Exploring Factual and Perceived Use and Benefits of a Web 2.0-based Knowledge Management Application: The Siemens Case References+

  • Authors:

  • Alexander Stocker;Johannes Müller

  • Affiliations:

  • Virtual Vehicle Research Center, Information & Process Management, Inffeldgasse 21a, Graz, Austria, +43 316 873 9844;Siemens Switzerland Ltd., Building Technologies Division, Gubelstrasse 22, Zug, Switzerland, +41 41 724 4373

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Technologies
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

References+ is a business-related Web 2.0-based application designed to facilitate the worldwide sharing of knowledge, experiences, and best practices on the Siemens intranet. The underlying knowledge management approach has a strong focus on the user community, which currently comprises approximately 10,000 registered members located in more than 75 countries. To measure the individually perceived benefits generated by References+, a user survey was performed in 2011. This paper not only evaluates the survey results received from nearly 1,500 respondents, but also detects and discusses any correlations to factual use and contribution behavior measured by an evaluation of the respondents' system usage statistics. This allows a first attempt to explore the potential of a combination of perceived use and benefits (as measured by the user survey) with factual use (as measured by the corresponding usage statistics). As an important finding of this research, it was observed that higher perceived benefits correlate with usage frequency and the number of viewed contributions. The correlation is less strong regarding average contribution activity and for some cases ambiguous regarding the number of followers. Furthermore, it can be reported that in general a higher perceived use is also reflected in a higher factual use and in a higher number of followers.