Modeling the Empowerment Mechanism of Knowledge Collaboration from the Perspective of Platform Affordances

In the digital economy era, knowledge platforms have both the functions of knowledge collaboration and social media. At the same time, how to promote knowledge collaboration through platform empowerment is getting more and more attention. Since there are few types of research on how to realize the micromechanism of platform empowerment, the purpose of this paper is to take knowledge platforms as an example to study the conceptual system of platform affordances based on the social-technical perspective. Through the theoretical integration of technological empowerment and authorization empowerment, this paper provides new perspectives and future themes for explaining the platform empowerment mechanism of knowledge collaboration. As for the method, the deductive research approach is adopted in this paper. First, through the critical literature review, the gaps in platform empowerment research have been identified. Second, from the analysis of the characteristics of knowledge platforms such as Wukong Q&A and Zhihu, the relationship between platform affordances, platform organizational characteristics, and customer needs has been explored. In the final, according to knowledge platform characteristics, the conceptual system of platform affordances has been deduced. The result shows that through integrating organizational theory, knowledge management theory, and platform ecological viewpoints, the main components of the affordances of knowledge platforms have been summarized. In addition, the relevance of those components to the functions, interfaces and rules of the platform system has been illustrated, and the corresponding relationship between the affordances of the platform and the main components of authorization empowerment has been established. With regard to the implication of this study, it establishes the theoretical connection between technological empowerment and authorization empowerment and provides a more intuitive and operable method for platform empowerment of knowledge collaboration through the perspective of social-technical interaction. This paper emphasizes that starting from the mission of the platform, the stickiness of the platform can be enhanced by building platform affordances. In addition, extensive development ideas that purely pursue Internet traffic and capital need to be avoided, which is conducive to the high-quality development of knowledge platforms and the digital economy. Furthermore, this paper calls for more research on the affordances and empowerment mechanism of the platform to provide theoretical guidance for the highly unified practice of platform organizational characteristics, platform system characteristics, and target customer needs, so as to develop a more active and meaningful platform knowledge management field.

Evolutionary Dynamics of Interfirm Cooperative System for Radical Innovation from Knowledge Collaboration Perspective

Interfirm cooperation can be seen as a significant and effective way for exploring radical innovation. In this article, a framework of interfirm cooperation, with a core manufacture and upstream counterparties in industry, and its evolving mechanism in the reverse-chain radical innovation are established from the perspective of the fundamental role played by knowledge collaboration. Then, an evolution model of interfirm cooperation is constructed on the theory of vibration mechanics, and its evolutionary dynamics is explored through numerical and simulation analysis mainly on the key factors of knowledge potential difference and knowledge rent-seeking behaviour within the firms. The findings show that, if there is no knowledge-based rent-seeking behaviour from the upstream firms, the probable innovative performance from the interfirm cooperation should vary for the knowledge potential difference between the cooperative firms, but can come to a certain equilibrium state. Meanwhile, if the knowledge rent-seeking behaviour does exist, knowledge potential difference would lead the innovative performance evolving ultimately in divergence. What’s more, the negative effect caused by the rent-seeking behaviour could be alleviated or weakened to some extent by the excitation mechanisms presented by the core firms in the cooperation system. Therefore, the drawn conclusions should be useful for the core manufactures’ implementing various strategies to maintain or enhance the cooperation for radical innovation in industry.

A system dynamics investigation of knowledge collaboration in online encyclopedias based on activity theory

Purpose Although researchers have demonstrated a keen interest in knowledge collaboration in online encyclopedias, previous studies have seldom explored the dynamic interrelations in online encyclopedias over time that involve the iteratively melding of individual cognitive system and knowledge collaboration system. Therefore, this paper aims to reveal the structure and dynamics of knowledge collaboration in online encyclopedias from a perspective of system dynamics (SD). Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes a general activity system of knowledge collaboration in online encyclopedias based on Engeström’s activity theory. According to the SD methodology proposed by Forrester, this study develops a holistic SD model by identifying interactions of knowledge collaboration factors based on behavioral theories; validating the SD model by structural tests and behavior tests involving historical data of English Wikipedia; and conducting simulation to capture the interactive dynamics of the salient factors of knowledge collaboration. Findings According to the SD methodology, this study develops and validates an SD model to explore interesting dynamic interrelations among core factors (contributors, conflicts, discussions, entries quantity and entries quality) that are neglected by previous research. The results show that there is a significant negative feedback relationship between inactive contributors and entries quality, between contributors and conflicts and between edit conflicts and entries quality. There is a complicated nonlinear feedback relationship between active contributors and entries quality, and between edit conflicts and discussions. Originality/value Different from prior empirical studies that normally investigate the unidirectional linear relationships among prominent factors of knowledge collaboration in online encyclopedias from a static perspective, this study captures a dynamic picture of their interrelations by unfolding their behavior patterns over time. The main contribution of this study is to develop a holistic SD model and to reveal and elaborate on the complex dynamics involved online encyclopedias based on activity theory.