Facilitating Blogging for Knowledge Sharing Withing the Organization - Case Study Example

Introduction: The principle of information sharing has been cited by experts as one of the most important dimensions of a firm’s business strategy and has been named a significant contributor towards organizational performance. In their article, “What makes bloggers share knowledge? An investigation on the role of trust”, Chai and Kim (2010) have discussed blogs as a new component of the organizational knowledge management system based on the idea that their usefulness is not limited to the chronicling of personal views and daily events (Ojala, 2005) and that blogs can, in fact, be used as remarkably adept tools of knowledge sharing in the context of a knowledge management work environment (Chai and Kim, 2010). The article has pointed out that trust among the individuals making up a knowledge sharing network has been among the most significant issues that can make or break a knowledge management system and in this context, this study specifically deals with the relationship between trust and knowledge sharing habits of people using blogs as a tool for sharing information in the setting of a knowledge management system. The chosen research Methodology and Hypothesis: The researchers have used deductive reasoning principles in this study and for that purpose, have taken a quantitative research approach for this study. Quantitative research has been described as focusing upon the phenomena that occur in natural settings and has been designed specifically to study those phenomena in all their complexity (Leedy and Ormrod, 2001). According to Peshkin cited in Leedy and Ormrod (2001), these studies have been typically cited to serve one of the following purposes: 1. To reveal the features of specific situations, settings, processes, relationships, systems and/or people. 2. To allow the researchers to gain knowledge about the nature of a particular phenomenon, to help in the development of new concepts or theoretical perspectives about the phenomenon, and discover the constraints that face that phenomenon. 3. To allow researchers to test the validity of certain assumptions, concepts or generalizations within the context of real world. 4. To provide a means through which a researcher can gauge the effectiveness of particular practices or innovation. The research in question has specifically been carried out as a qualitative research to understand more about the implications of trust in the knowledge management arena and has been designed to understand more about the impact of trust on the knowledge sharing behavior of bloggers which encourages increased knowledge sharing practices. The Survey: The research uses the survey method to gather information about the various trust concerns that bloggers have and their impact on the blogger’s knowledge sharing behavior. Surveys have been defined as a reliable and relatively simpler way of gathering information on a large scale with minimum effort (Powell, 1998). However, Powell is also of the opinion that while Surveys are reliable in and of themselves, they should be paired with a much more personal method of response gathering, such as face to face interviews, to increase their reliability and decrease occasional ambiguity. The authors, however have only relied on the survey method alone and have not paired it with any other response gathering method, possibly because of the size of the sample. They have constructed the survey questionnaire after reviewing existing literature on the subject and were also helped by a previous pilot study that was held prior to this research. The targeted population of this survey included individuals who maintained a blog and engaged in knowledge sharing activities through the blog on a regular basis. The survey questionnaire was distributed at two large universities in the American Midwest and the Eastern parts of the country from May to August of the year 2008. Following is a breakdown of the measurement instruments that the survey questionnaire employed as well as the design specifics of the questionnaire and the sampling procedures employed during the research. Measurement Indicators: The authors initially performed a “Pilot Study”, which has been defined by >>>>. This was carried out in the December of 2007 with the aid of 43 undergraduate students who had their own blogs at the time of the study. The unit of analysis in this study, as well as the major study were the individual bloggers who completed the survey questionnaire. This pilot study helped the authors in determining the relevance and the thoroughness of the measurement indicators and helped them eliminate irrelevant and unimportant measurement items which did not show any relation to the subject of bloggers trust and their knowledge sharing habits. After a careful analysis of the prior research on the subject of the relationship between trust and knowledge sharing activities, the authors decided to base the premises of their research on the following dimensions of trust: 1. Trust in Bloggers: A blogger’s trust in other bloggers. 2. Economy-based trust: A blogger’s trust in the economic benefits of the knowledge sharing. 3. Trust in the Internet: A blogger’s trust in the structural security offered by the internet. 4. Trust in blog service providers: A blogger’s trust in the blog service provider’s ability to maintain the blogger’s privacy and security. The questionnaire was formed to measure the blogger’s trust in these 4 areas by finding out the respondent’s trust in safeguard of the Internet, trust in legal and structures of the Internet, trust in technical protection of the Internet from various threats and trust in the robustness and safety of the Internet environment (Chai and Kim, 2010). This survey design was found to encompass all the factors relating trust and knowledge sharing that had previously been identified by other researchers such as Gefen et al., (2003); Hsu et al., (2007); Ratnasingam, (2005) and Davenport and Prusak (1998), as well as the pilot study. Using these indicators, Chai and Kim, (2007), have constructed the following hypotheses: H1: Trust in Bloggers has a positive relationship with Bloggers’ Knowledge Sharing. H2: Economy-based Trust has a positive relationship with Bloggers’ Knowledge Sharing. H3: Trust in the Internet has a positive relationship with Bloggers’ Knowledge Sharing. H4. Trust in a Blog Service Provider has a positive relationship with Bloggers’ Knowledge Sharing. Sampling: The sample consisted of volunteers who were asked to provide responses to the survey questionnaire discussed in the previous section. The said sample, since it is based on a voluntary basis, is a non-representative sample of the population, which eventually may result in skewed results and sampling error, but the subject of the study being such, applying mathematical principles to pick out survey respondents would have a far likely chance of selecting individuals without any experience of using and maintaining a blog. There was a response by 485 people and these responses have been used for the data analysis. Out of these 485 respondents, 55% of the respondents and 45% were female. Blogger’s Knowledge Sharing and Trust: Research Results The statistical analysis of the data was carried out by the Partial Least Squares (PLS), and the results indicated that Hypothesis 1 was true and that trust in other blogger’s plays a positive impact on the knowledge sharing practices of bloggers. The research results also indicated that Hypothesis 2 was true and that belief in economy-based information sharing had a positive impact on the knowledge sharing practices of blog owners. However, although H4 which indicates that trust in the blog service providers and their ability to maintain the sanctity of information sharers has a positive impact on the knowledge sharing; H3, which indicates a positive relationship between knowledge sharing and trust in internet could not be proved true by this study. Significance of this study: Prior to this study, a lot of research has been carried out on the subject of knowledge sharing behavior, its patterns and its dependence on trust in the context of the older technologies. This study however is the pioneer in the subject of knowledge sharing and its relation with Trust in the context of blogging. The results of this study will also be instrumental in providing credence to the practice of blogging as a trusted and surefire tool for information sharing in a knowledge management setting. By paving way for further research in this regard, this study has played a significant role in opening way for organizations to research into this method of knowledge sharing, and has provided elementary ground work on the multi-faceted nature of trust issues that bloggers have. Contributions of the study: In today’s age, there has been a lot of emphasis being put on the importance of knowledge management in organizational success as knowledge has been named an organizational asset (Skyrme, 1997). Today organizations are striving to learn all about the various factors that govern and control successful information sharing may it be in the old fashioned mediums or the modern mediums such as the internet. Due to this reason, communication through various interfaces on the internet has been become a major area of study for the researchers. This study has contributed in a major way towards opening up further research channels in the field of information sharing over the internet through the medium of blogs. One of the most important contributions of this study has been in identifying that Trust has a multi-dimensional meaning when in connection with bloggers and their knowledge sharing practices. This study, through a thorough analysis of prior literature on the subject, has outlined 4 possible trust concerns that bloggers might have when engaging in the practice of sharing information online. The identification of these 4 trust concerns and their impact on bloggers online sharing behavior has not been the only major contribution of this study. Aside from this, although further research may be required to validate the results of this study on another population sample, the results of this research will also be a major contributor towards the changes in organizational perception about the nature of blogger’s knowledge sharing practices. Limitations of the research: A major limitation of this research has been the sampling. This study has employed volunteer sampling which indicated that there have been likely misrepresentations of the population and therefore, the results of this study will be subject to a lot of criticism in this regard. Due to the fact that volunteer sampling has been taken, the results may show skewness of results and will indicate inaccurate estimations of the population characteristics (Citation from BOOK). This limitation has a few other impacts. Since this sample represents only students, belonging to certain age groups, there is a need for research to be carried out on a larger scale, on a sample which accurately describes the characteristics of the true population of bloggers, belonging to all age groups and all cultural backgrounds, as trust has different meanings to different individuals. Balance Between Qualitative and Quantitative research cited in the paper: There is a fair balance between both types of researches in the paper. Chai and Kim (2010), have isolated the 4 principle measurement items solely on the basis of past literature on the subject of the impact of trust on knowledge sharing. Although these past researches have not been specifically on the subject of information sharing by bloggers, there is a fair representation of literature, and while the main hypothesis testing has been carried out with the help of statistical analysis, the premises of this research has been laid out with the help of thorough qualitative research. References Chai, S.,& Kim, M. 2010. What makes bloggers share knowledge? An investigation on the role of trust. International Journal of Information Management. Vol. 30. pp. 408-415. Davenport, T. H. & Prusak, L. 1998. Working knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Gefen, D., Karahanna, E., & Straub, D. W. 2003. Trust and TAM in online shopping: An integrated model. MIS Quarterly, 27, 51–90. Hsu, M.-H., Ju, T. L., Yen, C.-H., & Chang, C.-M. 2007. Knowledge sharing behavior in virtual communities: The relationship between trust, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65, 153–169. Leedy, P. & Ormrod, J. 2001. Practical Research Planning and Design, 7th ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Ojala, M. 2005. Blogging: For knowledge sharing, management and dissemination. Business Information Review, 22, 269–276. Powell, R.R. 1998. Basic Research Methods for Librarians, Ablex, Norwood, NJ. Ratnasingam, P. 2005. Trust in inter-organizational exchanges: A case study in business to business electronic commerce. Decision Support Systems, 39, 525–544. Skyrme, D.J. 1997. Knowledge-Based Businesses, Routledge, London. Read More