Sharing knowledge with conversational technologies: web logs versus discussion boards

Arben Asllani, Lawrence P. Ettkin and Ashvini Somasundar

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2008, vol. 7, issue 2, 217-230

Abstract: Knowledge has become an important resource for organisations in their quest to achieve competitive advantage. In order to efficiently manage such a resource, organisations are using information technology to acquire, store and communicate data, information, and knowledge. Both traditional and modern conversational technologies were originally developed for other purposes, and later were adopted for knowledge management. This paper compares web logs (blogs) to discussion boards, as two alternative conversational technologies in the process of knowledge sharing and retention. The results of an experimental study show that blogs are more successful technologies when used to communicate tacit knowledge and when they are intended for a general audience. On the other hand, discussion boards can be used more efficiently to communicate specific, explicit knowledge to a specialised audience. Our findings suggest that knowledge communication and retention rates can increase when the above two conversational technologies are combined with traditional face-to-face communication methods.

Keywords: knowledge management; conversational technologies; knowledge blogs; organisational blogs; discussion boards; knowledge sharing; tacit knowledge; knowledge retention. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=16607 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijitma:v:7:y:2008:i:2:p:217-230

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Information Technology and Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().