Share or Not Share Knowledge: Posters Versus Lurkers in Organisational Online Knowledge Sharing and Internal Marketing

Abstract

Employees should be treated as internal customers to motivate and engage in online knowledge sharing, which is the backbone of organisational competitiveness. Online knowledge sharing helps organisations survive fierce competition for the capability of facilitating the transfer of individual knowledge to organisational capital and decreasing redundant learning time. However, the majority of online participants, known as lurkers, just read the knowledge shared without contributing themselves. Based on Social Exchange Theory, this study focused on the determinants of lurkers and posters, especially in the organisational context. This study collected 792 responses from employees in Vietnamese organisations. Results show that knowledge self-efficacy and perceived ease of use are two strong determinants of knowledge sharing reciprocity and job performance. Additionally, knowledge sharing reciprocity is the critical determinant of posters’ and lurkers’ job performance. Knowledge sharing reciprocity mediates the impact of knowledge self-efficacy, perceived ease of use and organisational rewards on job performance for both poster and lurker groups.