Incentive Systems in Knowledge Management to Support Cooperative Distributed Forms of Creating and Acquiring Knowledge

Dieses Dokument wird unter folgender Creative-Commons-Lizenz Abstract From currently using electronic communication forums in academic teaching we have learned that a motivation for proactive participation of the forum's attendees is indispensable. K3 is a collaborative management system with an embedded incentive system for the motivation of participants. Traditional ways of assessment such as marks and grades are replaced or complemented by flexible procedures. This paper discusses the theoretical aspects of the system's incentive methods and how the components are operated in K3. K3 will undergo profound evaluation at a later time, so the practical results will not be discussed in this paper, yet. 1.0 Introduction This paper discusses theoretical aspects of collaborative learning systems and presents first findings on the application of incentive systems at work. Collaborative methods are increasingly considered key success factors in organizational environments. We attempt to transfer some of these findings to the field of collaborative learning. Growing competition makes knowledge an increasingly important success factor for enterprises. Some experts even name it the fourth resource. The resource based view rates creation, organisation, and use of intellectual capital an essential competitive issue [2; 3]. Since knowledge is often exclusively attached to interpersonal exchange [8, p. 224] the cooperative and communicative aspect becomes highly important when it comes to knowledge management. Success of knowledge management is strongly depending on the way communication and interaction are working in a company. There are various instruments of knowledge management. They all aim at making knowledge usable to increase productivity and the quality of performance. Thus, the use of knowledge 1