Knowledge Factors: How to Animate Members of Online Communities to Create Knowledge-Relevant Content

Knowledge is becoming more and more important as an individual good, and as a social and economic resource. The research project outlined in this publication focuses on the question how knowledge processes can be optimally stimulated in the cooperative context of forum-based Online Knowledge Communities (OKCs). Starting point of the research is a literature review and the outline of individual hypotheses on the basis of an interdisciplinary body of research from the fields of computer and management science. Following the literature review, an empirical study is presented and discussed. The empirical part is founded on an Univariate Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)-based calculation of knowledge process contribution values and a Structural Equation Model analysis (SEM)-based hypotheses test of individual factors of impact on individuals’ knowledge process contributions. The publication integrates existing, fragmented research into an integrated model of forum-based collaborative knowledge management.