Who Shares Knowledge on Online Platforms and When?

Abstract

Organizations are increasingly introducing online platforms to facilitate knowledge sharing within the organization. Nevertheless, not all employees actively participate in knowledge sharing on online platforms. This study aims to identify who (i.e., employees with specific individual characteristics) are more likely to engage in knowledge sharing on the platform and when (i.e., boundary conditions) they are likely to do so. To guide our investigation, we draw on social exchange theory and the idea of generalized exchange, which research has found plays a pivotal role in facilitating interactions on online platforms. Specifically, we propose that employees with higher levels of generalized exchange orientation are more likely to engage in online knowledge-sharing behavior, but only when they need to use a wide variety of knowledge to complete their jobs (i.e., knowledge variety) and when they interact with a partner who previously worked in the same office (i.e., past collocation history). Using a longitudinal dataset spanning six months among 100 users on an in-house online platform of a professional service firm, we find support for the three-way interaction hypothesis. We discuss implications on knowledge sharing on in-house online platforms.