Engaging in knowledge exchange: The instrumental psychological ownership in open innovation communities

Abstract

Online communities have become a vital channel for professionals to expand their networks and initiate new strategic collaborations. Such online behaviors have led to multiple types of innovation potential that are based on the co-creation of ideas toward new solutions. Yet, very little is known about the role of psychological ownership of knowledge in professionals’ knowledge exchange in these communities that are based on voluntary contributions. We apply the psychological ownership theory and posit that psychological ownership of knowledge is instrumental to increased knowledge exchange intentions of professionals. Informed by the theory, our model incorporates several enablers of online engagement which could be associated with psychological ownership. Our exploratory quantitative study evidences that perceived ownership of knowledge plays a critical instrumental role in idea exchange behavior. We evidence how personal outcome expectations, organizational innovativeness and affective community commitment are associated with psychological ownership of knowledge which is an important predictor of intentions to exchange knowledge in open innovation communities. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.