The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the types of activity that nurses undertake on an online community of practice (APN‐l) as well as the types of knowledge that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the types of activity that nurses undertake on an online community of practice (APN‐l) as well as the types of knowledge that nurses share with one another; and to examine the factors that sustain knowledge sharing among the nurses from their local perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
An in‐depth case study with mixed methods was adopted to obtain rich and naturalistic data including online observations of the messages posted in APN‐l, interviews with 27 members of APN‐l, and content analysis of online messages.
Findings
The most common type of activity performed by members of APN‐l was “Knowledge sharing,” followed by “Solicitation.” Regarding the types of knowledge shared, the most common were “Institutional practice” and “Personal opinion.” The factors that have helped sustain knowledge sharing within the online community of practice include: a self‐selection; validation of one's practice with others who share a similar working situation; a need to gain better understanding of current knowledge and best practices in the field; a non‐competitive environment; the asynchronous nature of the online communication medium; and the role of the listserv moderator.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the growing knowledge base of communities of practice that span organizational boundary. Administrators can use the coding schema developed in this study to gauge current activities of existing online communities of practice. Additionally, they can use the six factors to sustain knowledge sharing community for fostering new/existing online communities of practice.
Details
Keywords
Ernesto Tavoletti and Vas Taras
This study aims to offer a bibliometric analysis of the already substantial and growing literature on global virtual teams (GVTs).
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to offer a bibliometric analysis of the already substantial and growing literature on global virtual teams (GVTs).
Design/methodology/approach
Using a systematic literature review approach, it identifies all articles in the Web of Science from 1999 to 2021 that include the term GVTs (in the title, the abstract or keywords) and finds 175 articles. The VOSviewer software was applied to analyze the bibliometric data.
Findings
The analysis revealed three dialogizing research clusters in the GVTs literature: a pioneering management information systems and organizational cluster, a general management cluster and a growing international management and behavioural studies cluster. Furthermore, it highlights the most cited articles, authors, journals and nations, and the network of strong and weak links regarding co-authorships and co-citations. Additionally, this study shows a change in research patterns regarding topics, journals and disciplinary approaches from 1999 to 2021. Finally, the analysis illustrates the position and centrality in the network of the most relevant actors.
Practical implications
The findings can guide management practitioners, educators and researchers to the most meaningful clusters of publications on GVTs, and help navigate and make sense of the vast body of the available literature. The importance of GVTs has been growing in the past two decades, and Covid-19 has accelerated the trend.
Originality/value
This study provides an updated and comprehensive systematic literature review on GVTs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is also the first systematic literature review and bibliometry on GVTs. It concludes by suggesting future research paths.