Author(s) : David A. Askay, April J. Spivack

Keywords:

VCoPs: virtual communities of practice have sprung up to take advantage of geographically distributed expertise—providing unique opportunities for
knowledge exchange and creativity.

Creative process: The creative problem solving process can be broken into two main phases: (1) gaining knowledge, which involves the exchange of thought and experience, and (2) using knowledge, which involves ideation and evaluation.

Knowledge exchange: The new knowledge created through tacit knowledge exchange is the most effective type for generating creativity and innovation in groups, considered by some to even be a requirement.

Swift trust: The concept of swift trust provides a promising framework. Swift trust differs from both knowledge-based and organizational trust in that it
can be defined as a cognitive and action-oriented form of trust, concerned with “doing” rather than “relating”.

Model of Trust: This model presents a proposed pathway for the transformation of swift trust into opportunities to exchange and use knowledge, as the two key phases of the creative process, which in turn allow for the development of knowledge-based, institution-based, and organizational trust over time.

Synthesis: 

This article deals with virtual communities of practice.

Virtual communities of practice are gaining attention among scholars and practitioners as managers and high-level executives look for ways to adapt to an ever-increasing rate of environmental change. These communities have been recognized as a tool for generating new ideas by accessing geographically distributed expertise.

A virtual community of practice is a modern context of social interaction that has the potential to serve as a hotbed for creativity. These communities provide the opportunity for weak ties to rapidly form between diverse individuals who share an area of interest. The technologies available to VCoPs have matured to allow for the easy exchange of knowledge, ideas, and excitement among members (i.e., Web 2.0 applications). To fully take advantage of the creative potential of VCoPs, a deeper understanding of the antecedents to creative output is needed.

Authors present a model that conceptualizes the role of one of the most widely-acknowledged antecedents of creativity—trust. They called upon multiple disciplines in the understanding of the concept of trust, such as psychology, knowledge management, and creativity.

To fully explore how trust evolves and promotes creativity between members of different tenures, they address the following dyadic scenarios of knowledge exchange/knowledge use:

1) New members sharing ideas with existing members

2) Existing members sharing ideas with new members

3) Existing members sharing ideas with other existing members

4) New members sharing ideas with other new members

Although this paper focuses on developing a theoretical model, a discussion of testing the model is in order. Several of the constructs discussed— knowledge-based trust, organizational trust, and institution-based trust—have established quantitative scales.

Finally, this paper answers several calls for research in this area, such as the call from Gilson to establish trust as an outcome or antecedent of creativity. This model predicts that it is both: swift trust is used by new members to support knowledge exchange until there is a foundation upon which knowledge-based trust can form between members and institution-based and organizational trust of the VCoP itself can develop.

References:

A. Blanchard, "Testing a model of sense of virtual community", Computers in Human Behavior, 2008. 24(5): pp. 2107-2123.

A. Ardichvili, V. Page, and T. Wentling, "Motivation and barriers to participation in virtual knowledgesharing communities of practice", Journal of Knowledge Management, 2003. 7(1): pp. 64-77.

F.D. Schoorman, R.C. Mayer, and J.H. Davis, "An integrative model of organizational trust: Past, present, and future", The Academy of Management Review, 2007. 32(2): pp. 344-354.

P. Ratnasingham, "The importance of trust in electronic commerce", Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy,
1998. 8(4): pp. 313-21.

J. Golbeck, "Trust and nuanced profile similarity in online social networks", Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 2006.