Along with extrinsic motivators such as incentive, Kulkarni et al. (2006) found that supervisor and coworker support positively affect an inpidual’s KM participation.

Kulkarni et al. (2006) conceptualized supervisor and coworker support as attitudes toward knowledge sharing and use within an employee’s work team, which consisted of coworkers and immediate supervisors.

In our exploratory study, we found that only organization A has a formal reward mechanism in place for participating in KM activities. While organizations B and C have no such formal reward mechanism, active participation in KM activities by inpiduals is recognized by the management in a rather informal fashion. Such recognition helps inpiduals to advance their career within their organizations.

There are different Web 2.0-based KM activities that are not mandatory. Web 2.0-based KM has room for many voluntary activities such as maintaining one’s own blog or contributing to a wiki page. Hence, based on the findings of Kulkarni et al. (2006), we infer that different incentives, as well as supervisor and coworker support, will positively affect inpiduals’ participation in Web 2.0-based KM activities, and that this will, in turn, positively affect inpidual-level outcomes. We want to examine the effects of these context variables. Hence, we add these context variables to the subsequent propositions as factors that positively affect the relationship between uses of Web 2.0 for KM, and different inpidual-level outcome variables.

2.2. Web 2.0 for KM and Tacit Knowledge Sharing

Tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in each inpidual’s actions and experiences, as well as in his/her ideals, values, and emotions. Hence, it is difficult to formalize, communicate, or share (DeSouza, 2003). Sharing knowledge means both contributing to and using available knowledge (Kulkarni et al., 2006). Because of the subjective and intuitive nature of tacit knowledge, such sharing is very difficult to achieve through any systematic process (DeSouza, 2003). While tacit knowledge exchange among workers could be enhanced through the use of information technology, overall it requires a more “people- centric” approach by means of which inpiduals can have more “dialogue” between them instead of merely distributing and receiving information (DeSouza, 2003). Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) also emphasize the process of socialization for sharing experiences and exchanging tacit knowledge, and DeSouza (2003) has shown empirically that informal dialogues can increase tacit knowledge sharing. Such dialogue can be encouraged through deliberate,

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planned interactions (DeSouza, 2003). We believe that Web 2.0 for KM can facilitate the required dialogue, socialization, and informal interactions for the following reasons:

First, Wagner (2006) has shown empirically that wiki can be used effectively for conversation-based KM, by means of which inpiduals create and share knowledge through question-and-answer dialogue. However, Wagner (2006) has not specifically investigated whether wiki can positively affect tacit knowledge sharing.

Second, facebook-like web 2.0-based social networking platforms are designed and set up to facilitate the informal interactions and dialogues between inpiduals in relatively informal environments (Poynter, 2008). In our exploratory case study, we found that organization B is using facebook-like social networking platforms quite extensively in order to facilitate informal socialization between inpiduals working within their organization. In fact, organization B has created its own social networking platform. Upper management of organization B encourages all employees to actively participate in this social networking platform . Organization A is also working on creating its own social networking platform. Interestingly, while an existing literature blog has not been identified as a tool for informal socialization and knowledge sharing, we found that in all three organizations, blogs are in use to facilitate rather informal interactions between different inpiduals within the organizations. In such instances, not only the owner of the blog provides his insights on a topic, it also simultaneously facilitates an informal “dialogue” between the owner and the readers through questions and answers, which are required for effective tacit knowledge sharing.