Knowledge collaboration process in virtual communities of practice: Based on social capital theory

Drawing upon the social capital theory and the context of collaboration process, this paper develops an integrative model to examine the process of knowledge collaboration: collaborative vision, knowledge contribution, knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and collaborative effects. The model features social interaction connection as a prominent antecedent of this five-stage collaboration process. A unique data set of 607 CSDN members is used to test the model and hypotheses are proposed to verify how the elements interact with each other. Our empirical analysis leads to several key findings and offers insights into how the knowledge collaboration process is influenced by each other and how the effects may vary across different stages and different environments. This work contributes theoretically and empirically to the body of knowledge collaboration research and has practical implications for community management.