Article: The development and application of a community maturity model Journal: International Journal of Information Technology and Management (IJITM) 2013 Vol.12 No.3/4 pp.273 - 297 Abstract: Knowledge is considered as a strategic resource in the current economic age. Strategies, practices and tools for enhancing knowledge sharing and knowledge management (KM) in general became one important issue for knowledge-intensive organisations. Despite the demonstrated role of communities in sharing, capturing and creating knowledge, the literature is still missing standards for assessing their maturity. Even if several knowledge-oriented maturity models are provided at the enterprise level, few are focusing on communities as a mechanism for organisations to manage knowledge. This paper proposes a new community maturity model (CoMM) that was developed during a series of focus group meetings with professional KM experts. This CoMM assesses members' participation and collaboration and the KM capacity of any community. The practitioners were involved in all stages of the maturity model's development in order to maximise the resulting model's relevance and applicability. The model was piloted and subsequently applied within a chief knowledge officers' (CKO) professional association, as a community, to assess especially knowledge sharing among its members. This paper reports on the development and application of the initial version of CoMM and the associated method to apply it. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: The development and application of a community maturity model

Authors: Imed Boughzala; Ikram Bououd

Addresses: Telecom EM Research Centre, Institut TELECOM, 9 rue Charles Fourier, 91011 Evry, France ' Telecom EM Research Centre, Institut TELECOM, 9 rue Charles Fourier, 91011 Evry, France

Abstract: Knowledge is considered as a strategic resource in the current economic age. Strategies, practices and tools for enhancing knowledge sharing and knowledge management (KM) in general became one important issue for knowledge-intensive organisations. Despite the demonstrated role of communities in sharing, capturing and creating knowledge, the literature is still missing standards for assessing their maturity. Even if several knowledge-oriented maturity models are provided at the enterprise level, few are focusing on communities as a mechanism for organisations to manage knowledge. This paper proposes a new community maturity model (CoMM) that was developed during a series of focus group meetings with professional KM experts. This CoMM assesses members' participation and collaboration and the KM capacity of any community. The practitioners were involved in all stages of the maturity model's development in order to maximise the resulting model's relevance and applicability. The model was piloted and subsequently applied within a chief knowledge officers' (CKO) professional association, as a community, to assess especially knowledge sharing among its members. This paper reports on the development and application of the initial version of CoMM and the associated method to apply it.

Keywords: knowledge communities; communities of practice; maturity models; community maturity; knowledge management; KM capacity; knowledge sharing; knowledge capital; information capital; design science; performance; innovation; modelling; knowledge-intensive organisations; member participation; collaboration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITM.2013.054801

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2013 Vol.12 No.3/4, pp.273 - 297

Received: 09 May 2011
Accepted: 20 Dec 2011
Published online: 19 Dec 2013 *

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Title: The development and application of a community maturity model

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