OKC-enabled online knowledge integration: role of group heterogeneity and group interaction process
Information Technology & People
ISSN: 0959-3845
Article publication date: 8 April 2020
Issue publication date: 22 January 2021
Abstract
Purpose
Online knowledge integration has been an important concern of the online knowledge community as it can lead to various positive outcomes of online knowledge coproduction. This paper identifies online knowledge integration factors by considering group heterogeneity and group interaction process.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the categorization-elaboration model (CEM) and interactive team cognition (ITC) theory, a research model that reflects the antecedent's factors and mediating factors of online knowledge integration was developed and empirically examined based on data collected from 2,339,836 data extracted from Wikipedia.
Findings
Group interaction process plays an essential mediator role in online knowledge integration. Group knowledge heterogeneity negatively influences online knowledge integration and group experience heterogeneity positively, and they both positively promote online knowledge integration through group interaction process with different paths.
Research limitations
Our research concerns the OKC context in one setting (Wikipedia). We expect that the results will generalize to other OKC platforms.
Practical implications
The findings of the study could assist the online knowledge community's organizers to understand the motivational mechanisms of online knowledge integration. Group interaction process could be regarded as the key role to promote group wisdom and maintain group independence.
Social implications
We advance the understanding of the online knowledge integration and gain a richer understanding of the importance of group interaction independence for online knowledge integration based on the agreement of group wisdom. It suggested keeping group interaction independence is an important aspect for highly online knowledge integration among heterogeneity groups.
Originality/value
This study extends CEM and ITC theory to the domain of knowledge integration context and finds the mechanism between group heterogeneity and online knowledge integration by introducing the group interaction process.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The work described in this article has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71573030) & (No.71533001), and the Social Science Planning Fund Program, Liaoning Province (No. L19BGL001).
Citation
Qiu, J., Xu, L., Zuo, M., Wang, J. and Helen, W. (2021), "OKC-enabled online knowledge integration: role of group heterogeneity and group interaction process", Information Technology & People, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 336-359. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-01-2019-0027
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited