A dynamics model of knowledge dissemination in a WeChat Group from perspective of duplex networks

Abstract

Studying how to promote knowledge dissemination in a WeChat group is of great significance to organizational knowledge management in China. There are two different ways for group members disseminating a certain knowledge: just sharing it in WeChat group (many-to-many dissemination mode), or using @username function to disseminate it (point-to-point dissemination mode). We regard all group members connected by relationships of two different dissemination modes in a WeChat group as duplex networks. We build a susceptible-infected-recovered-immune (sirm) dynamics model of knowledge dissemination in the duplex networks to obtain the basic reproduction number R0 of a certain knowledge transmission. We use the actual data to estimate the parameters of this model, and verify that our model fits well with the actual data. The numerical simulations show that: 1) The total number of times that members communicate a certain knowledge via two modes per unit time should not be excessive, to avoid fatigue to it which resulting low efficiency of dissemination in the WeChat group. 2) If the benefit obtained by group members from learning a certain knowledge is higher than the required variable cost, the kind of knowledge is likely to be spread in the WeChat group. If a certain knowledge becomes obsolete or is updated for some group members, they will not disseminate it even after they have learned it and it may gradually disappear in the WeChat group. 3) When members only use either point-to-point @mention function discussion or many-to-many random communication to transmit a certain knowledge, or there is big difference in the number of times that group members use each of the above two discussion modes per unit time, the efficiency of the knowledge dissemination is reduced in a WeChat group.