Trust as an antecedent to knowledge sharing in virtual communities of practice

Abstract

This study focusses on the role of trust in knowledge sharing within the context of virtual communities of practice. Trust is widely accepted as an important enabler of knowledge management (KM) processes. We conceptualise trust across three dimensions, namely: competence, integrity and benevolence; we test hypotheses as to the effect of these facets of trust on knowledge sharing by surveying an intra-organisational global virtual community of practitioners. The results indicate that all three dimensions of trust are positively related to knowledge-sharing behaviour. Trust based on the perceived integrity of the community was found to be the strongest predictor of knowledge-sharing behaviour. Our findings suggest that the dimensions of trust buttress each other; although they are theoretically distinct, they appear to be empirically inseparable. We propose that in order for knowledge sharing to be enabled, trust must concurrently exist in all three dimensions. Implication to organisations in their recruitment policy is to include competence, integrity and benevolence in their sought-for attributes of new employees. KM practitioners also have to encourage these attributes in existing employees, who are potential members of on-line communities of practice. Knowledge sharing itself was conceptualised with three components – quantity (frequency), quality (usefulness or value) and focus (the degree to which an individual feels that they engage in knowledge sharing). Of the three components, focus exhibits the most significant relationship with trust factors. This finding makes knowledge sharing less tangible than perhaps would be expected. It suggests that establishing whether knowledge has been shared is more than counting the frequency or trying to evaluate the usefulness of the shared knowledge. These aspects are important especially to management, but to the individual who shares knowledge, her feelings of having shared knowledge appear to be more important. With the current understanding that knowledge sharing is more of a human activity than technology, it is important that any information system should be assistive in boosting users’ confidence that they are indeed sharing knowledge. If the systems do not re-enforce the users’ knowledge-sharing orientation, knowledge sharing may be discouraged. Notwithstanding the point made about knowledge-sharing focus, it is necessary to take into consideration all the components of knowledge sharing to fully capture the concept. This was well indicated when the combined variable of all (rather than individual) knowledge-sharing items had the strongest correlation with trust factors.

Keywords:

• knowledge sharing
• trust
• communities of practice
• knowledge management
• on-line communities

Acknowledgements

We express our thanks to Computer Sciences Corporation for their collaboration during this project, in particular, for the company's participation in the empirical research.

Notes

1 Full details are in the reference list.

2 Both ‘concern’ and ‘benevolence’ share a common synomym: ‘care’ (APA).

3 See Appendix – Section A.

4 See Appendix – Section C.

5 ‘Scientific truth’ is the quest of positivist research; the desirability of validity in research is also common with phenomenological or qualitative researchers. For example Kirk and Miller (1986), writing on qualitative research, address the issue of validity.

6 For more details on Cronbach's’ alpha, see Carmines E. and Zeller R., 1979; SPSS library: My Coefficient alpha is negative.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abel Usoro

About the authors

Abel Usoro who holds a Ph.D. lectures in University of Paisley, Scotland. He researches in information systems and has widely published in international conferences, refereed journals and books. He is a member of the British Computing Society among others. He chairs, organises and serves in scientific committees of international conferences such as CITED2008.

Mark W Sharratt

Mark W. Sharratt holds an M.Sc. (with distinction) from the University of Paisley, Scotland, and his research has been presented at several international conferences around the world. He has recently started a research and consultancy business exploring the application of emerging quantum technologies within organisations (www.energyalchemy.co.uk).

Eric Tsui

Eric Tsui is Professor of Knowledge Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Prior to joining the university, he was Chief Research Officer and Innovation Manager at CSC, Australia for 15 years . His research interests are in Collaboration Technologies, Peer-to-Peer and Personal Knowledge Management.

Sandhya Shekhar

Sandhya Shekhar is currently on a sabbatical at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. She is the author of the book ‘Knowledge Management – Enabling Business Growth’ (McGraw Hill) and has published in top international journals. She has over 20 years of experience in the industry and was previously Director with Gartner.