Abstract
The Web 2.0 era is nourished by the emergence of collaboration-conducive web applications, such as blogs, social networks, and wikis. Among these, Wiki has particularly revolutionized the way information is created and shared within a wide variety of organizations, such as educational institutions, research centers, and business enterprises. The technically undemanding nature of Wiki alleviates the burden of mastering cumbersome or complicated technologies, thereby encouraging personnel to share and archive valuable tacit knowledge with other members of the organization. As a result, Wiki helps mitigate the reluctance of members to share knowledge, resolving one of the most pronounced challenges in managerial efforts to capture, transfer, and store knowledge for the firm. This case study presents the inception of a wiki by the NBC Universal Software Engineering and Delivery Team and the expansion of the wiki to other departments in the firm, in particular to Peacock Productions, which specializes in programming of documentary TV programs. The Peacock Productions case demonstrates that Wiki can be a powerful tool for managing knowledge in business corporations, which must adapt quickly to changing market demands.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Parise, Salvatore, ‘Marketing: The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World,’ The Wall Street Journal, 15 December 2008.
Following Raman (2006), the authors differentiate between the terms, ‘Wiki (uppercase W)’ and ‘wiki’. The former is used to describe the concept or refer to the technology in general; the latter is used to refer to a particular application of the technology.
EduCause Learning Initiative, July 2005, http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf.
http://www.elevatorview.com/2008/01/08/7-effective-wiki-uses-and-the-companies-that-benefit-from-them/, last accessed on 23 January 2012.
References
Alavi, M. and Leidner, D.E. (2001). Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: Conceptual foundations and research issues, MIS Quarterly 25 (1): 107–136.
Bean, L. and Hott, D.D. (2005). Wiki: A speedy new tool to manage projects. [Article], Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance (Wiley) 16 (5): 3–8.
Boulos, M.N.K., Maramba, I. and Wheeler, S. (2006). Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts: A new generation of web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education, BMC Medical Education 6: 41–41.
Durcikova, A. and Gray, P. (2009). How Knowledge Validation Processes Affect Knowledge Contribution, Journal of Management Information Systems 25 (4): 81–107.
Forte, A. and Amy, B (2006). From wikipedia to the classroom: Exploring online publication and learning, Paper presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Bloomington, IN.
Hasan, H. and Pfaff, C.C. (2006). The Wiki: An environment to revolutionise employees’ interaction with corporate knowledge, Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 18th Australia conference on Computer-Human Interaction: Design: Activities, Artefacts and Environments, Sydney, Australia.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P. (2006). Management Information Systems: Managing the digital firm, 9th edn, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Leuf, B. and Cunningham, W. (2001). The Wiki Way: Quick collaboration on the web, Addison Wesley, Hamilton in Castleton, New York, USA.
Majchrzak, A., Wagner, C. and Yates, D. (2006). Corporate wiki users: Results of a survey, Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2006 international symposium on Wikis, Odense, Denmark.
Morris, J.C. (2007). DistriWiki: A distributed peer-to-peer wiki network, Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2007 international symposium on Wikis, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
O’Reilly, T. (2007). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software, Communications & Strategies 1: 17.
Raman, M. (2006). Wiki Technology as a ‘Free’ Collaborative Tool within an Organizational Setting. [Article], Information Systems Management 23 (4): 59–66.
Wagner, C. (2004). Wiki: A technology for conversational knowledge management and group collaboration, Communications of the Association for Information Systems 13: 265–289.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Appendix
Appendix
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bibbo, D., Michelich, J., Sprehe, E. et al. Employing Wiki for knowledge management as a collaborative information repository: an NBC universal case. J Info Technol Teach Cases 2, 17–28 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/jittc.2012.1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jittc.2012.1