The Impact of Professionals' Contributions to Online Knowledge Communities on Their Workplace Knowledge Work

Knowledge work is becoming increasingly challenging as pace of change in the knowledge frontier is increasing. Organizations have created multiple mechanisms to minimize knowledge gaps and increase learning such internal training, mentorship programs as well as encouraging their professionals to exchange knowledge outside the boundaries of the organization. Reaching outside the organizational boundaries for knowledge exchange has changed dramatically in the last decade with the rise of online professionals communities. In the case of computer science and software engineering it has become a norm to learn and as questions that used to be kept within the boundaries of the organizations, externally, with a community of external professionals help answer and learn. It is less clear whether contributing to such online communities helps improve professionals’ knowledge work or becomes a competing or distracting force from their work place knowledge work. This is the empiric puzzle our study has set to explore. We conducted a mixed method study combining qualitative data from more than 100 interviews with software professionals with a unique quantitative dataset measuring software professionals’ code productivity in their workplace by the hour/every week for one to two years.