(367c) Motivators and Inhibitors of Knowledge Contribution to Chemical Engineering Online Communities of Practice

Knowledge in chemical industry is heavily dependent on the experiences, expertise and wisdom of knowledge workers (e.g., in process design or operation tasks). Knowledge, as a competitive sustainable advantage, is the basis of knowledge management. Although there are various definitions for knowledge, all of them have consensus that knowledge is the result of cognitive processes in a knower's mind. Therefore, to achieve the potential business value of knowledge management, the knowledge residing in the knowledge workers' minds must be captured, stored, transferred and reused. This requires the willingness of the knowledge workers to share their knowledge.

Understanding the factors that restrain or foster knowledge contribution is of crucial importance for leveraging organizational knowledge assets. While human being are said to be naturally reluctant to knowledge sharing (perceiving knowledge as power), yet many people share their valuable knowledge with others in online communities of practice (CoPs). In chemical engineering CoPs (e.g., forums of cheresources), members with different levels of expertise, contribute their knowledge to others even at some cost to themselves (i.e., time and effort). The present study, investigates the underlying motivators and inhibitors of knowledge contribution to chemical engineering online communities of practice.