Abstract:

Internal online communities (IOCs) in enterprises allow an expanding flow of tacit knowledge among participants and are widely used to facilitate employee networking, exchange and on-the-job learning processes. So far, there seems to be no scientific focus on the extent to which this can also be used for onboarding processes (OBPs) of incoming knowledge workers, although a transferability is a reasonable assumption. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze potentials how internal online communities can support onboarding processes. The authors follow a two-stage approach. To investigate the state of research regarding the integration of IOCs in OBPs, the authors conduct a systematic literature review. The review shows, that there is no significant link between the two topics within scientific literature yet. To identify potentials directly in business practice, several case studies are conducted as second stage. With several interviews and analysis of additional onboarding materials, different OBPs of knowledge workers are described. By qualitative analysis potentials of IOCs which support OBPs at crucial points from a practice-oriented point of view are derived and systematized. Based on the identified potentials concrete design recommendations for the creation of several ideal IOCs that can support onboarding processes directly are given. This paper represents the starting point for further research regarding the integration of IOCs into OBPs, which will be evaluated by field experts as a next research step.

Keywords:

Internal Online Communities, Onboarding Processes, On-The-Job Learning, Knowledge Worker.