Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of organizational rewards on two forms of knowledge sharing – explicit knowledge sharing and tacit knowledge sharing in virtual communities, and further to explore the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation on the effect of virtual community rewards on implicit knowledge sharing.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on relevant knowledge sharing theories, this study develops an integrated framework to explore virtual community rewards and tacit and explicit knowledge sharing in a virtual context. This study then collected data from 429 virtual community users in four virtual communities via an online survey. Hierarchical regression analyzes were used to test the proposed research model.

Findings

The results of this study show that virtual rewards have a significantly positive linear relationship with explicit knowledge sharing but have an inverse U-shape relationship with tacit knowledge sharing in virtual communities. In addition, intrinsic motivations including enjoyment and self-efficacy mediate the relationship between rewards and tacit knowledge sharing.

Practical implications

This study suggests more virtual community rewards may not always lead to more tacit knowledge sharing. Instead, too many rewards may weaken the motivation for tacit knowledge sharing. Knowledge management practitioners should make full use of the positive impact of self-efficacy and enjoyment to set up appropriate reward incentives to encourage knowledge-sharing, in particular, tacit knowledge sharing and to better manage virtual communities.

Originality/value

This study explores knowledge-sharing behavior in virtual communities, an important step toward more integrated knowledge-sharing theories. While online communities have become increasingly important for today’s knowledge economy, few studies have explored knowledge and knowledge sharing in a virtual context and this study helps to bridge the gap. In addition, this study develops an integrated framework to explore the mechanism through which virtual community rewards affect knowledge sharing with intrinsic motivation mediating this relationship in online communities, which further enriches the understanding on how to use virtual rewards to motivate knowledge sharing behaviors in the virtual context.

中文翻译：

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奖励对虚拟社区知识共享行为的影响机制

目的

本文旨在探讨组织奖励对虚拟社区中显性知识共享和隐性知识共享两种形式的知识共享的影响，并进一步探讨内在动机对虚拟社区奖励对内隐知识的影响的中介作用。知识共享。

设计/方法/方法

基于相关的知识共享理论，本研究开发了一个综合框架来探索虚拟社区奖励以及在虚拟环境中的隐性和显性知识共享。然后，本研究通过在线调查从四个虚拟社区中的 429 名虚拟社区用户收集数据。分层回归分析用于测试所提出的研究模型。

发现

本研究结果表明，虚拟奖励与显性知识共享呈显着正线性关系，但与虚拟社区中的隐性知识共享呈倒 U 型关系。此外，包括享受和自我效能在内的内在动机在奖励和隐性知识共享之间起中介作用。

实际影响

这项研究表明，更多的虚拟社区奖励可能并不总是导致更多的隐性知识共享。相反，过多的奖励可能会削弱隐性知识共享的动机。知识管理从业者应充分利用自我效能和享受的积极影响，设置适当的奖励激励机制，鼓励知识共享，特别是隐性知识共享，更好地管理虚拟社区。

原创性/价值

本研究探讨了虚拟社区中的知识共享行为，这是朝着更综合的知识共享理论迈出的重要一步。虽然在线社区对于当今的知识经济变得越来越重要，但很少有研究探索虚拟环境中的知识和知识共享，而这项研究有助于弥合差距。此外，本研究开发了一个综合框架来探索虚拟社区奖励影响知识共享的机制，内在动机在网络社区中调节这种关系，进一步丰富了对如何使用虚拟奖励来激励虚拟社区中的知识共享行为的理解。语境。