40 International Journal of Knowledge-Based Organizations, 2(2), 40-53, April-June 2012
Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Keywords: Attitude, Perceived Behavioral Control, Socio-Behavioral Factors, Subjective Norm, Theory
of Planned Behavior, Virtual Community, Virtual Knowledge Sharing
INTRODUCTION
Knowledge means different things to different
people in different research domains (Soule,
2003). According to Nonaka and Takeuchi
(1995), individuals create knowledge through
social interaction. Inherently, knowledge resides
within individuals and more specifically, in
the employees who create, recognize, archive,
access, and apply knowledge in carrying out
their tasks (Nonaka & Konno, 1998). To spread
knowledge between employees and also from
repositories and databases inside the organi-
zations, the knowledge sharing process and
behaviors need to be improved.
For the purpose of sharing knowledge
across the time and location, virtual collab-
orative technologies need to be implemented.
The propagation of collaborative technologies
facilitated the rapid progression of virtual
communities. Many people participate in vir-
tual collaborative networks for investigating
knowledge to solve problems at work. However,
if people do not have rich knowledge about
subjects, the virtual networks will have kind
of a limited value (Chiu, Hsu, & Wang, 2006).
Socio-Behavioral Factors in
Virtual Knowledge Sharing:
Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory
of Planned Behavior Perspective
Farkhondeh Hassandoust, Multimedia University, Malaysia
Mehdy Farzaneh Kazerouni, Multimedia University, Malaysia
Vimala Perumal, Multimedia University, Malaysia
ABSTRACT
Recently, there has been extraordinary propagation in the number of virtual teams for knowledge sharing;
however, fnding out what affects team member’s behavior is important. This paper integrates the Theory of
Reasoned Action (TRA) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to construct a model for investigating
the socio-behavioral factors behind virtual knowledge sharing. The results of previous studies in this domain
paved the path for these factors to be categorized in three conceptual components based on TPB: attitude,
subjective norm and perceived behavioral control.
DOI: 10.4018/ijkbo.2012040103