JingLi Cheng
Motivation for knowledge sharing by expert participants in company hosted online user communities
Many organisations have implemented online user communities in an effort to facilitate knowledge sharing, but how to get these communities to be effective, more often than not, they fail to deliver on the potential. We are delighted to have JingLi Cheng coming to talk to the society around the subject of online communities and what motivates knowledge sharing.
Come prepared for an engaging evening and be prepared to share your experiences and questions on knowledge communities.
Speaker : Jingli Cheng
Date : 27th January 2015
Time: 6:30pm-8:00pm
Location: HKGCC, 22nd Floor, United Centre, Admiralty (Admiralty MTR Station)
The event is $200 for non members and free for members. Please complete the registration form to reserve your seat, spaces are limited. Further details of the talk and JingLi’s bio can be found below.
JingLi’s presentation can be download here (4.2MB)
Synopsis
Company-hosted online user communities are increasingly popular as firms continue to search for ways to provide their customers with high quality and reliable support in a low cost and scalable way. Yet, empirical understanding of motivations for knowledge sharing in this type of online communities is lacking, especially with regard to an important subset of participants in these communities, the expert users.
Through in-depth interviews with 32 expert users from 9 countries in online user communities by two well known technology companies, Google and Symantec, this study found that the four key factors that motivated knowledge sharing by these expert users were (1) enjoyment of helping others, (2) learning, (3) passion for the hosting company and its products, and (4) affiliation.
This presentation will discuss the underlying mechanisms through which these four variables functioned to drive expert-level users to share their knowledge. Recommendations will also be provided for firms considering implementing a strategy of utilizing online user communities to provide authoritative, ongoing, low cost and scalable support for their customers.
About the speaker
Dr. Jingli Cheng has extensive experience applying learning design theories and best practices in various organizational settings to help learners improve their knowledge and skills. Before recently joining the University of Hong Kong to help produce its first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), he worked as Learning Program Manager at Stanford University, the Hewlett Packard company and several other organizations in the United States, designing and managing learning programs in areas such as leadership and management, and professional and technical skills. He earned his PhD in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University Bloomington, USA, and his research interests include motivation for knowledge sharing in online communities and community of practice as an approach to informal learning in organizational settings.