An Experimental Investigation
of Information Sharing
Daphne Raban
Graduate School of Business
University of Haifa
[email protected]
Presentation Outline
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Why study information sharing?
Explanations for reduced sharing
Theories
Information ownership
Research question and variables
Hypotheses
Experiment
Results
Discussion
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Why Study Information Sharing?
 Integral
part of work and business
 A significant
application of IS
 Contrasting
sharing behaviors
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Explanations of Reduced Sharing
 Information
‘commons’ invite the ‘tragedy
of the commons’, free riding
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Database-mediated sharing (Connolly and Thorn,
1990)
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Interpersonal sharing (Constant, Kiesler et al., 1994)
 Too
much effort required
 Asymmetry
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Theories
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Communality (Fulk and Flanagin, 1996; Wasco and Faraj, 2000)
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Pro-social transformation (Constant, Kiesler et al., 1994)
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Critical mass
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Diffusion of responsibility (Barron and Yechiam, 2002)
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Leadership (Butler, Sproull et al., in press)
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Perception of ownership (Jarvenpaa and Staples, 2000 & 2001)
(Constant, Kiesler et al., 1994)
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Information Ownership
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Uneven ownership may create free riding (Adar and
Huberman, 2000), OTOH, when ownership is even is sharing
needed?
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Ownership and self-enhancement (Heider, 1958; Beggan, 1992)
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No transfer of rights
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Ownership is not clear – an opportunity for framing by IS
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Is free riding all that bad in IS?
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Research Question and Variables
 How
can system-induced ownership status
influence sharing?
 IV:
ownership status (3 levels)
 DV: willingness to share (WTS)
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Research Hypotheses
 H1:
WTS for privately-owned expertise
will be higher than WTS information
depicted as an organizationally-owned
document
 H2:
WTS for a privately-owned document
will be higher than WTS for information
depicted as an organizationally-owned
document
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The Experiment
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Results
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173 participants, 3 treatments, each received one public
and one private request for information.
WTS for 3 Levels of Ownership
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
exertise
priv. doc.
personal
request
public request
University of Haifa
org. doc.
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Results of χ2 Tests
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H1: WTS for privately-owned expertise will be higher
than WTS information depicted as an organizationallyowned document
Expertise/Organizational document
Personal request
Public request
χ2
4.21
1.49
Sig.
0.03*
0.17 (NS)
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Results of χ2 Tests
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H2: WTS for a privately-owned document will be
higher than WTS for information depicted as an
organizationally-owned document
Private document/Organizational document
Personal request
Public request
χ2
3.65
1.05
Sig.
0.05*
0.25 (NS)
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Further Analysis
 A McNemar
test showed a significant
difference between WTS for personal and
public requests for help (p<0.03)
 There
was no significant difference for
WTS of expertise and private document
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Discussion
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WTS was significantly higher for expertise and private
document than for organizational document
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WTS was significantly higher for private requests than
for public requests
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A simple system-induced depiction of ownership
created a significant difference in WTS
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Lack of difference between expertise and private
document indicates ownership has more influence than
information source
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Discussion
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No problem in using the IM application: a total of 262
personal message and 484 public messages were
posted
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13% of the personal messages were WTS
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4% of the public messages were WTS
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Sharing induced more by personal appeal
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Public channel used more to ‘broadcast’ than to interact
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Possible diffusion of responsibility in the public channel
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Conclusion and Future Research
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A simple system-induced depiction of ownership
created a significant difference in WTS
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Why are people more inclined to broadcast information
publicly but share information more in private?
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Do people who participate more also help more?
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Is information sharing perceived as a solution to
information overload or to information deficiency?
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What is the interplay between information sharing,
searching and purchasing?
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[email protected]
Thank you for
listening!