). Beyond IT and Productivity – Effects of Digitized Information Flows in the Logging Industry, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1185, IDA-EIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 18. Hansson, Magnus (2005). From Dusk till Dawn – Three Essays on Organizational Closedowns, Licentiate Thesis, No. 3, Örebro University. 19. Verma, Sanjay (2005). Product’s Newness and Benefits to the Firm – A qualitative study from the perspective of firms developing and marketing computer software products, Licentiate thesis, No. 54, Mälardalen University. 20. Sundén, Susanne & Wicander, Gudrun (2005). Information and Communication Technology Applied for Developing Countries in a Rural Context – Towards a Framework for Analyzing Factors Influencing Sustainable Use, Licentiate thesis, KUS 2006:69, Karlstad University. 21. Käll, Andreas (2005). Översättningar av en managementmodell – En studie av införandet av Balanced Scorecard i ett landsting, Licentiatavhandling, No.1209, IDA-EIS, Linköpings universitet, Tekniska Högskolan. 22. Mihailescu, Daniela (2006). Implementation Methodology In Action: A study of an Enterprise Systems implementation methodology, Licentiate Thesis, No.1233, IDAEIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 23. Flodström, Raquel (2006!"# A Framework for the Strategic Management of Information Technology, Licentiate Thesis, No.1272, IDA-EIS, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 24. Werelius, Sofie (2006!"# Consumer Business Relationship with Retailer and Etailer for the Purchase of Clothing – A Network Perspective, Licentiate Thesis No. 45, Uppsala University, Department of Business Studies. ! ! 25. Fryk, Pontus (2007). Beyond IT and Productivity – Effects of Digitized Information Flows in Health Care, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1328, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 26. Sandström, Sara (2008). Technology-based service experiences - A study of the functional and emotional dimensions of telecom services, Licentiate Thesis, KUS 2008:3, Karlstad University, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Communication and IT. 27. Lundmark, Erik (2008). Organisational Adoption of Innovations – Management Practices and IT, Licentiate Thesis, No. 1352, Linköping University, Institute of Technology. 28. Anjou, Anette (2008). Scanias framgång - Betydelsen av strategisk kongruens och integrerad styrning, Licentiatavhandling, No. 1364, Linköpings universitet, Tekniska högskolan. 29. Numminen, Emil (2008). Software Investments under Uncertainty - Modeling Intangible Consequences as a Stochastic Process, Licentiate Dissertation Series, No. 2008:7, Blekinge Institute of Technology. 30. Bergqvist, Linda (2008). A Conceptual Framework for Studying the Successful Outcome of the IS Outsourcing Process from a Relationship Perspective, Licentiate Thesis, KUS 2008:30, Karlstad University, Information Systems, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Communication and IT. 31. Wingkvist, Anna (2008). The Quest for Equilibrium - Towards an Understanding of Scalability and Sustainability for Mobile Learning, Licentiate Thesis, No. 08118, Växjö University, Center for Learning and Knowledge Technologies, Department of Information Systems, School of Mathematics and System Engineering. 32. Sundberg, Klas (2009). Atlas Copcos strategi och styrning - verktyg som ger guld, Licentiate Thesis, No. 48, Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen. 33. Mörndal, Marie (2009). ”Hallå! Jag känner mig ensam här”. En studie om studieovana studenters interaktion på ett webbaserat diskussionsforum, Licentiate Thesis No. 113, Mälardalens högskola. 34. Svensson, Martin (2010). Routines for Engagement – Emotions and Routines when Communicating through ICTs, Linköping Studies in Science and Technology, Thesis No. 1444 LiU-TEK-LIC 2010:15. 35. Mansour, Osama (2011). Share with Social Media - The Case of a Wiki, Licentiate Thesis, School of Computer Science, Physics, and Mathematics, Linnaeus University, Växjö. Contact person: Professor Pär Ågerfalk, director of MIT, par.agerfalk@im.uu.se Address: ! The Swedish Research School in Management and Information Technology, Department of Business Studies, Box 513, 751 20 Uppsala !""#$%%&&&'()*+,-*+,).-/012"'/3%12"% ! ! ! ! ! ! SE-351 95 Växjö / SE-391 82 Kalmar Tel +46-772-28 80 00 dfm@lnu.se Lnu.se/dfm !