Knowledge Sharing and Trading on Electronic Marketplaces

The lack of motivation of the participants to share their knowledge has become one of the most challenging problems when implementing knowledge management systems. The thesis introduces a theory of knowledge sharing, and presents a framework for electronic knowledge markets. We present an economic model for knowledge sharing, which offers possible reasons for opportunistic behavior in a knowledge management system. The theory provides testable propositions about the influence of different factors on knowledge sharing, such as incentives and culture. We have used actual transaction data from a global knowledge management system to empirically test our hypotheses about incentives and culture. Then, we have developed a framework for knowledge trading. It addresses the different subproblems in a knowledge market and suggests solutions for each of them. Moreover we have designed and implemented an experimental environment to observe knowledge trading behavior. The conducted experiments have been used to test our hypotheses about the performance of the market mechanisms and the free riding behavior. Finally, we developed an IT architecture for knowledge markets based on Web Services, and demonstrated its feasibility with a prototype.