Measuring knowledge creation in virtual teams through the social network analysis

Abstract

The current literature regarding virtual teams (VTs) lacks outcomes related to intellectual capital (IC) and knowledge management (KM). Moreover, e-collaboration and VTs need the necessary metrics to assess the real benefits that KM derives from the use of new e-collaboration technologies. There is also scarce evaluation of the cause–effect linkage between a VT structural configuration and its creative performance. Following this lead, we propose an evaluation method based on social network analysis (SNA) and indexes referring to knowledge creation. The paper concludes with an application on a real case study that shows how this methodology can be used as a KM tool to increase the creative output of VTs.

Keywords:

• knowledge creation
• e-collaboration
• social network analysis
• virtual teams
• knowledge management
• computer-mediated communication

Acknowledgements

We thank the Guest Editor Professor Giovanni Schiuma and the anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions in the improvement of a previous version of this paper.

A special statement of gratitude to Valerio Alfonsi for his assistance in the collection of the data of the case study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Guendalina Capece

About the authors

Guendalina Capece is a postdoc researcher in in the Department of Business Engineering at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’, Italy. She graduated in Computer Science and received her Ph.D. in Managemnt Engineering at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’. Her research interests include e-business, virtual teams, industrial competion and the effectiveness of e-learning systems.

Roberta Costa

Roberta Costa is an assistant professor in the Department of Business Engineering at the University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’, Italy. She participated to several projects on the theme of innovation and technology transfer that aimed at the technological development of Italian SME. Her research interests are knowledge management, intangibles measurement, human resource management, efficiency and performance evaluation and virtual teams.