The power of play in knowledge management

The aim and motivation of this research is to investigate ways to support and encourage knowledge sharing. Specifically we examined ways in which ‘play’ can be used to enhance collaborative work practices. In this process we elicited subjective views and opinions on playing games and the extent to which the participant’s felt these could enhance their collaboration in work. The ancient Chinese strategy game of Go was employed in an online team version as a means to evaluate and advance the knowledge sharing culture in a network centric environment. The results of this research identified that play has the power to engage participants into the collaborative work practices and that it can provide an opportunity for teams to see the value of sharing information, and hence to improve the knowledge management practices.