1 .1 . I N T R O D U C T I O N & R E S E A R C H Q U E S T I O N Wiki was introduced as a concept in the mid-1990s by Ward Cunningham, a software engineer who developed his first wiki while he was working on the Portland Pattern Repository project, which is a repository for computer programming design patterns (Chawner & Gorman 2002; Chawner & Lewis 2006; Clyde 2005; Skiba 2005). … Interest for wiki in the organisational context is growing increasingly … With this increasing interest in wiki a number of studies are being conducted by the academics. These research have primarily focussed on how wiki can used in specific context like hospital, … but not many studies (or none) have tried to show empirically the correlation between the wiki and its intrinsic features such as trust between the users, the knowledge sharing capability, the simplicity of its use, etc. So it is felt that there is a gap in the literature in this area The research questions that this study will address are the following: (i) How and to what extent do wikis contribute to knowledge sharing? (ii) What are the barriers and facilitators of implementing wikis in organisations? While the first question looks at what motivates people to contribute to a wiki, the second question looks at the way the wiki is implemented can affect its success. The former focus on the attributes of the people who are members of the wiki and the latter focus on the wiki system primarily. This paper is structured as follows… 1 .2 . L I T E R A T U R E & H Y P O T H E S E S This section discusses the research questions and how the features of the wiki can be related to knowledge sharing from the literature. A model will be developed together with some hypotheses to guide this study. Conceptual Model Team Trust Openness Absorptive Cohesiveness Capacity Participation in wiki User- Diffusion friendliness 1 .3 . T E A M C O H E S I V E N E S S Wiki is a collaboration tool ... H1: Participation in the wiki increases with greater team cohesiveness between the members of the wiki 1 .4 . T R U S T Wiki relies essentially on collaboration of its members … H2: Participation in the wiki increases with the level of trust between the members of the wiki 1 .5 . O P E N N E S S Wiki’s philosophy follows the democratic model. Everyone is allowed an opinion and they are free to contribute in a wiki. This can even mean deleting what someone has previously written to put forward one’s own idea. The willingness and readiness of individuals to accept other people ideas and opinion may be referred to openness of those individuals. From the literature this may be referred to individualism and collectivism, that is the emphasis that members of a group ‘place on their self-interest versus those of the group’. From a wiki perspective it means whether individuals are ready to let go their own opinion for the benefit of the group. Previous studies on individualist and collectivist cultures have shown that the latter tend to cooperate more than the former. Whenever there is a conflict between self and collective interest in the context of knowledge sharing, it is expected that members of the collectivist culture will have a tendency to share more of their knowledge. The consequence of knowledge sharing among the two groups is believed to be a factor that influences one’s decision to share or not. Some individuals attached greater importance than others to what others think about them when they contribute to knowledge sharing. If the contribution is below standard according to the group, they might feel that they have lost face. The literature refers to this as the ‘concern for face’ (Ho, 1976). This group of people will usually have a lesser tendency to contribute to knowledge sharing. In contrast, there are individuals who are very confident about them and they will tend to contribute more to knowledge sharing. These individuals’ self respect will be preserved regardless of what others think about the value of the contribution (Hofstede 1980, Triandis 1989, Harrison 1993). This study will test the correlation between the openness of individuals and their participation in the wiki as developed in this hypothesis. H3: Participation in the wiki increases with the degree of openness of the individuals 1 .6 . A B S O R P T I V E C A P A C I T Y Absorptive capacity has been ... H4: Participation in the wiki increases with the absorptive capacity of the members of the wiki 1 .7 . U S E R - F R I E N D L I N E S S According the theory of Reasoned Action, … H5: Participation in the wiki increases with greater user-friendliness of the wiki 1 .8 . M E T H O D O L O G Y 1 .1 . P U R P O S E O F T H I S S T U D Y W I T H E X P E C T E D O U T C O M E The aim of the study is to understand the motivation of individuals to participate in a wiki and … Outcome: Strong positive correlation between the variables and participation in the wikis … 1 .2 . R E S E A R C H S E T T I N G , S A M P L E A N D D A T A C O L L E C T I O N P R O C E D U R E This study will be conducted at ____. The global company is _____. It is a full service provider of …. Approach The objective of this study is to introduce wikis in ___ and to study the research questions as stated earlier in this paper. The aim is to implement four different wikis in four distinct groups across the different locations and to avoid as much contamination as possible between the different groups. Pretests will be conducted prior to the implementation of the wikis and posttests will be conducted thereafter. As part of the empirical design, it is planned to have control groups also to assess the real contribution of the wiki in knowledge sharing. 2 .