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To facilitate professional development of teachers in the online context, the online community of practice (CoPs) has become an important platform in which individuals with similar interests or common goals get together to share their resources, develop working strategies, solve problems, and improve individual as well as organizational performance. In this study, we have collected self-reported knowledge-sharing behaviors from 321 members of the largest online professional CoP of teachers in Taiwan. The results show that closer connections among online CoP members can lead to greater recognition of and altruism towards others. Moreover, performance expectation and self-efficacy belief play essential roles in knowledge-sharing participation. Thus, the development of social relationships among online teacher members helps them obtain potential resources and reliable support through their social network. Also, teachers' membership in the online professional CoP fosters a prosocial attitude that heightens their willingness to share useful resources and solve other members' problems, both emotionally and instrumentally. Consequently, knowledge-sharing behaviors, in terms of knowledge giving and knowing receiving, are significantly predicted by prosocial commitment and performance expectation respectively. The implications to both research and practice are provided in this paper. The strength of ties and prosocial commitment help obtain resources and support in the online professional CoP.Self-efficacy reflects a mediating effect on knowledge sharing through prosocial commitment and performance expectation.Knowledge sharing as a form of social participation is predicted by prosocial commitment and performance expectation.

Self-regulation involves a triadic interplay among personal beliefs, individual behavior, and environment that both proactively and reactively influences one's adjustment of efforts, courses of action, and attainment of goals to reach the anticipated outcomes. In this study, we propose and validate a self-regulation model that explores the effects of social capital and social cognitive factors on knowledge-sharing behavior. The results demonstrate that members of an online knowledge communities regulate his or her internal motivation, external demands, interpersonal relationships, help-seeking strategies, as well as confidence of capability in utilizing social resources and performing knowledge sharing task. Through a stronger sense of community, emotional attachment and empathic concern about others' needs, members develop a high level of professional competence to collaborate with others and adequate efficacious beliefs to emotionally and instrumentally help others. The implications to both research and practice are discussed to enhance the understanding and effectiveness of self-regulation in the realm of knowledge management.

This qualitative study investigated online interpersonal trust formation in knowledge-sharing (KS) practice, with emphasis on the interplay between the physical and virtual social contexts. Data were collected during a 6-month period from phenomenological interviews of 49 elementary and junior high school teachers who used a Web-based knowledge management system (KMS) to share their knowledge. Interpretive analysis revealed three important facets of the interpersonal trust formation process in using Web-based KMS: (a) the social role of the teachers, (b) the rigid and tight professional community, and (c) the keys to breaking through. Results of this study can lead to a better understanding of how an individual's perception is shaped and to what extent social factors affect knowledge-sharing practice in virtual communities. In addition to the practical implications to those who intend to manage knowledge-intensive activities, our study demonstrates the relevance of phenomenology for trust in KS research and provides a new way of viewing knowledge management problems in terms of human consciousness.