Intellectual capital is the single most important asset owned by any organization. Business continuity and the long term sustainability of every business organization depends partly on how well accumulated organizational knowledge is passed on from generation to generation. Knowledge is hard to capture due to its implicit nature and even harder to manage, thus the deployment of numerous knowledge management systems by organizations in recent times. Knowledge sharing among employees within organizations can sometimes be very problem-atic. These problems stem from issues pertaining to power, secrecy, individualism, time, ignorance and technological issues among others. This paper seeks to investigate how web 2.0 technologies are being used to overcome these problems and facilitate knowledge sharing as well as collaboration. Web 2.0 has been described as the new web which focuses on the use of platforms. Platforms are digital environments in which contributions and interactions are globally visible. The new web technologies which are based on platforms are referred to as emergent social software platforms (ESSP‘s). The use of these web 2.0 technologies (ESSP‘s) within a business enterprise for the achievement of business goals is known as enterprise 2.0 (E2.0). Central to this research is the knowledge sharing cycle model, which has three main stages; internalization, externalization, and objectification. Internalization occurs when individuals acquire or learn from the organization. Externalization is achieved when individual implicit knowledge is made explicit. Objectification is making new knowledge globally accepted. This cycle has been adapted to illustrate the role played by ESSP‘s in facilitating knowledge sharing. A case study of IBM Corporation is used to arrive at the findings which are used to adapt the model. IBM Corporations extensively deploys E2.0. The company uses one central Social networking platform called IBM connections, which incorporates several ESSP‘s. There are seven services on IBM connections which include profiles, Activities, wikis, blogs, bookmarks, Files, and communities. Employing the interview technique, observations and the use of secondary data, the research questions are answered. The findings indicate that ESSP‘s can be used to support knowledge sharing practices and also helps to convert knowledge into its different forms (explicit and implicit). Blogs, wikis, and communities support internaliza-tion and externalization. The process of objectification is supported by wikis. Findings also indicate that the services within IBM connections platform support mass collaboration and foster strong ties among employees. In an objective manner, the paper points out some of the negative consequences of E2.0. Major issues uncovered through the case study include, sensi-tive data, undefined way of working with ESSP‘s, privacy, abuse of use, and lack of interest.

According to some commentary, employees are empowered by simple, flexible and lightweight social software such as blogs and wikis. Using such software, it is claimed they will be able to connect and collaborate beyond boundaries and to benefit organisations in innovation and growth. Extending such claims, commentators also argue that social software challenges existing ways of networking, communicating and collaborating and is likely to cause disruption to some organisations. However, a literature search reveals that it is still unclear for both researchers and practitioners how social software can be exploited for work purposes, and what are the grounds for its adoption. Systematic investigation of the adoption of social software for work collaboration is found to be absent in academic writing. Organisations continue experimenting on social software, seeking ways to encourage their employees to adopt the tools, and expect to benefit from self-organised, distributed collaboration. This technology adoption is a contingent process. The way members use social software is embedded within the social interaction process, group characteristics, tasks and environments. Adaptive structuration theory (AST) is adopted for social software-supported collaboration in a way that emphasised its value as a contextual analysis approach. A conceptual framework was developed from the researcher's experiential knowledge, AST and empirical evidence, and then revised with the findings from exploratory studies. The main theoretical insights induced from empirical evidence are: influence from 'meta-users', e.g., supervisors and managers, affects both users' use intention and behaviour. Social structures embedded in social capital can enable or inhibit the adoption of social software. Nevertheless, new social structures do emerge from online conversations. Additionally, the results show that task-technology fit has little relevance to social software adoption. A case study approach with mixed methods is adopted in this study. Social network analysis and statistical analysis provide complementary support to qualitative analysis. The UK public sector was chosen as the research context. Individuals are knowledge workers in distributed and cross-boundary groups. The asynchronous social software applications studied are blogs and wikis.

Group work and online discussions are not new terms in education and are important activities for Information Systems students. It has become important because it encourages creative thinking and provides more efficient problem-solving approaches. Online social networking sites, like Facebook, have pedagogical potential and the consideration of its academic application should not be ignored by lecturers or students. The main problem identified in this thesis is that the awareness and application of the emerging pedagogical potential of online social networking sites, like Facebook, especially for the purpose of group work and online discussions, is limited among Information Systems lecturers and students. The purpose of this study is to determine the level of awareness and application of Facebook as an academic tool by Information Systems lecturers and students, and whether it can enhance the learning experience of students, related to the effectiveness of group work and online discussions. The perceptions of both Information Systems lecturers and students were recorded by means of questionnaires and interviews. It was found that most lecturers and students were aware of Facebook’s pedagogical potential. However, the consideration and application of Facebook as an academic tool, by lecturers and students, are limited. From a cultural perspective, it was found that students from a private institution, where no Learning Management System was implemented, as well as black students, showed increased levels of utilisation and performance, in terms of enhanced learning experienced, on the academic groups on Facebook. The researcher developed a model for the academic application of Facebook for Information Systems students, based on the Task-Technology Fit and the Social Software Performance Model theories. This study concludes with the recommendation that Information Systems lecturers and students should become increasingly aware of and consider the pedagogical potential of Facebook as a supplementary tool and with suggestions for future research. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Informatics / unrestricted

Involving customers in the creation and design process of new products and services has been dis-cussed in practice and research since the early 1980’s. As one of the first researchers, von Hippel (1986) shed light on the concept of Lead Users, a group of users who are able to provide most accu-rate data on future needs for organizations. Subsequently, many scholars emphasized different areas of contribution for customers and how they provide assistance to the process of innovation. First of all, customers may contribute to product innovation (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1987; Driessen & Hillebrand, 2013; Füller & Matzler, 2007; Gruner & Homburg, 2000; Sawhney, Verona, & Prandelli, 2005; Snow, Fjeldstad, Lettl, & Miles, 2011; Yang & Rui, 2009) and service innovation (Abecassis-Moedas, Ben Mahmoud-Jouini, Dell’Era, Manceau, & Verganti, 2012; Alam, 2002; Chesbrough, 2011; Larbig-Wüst, 2010; Magnusson, 2003; Paton & Mclaughlin, 2008; Shang, Lin, & Wu, 2009; Silpakit & Fisk, 1985), e.g., by co-creating values (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004), such as concepts or designs as well as reviewing and testing them throughout the stages of the process of innovation. From the customers’ point of view, being involved in innovation processes and becoming a part of the organ-ization is a desire of an increasing number of them. Customers are demanding more individual and more tailored products. They are increasingly knowledgeable and capable of designing and produc-ing their own products and services. Due to the fact that their influence on product development is positively related to the quality of the new product (Sethi, 2000), more and more organizations appreciate them as innovation actors and are willing to pay them for their input. Today, customers are not only involved in the qualification of products (Callon, Méadel, & Rabeharisoa, 2002; Callon & Muniesa, 2005; Grabher, Ibert, & Flohr, 2009) but also allowed to customize and evaluate them on the path to innovation (Franke & Piller, 2004; Piller & Walcher, 2006; von Hippel & Katz, 2002; von Hippel, 2001). Moreover, there is an abundance of studies that stress the customers’ influence on effectiveness (de Luca & Atuahene-Gima, 2007; Kleinschmidt & Cooper, 1991; Kristensson, Matthing, & Johansson, 2008; Still, Huhtamäki, Isomursu, Lahti, & Koskela-Huotari, 2012) and risk (Bayer & Maier, 2006; Enkel, Kausch, & Gassmann, 2005; Enkel, Perez-Freije, & Gassmann, 2005). While the latter comprises the risk of customer integration as well as the customers’ influence on market risks, e.g., during new product development, studies on effectiveness are mostly concerned with customer-orientation and products/services in line with customers’ expectations (Atuahene-Gima, 1996, 2003; Fuchs & Schreier, 2011). The accompanying change in understanding became known as open innovation (OI; first coined by Chesbrough in 2003) and represents a paradigm shift, where organizations switch their focus from internally generated innovation (i.e., ideation, in-house R&D, etc.) toward external knowledge and open innovation processes, thus, allowing them to integrate external ideas and actors, i.e. custom-ers (Chesbrough, 2006) and other external stakeholders (Laursen & Salter, 2006). Since then, OI has been identified as a success factor for increasing customer satisfaction (Füller, Hutter, & Faullant, 2011; Greer & Lei, 2012) and growing revenues (Faems, De Visser, Andries, & van Looy, 2010; Mette, Moser, & Fridgen, 2013; Spithoven, Frantzen, & Clarysse, 2010). In addition to that, by open-ing their doors to external experts and knowledge workers (Kang & Kang, 2009), organizations cope with shorter innovation cycles, rising R&D costs, and the shortage of resources (Gassmann & Enkel, 2004). Parallel to the paradigm shift in innovation, another shift has taken place in information and com-munication technologies (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). Only a few years ago, when customer integration was still very costly, companies had to fly in customers, provide facilities onsite, permanently assign employees to such activities, and incentivise each task execut-ed by customers. Today, emerging technologies (subsumed under the term ‘social software’) help integrating customers or other external stakeholders, who are increasingly familiar with the such technologies from personal usage experience (Cook, 2008), and grant them access from all over the world in a 24/7 fashion. Examples include blogging tools, social networking systems, or wikis. These technologies help organizations to access customer knowledge, facilitate the collaboration with customers (Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010; Piller & Vossen, 2012) at reduced costs and allow them to address a much larger audience (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). On the other hand, customers can now express their needs in a more direct way to organizations. However, each technology or application category may present a completely different benefit to the process of innovation or parts of it and, thus, the innovation itself. Reflecting these developments, organizations need to know two things: how can they exploit the customers’ knowledge for innovation purposes and how may the implementation of social soft-ware support this. Hence, this research addresses the integration of customers in organizational innovation, i.e. new product development. It addresses how and why firms activate customers for innovation and which contribution customers provide to the process of innovation. Additionally, it investigates which tasks customers may take over in open innovations projects and which strategies organiza-tions may choose to do so. It also addresses which social software application supports each task best and how organizations may select the most suitable application out of a rapidly growing num-ber of alternatives. The nature of this research is recommendatory and aims at designing a solution for organizations that are interested in the potential contribution of customers during innovation, already involve customers in innovation tasks or plan to do so. Following the recommendations of this research should result in a more effective organizational exploitation of customer knowledge and their workforce and, thus, a value added to innovation and the outcomes of the process of innovation, e.g., a product that better fits the customers’ expectations and demands or consequently a better adoption of the product by the customer.

Involving customers in the creation and design process of new products and services has been dis-cussed in practice and research since the early 1980’s. As one of the first researchers, von Hippel (1986) shed light on the concept of Lead Users, a group of users who are able to provide most accu-rate data on future needs for organizations. Subsequently, many scholars emphasized different areas of contribution for customers and how they provide assistance to the process of innovation. First of all, customers may contribute to product innovation (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1987; Driessen & Hillebrand, 2013; Füller & Matzler, 2007; Gruner & Homburg, 2000; Sawhney, Verona, & Prandelli, 2005; Snow, Fjeldstad, Lettl, & Miles, 2011; Yang & Rui, 2009) and service innovation (Abecassis-Moedas, Ben Mahmoud-Jouini, Dell’Era, Manceau, & Verganti, 2012; Alam, 2002; Chesbrough, 2011; Larbig-Wüst, 2010; Magnusson, 2003; Paton & Mclaughlin, 2008; Shang, Lin, & Wu, 2009; Silpakit & Fisk, 1985), e.g., by co-creating values (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004), such as concepts or designs as well as reviewing and testing them throughout the stages of the process of innovation. From the customers’ point of view, being involved in innovation processes and becoming a part of the organ-ization is a desire of an increasing number of them. Customers are demanding more individual and more tailored products. They are increasingly knowledgeable and capable of designing and produc-ing their own products and services. Due to the fact that their influence on product development is positively related to the quality of the new product (Sethi, 2000), more and more organizations appreciate them as innovation actors and are willing to pay them for their input. Today, customers are not only involved in the qualification of products (Callon, Méadel, & Rabeharisoa, 2002; Callon & Muniesa, 2005; Grabher, Ibert, & Flohr, 2009) but also allowed to customize and evaluate them on the path to innovation (Franke & Piller, 2004; Piller & Walcher, 2006; von Hippel & Katz, 2002; von Hippel, 2001). Moreover, there is an abundance of studies that stress the customers’ influence on effectiveness (de Luca & Atuahene-Gima, 2007; Kleinschmidt & Cooper, 1991; Kristensson, Matthing, & Johansson, 2008; Still, Huhtamäki, Isomursu, Lahti, & Koskela-Huotari, 2012) and risk (Bayer & Maier, 2006; Enkel, Kausch, & Gassmann, 2005; Enkel, Perez-Freije, & Gassmann, 2005). While the latter comprises the risk of customer integration as well as the customers’ influence on market risks, e.g., during new product development, studies on effectiveness are mostly concerned with customer-orientation and products/services in line with customers’ expectations (Atuahene-Gima, 1996, 2003; Fuchs & Schreier, 2011). The accompanying change in understanding became known as open innovation (OI; first coined by Chesbrough in 2003) and represents a paradigm shift, where organizations switch their focus from internally generated innovation (i.e., ideation, in-house R&D, etc.) toward external knowledge and open innovation processes, thus, allowing them to integrate external ideas and actors, i.e. custom-ers (Chesbrough, 2006) and other external stakeholders (Laursen & Salter, 2006). Since then, OI has been identified as a success factor for increasing customer satisfaction (Füller, Hutter, & Faullant, 2011; Greer & Lei, 2012) and growing revenues (Faems, De Visser, Andries, & van Looy, 2010; Mette, Moser, & Fridgen, 2013; Spithoven, Frantzen, & Clarysse, 2010). In addition to that, by open-ing their doors to external experts and knowledge workers (Kang & Kang, 2009), organizations cope with shorter innovation cycles, rising R&D costs, and the shortage of resources (Gassmann & Enkel, 2004). Parallel to the paradigm shift in innovation, another shift has taken place in information and com-munication technologies (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). Only a few years ago, when customer integration was still very costly, companies had to fly in customers, provide facilities onsite, permanently assign employees to such activities, and incentivise each task execut-ed by customers. Today, emerging technologies (subsumed under the term ‘social software’) help integrating customers or other external stakeholders, who are increasingly familiar with the such technologies from personal usage experience (Cook, 2008), and grant them access from all over the world in a 24/7 fashion. Examples include blogging tools, social networking systems, or wikis. These technologies help organizations to access customer knowledge, facilitate the collaboration with customers (Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010; Piller & Vossen, 2012) at reduced costs and allow them to address a much larger audience (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). On the other hand, customers can now express their needs in a more direct way to organizations. However, each technology or application category may present a completely different benefit to the process of innovation or parts of it and, thus, the innovation itself. Reflecting these developments, organizations need to know two things: how can they exploit the customers’ knowledge for innovation purposes and how may the implementation of social soft-ware support this. Hence, this research addresses the integration of customers in organizational innovation, i.e. new product development. It addresses how and why firms activate customers for innovation and which contribution customers provide to the process of innovation. Additionally, it investigates which tasks customers may take over in open innovations projects and which strategies organiza-tions may choose to do so. It also addresses which social software application supports each task best and how organizations may select the most suitable application out of a rapidly growing num-ber of alternatives. The nature of this research is recommendatory and aims at designing a solution for organizations that are interested in the potential contribution of customers during innovation, already involve customers in innovation tasks or plan to do so. Following the recommendations of this research should result in a more effective organizational exploitation of customer knowledge and their workforce and, thus, a value added to innovation and the outcomes of the process of innovation, e.g., a product that better fits the customers’ expectations and demands or consequently a better adoption of the product by the customer.:1 Introduction 2 Theoretical foundation 3 Research areas and focal points 4 Research aims and questions 5 Methods 6 Findings 7 Conclusion References Essay 1: The Role of External Knowledge in Open Innovation – A Systematic Review of Literature Essay 2: External Knowledge in Organisational Innovation – Toward an Integration Concept Essay 3: Idea Mining – Text Mining Supported Knowledge Management for Innovation Purposes Essay 4: How do Tasks and Technology fit? – Bringing Order to the Open Innovation Chaos

This thesis concentrates on wiki systems as an ICT tool of knowledge management. Thesis is divided into two general parts - the first deals with the theoretical concepts such as: data, information, knowledge or community. Doctoral thesis reflects the way in which these terms are understood in different scientific disciplines, especially knowledge management. The second part deals with wiki systems, which are viewed not just in general and theoretical level, but they are also approached practically. The work provides an analysis of possible uses of wiki as a tool for knowledge management in the organization. At the end of the work there are published case studies of specific wiki system implementations (both local and from abroad) to illustrate the work's conclusions. The work has confirmed that the wiki system can be successfully used as a tool of knowledge management. The output of the work on the theoretical level is author's "circular model of know-ledge"; while on the practical level the output is determination of suitable areas for dep-loyment of wiki systems in the organization. In the end author quotes a number of case studies (both foreign and local) wiki systems implementation.

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Die Vernetzung einer Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Nutzergruppen in privaten und beruflichen Kontexten wird durch webbasierte Soziale Netzwerke (Social Networks) wie Myspace, Linkedin und Flickr gefördert. Zahlreiche Personen nutzen zudem so genannte Social Software wie Skype, Del.icio.us, YouTube oder den aktuellen Newcomer twitter. Entsprechende Anwendungen werden durch moderne Informationsund Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT), zumeist durch Internettechnologien, realisiert und ermöglichen es den Nutzern, entweder neue Inhalte zu erstellen, und diese dann mit ausgewählten Personen (oder auch mit der Öffentlichkeit) zu teilen, oder sie dienen dazu, Verbindungen mit bestehenden Kontakten abzubilden sowie Neue aufzubauen. Gleichzeitig ist für die meisten Menschen heutzutage der Gebrauch mobiler Endgeräte ein wesentlicher Bestandteil ihres alltäglichen Lebens. In Folge dessen wird in der Verbindung dieser beiden, zunächst separaten, Felder eine, wenn nicht gar die „Killer-Anwendung“ für mobile Dienstleistungen vermutet. Der vorliegende Beitrag hat das Ziel, Potentiale und Grenzen der weit reichenden Verbreitung von Social Software und Sozialen Netzwerken auf mobile Endgeräte zu analysieren.

Ausgehend von einer Betrachtung des Identitätsbegriffes unter Darstellung der Konzepte von Erik H. Erikson und Heiner Keupp wird untersucht, welchen Einfluss SocialWare auf die Identität der Benutzer haben kann. Nach Einführung des Begriffes virtuelle Identität werden Ansätze und Modelle aufgegriffen, die die Auswirkungen der Internetnutzung im Allgemeinen beschreiben und ihre Anwendbarkeit auf den Bereich der SocialWare geprüft. Dazu zählen die Selbstmaskierungs- und die Selbsterkundungsthese sowie die Problematik des Eskapismus. Des Weiteren werden eigene empirische Ergebnisse zur Selbstdarstellung in Form von stichpunktartigen Profilen beschrieben und die Verwendung von Begriffen wie Freundschaft kritisch hinterfragt.