Knowledge Co-creation and Self-organization Improvement by Knowledge Sharing in Communities of Interest

Abstract

Digital technologies, the social media landscape, and communities of interest play a crucial role in our society, suggesting an improvement in self-organization. Based on social interaction, international scientific studies have examined knowledge sharing across various fields. They have considered things like the factors influencing the willingness to share knowledge among members of a virtual community (Castaneda and Cuellar, 2020), and the role of trust in promoting knowledge sharing (Cien et al., 2005). Studies show that women generally use online resources to discuss health issues in online communities (Zaslow, 2012), though the phenomenon of motherhood—particularly how mothers acquire knowledge—needs to be studied in more detail. This continuation of research into knowledge co-creation and knowledge sharing in communities of interest, extends previous research by observing one hybrid community of mothers for seven years. Knowledge sharing in communities of interest involves building a sensitive environment while fostering trust from a self-esteem and self-organization development perspective. The knowledge co-creation in this study, presents knowledge-sharing practices across different communities of motherhood and examines changes in collaboration over time. In this era of artificial intelligence, there are transformative trends in mental health toward treating people as friends and therapists rather than as individuals, including chatbot-based therapy and emotional health apps (Olawade et al., 2024). A mixed-method triangulation study was conducted via an online semi-structured questionnaire distributed using Lithuanian Facebook groups for mothers of children born in 2011 and 2009; a comparison was conducted with the previous case study of mothers with children born in 2017. The qualitative methodology was intentionally selected to elicit individual member reflections on knowledge sharing within communities of interest and to fill the scientific gap left by research studies on knowledge co-creation, self-confidence and self-organization improvement in hybrid communities of interest in Lithuania.