Knowledge-sharing activity within virtual communities of practice and its relationship with needs satisfaction and organizational commitment

Abstract

Virtual communities of practice are regarded as a suitable environment to share knowledge within an organization. The purpose of this study was to examine the possible advantages of knowledge-sharing activity within virtual communities of practice (VCoP) for organizations. In doing so, it was examined to what extent the level of knowledge-sharing activity within a VCoP is related to perceived competence at work, perceived autonomy at work, perceived relatedness at work and affective organizational commitment. In order to test the research question an online survey was conducted amongst 78 employees from the Rabobank (a Dutch bank) who have access to the VCoP Yammer. The results showed that the level of knowledge-sharing activity within a VCoP is, as hypothesized, positively related to perceived competence at work and that perceived competence at work, perceived autonomy at work and perceived relatedness at work have a positive relationship with affective organizational commitment.