An Exploration of Knowledge Integration: A Comprehensive View of Media Characteristics and Integration Capability

With the increasing tendency of information technology (IT) applications, knowledge integration in organization has emerged as an important research topic for both practitioners and researchers, reflecting the magnitude and impact of knowledge resource in distributed environments. Practically, data, information, and knowledge are transmitted via various media, and integration capability is the antecedent of knowledge integration in organizations. However, few literatures research knowledge integration from the comprehensive perspective of transmission media and integration capability. As a complement to previous research, this study proposes a comprehensive theoretical model of knowledge integration (KIM) by incorporating valuable perspectives of media characteristics and organizational capability. This research model provides a new lens for knowledge integration based on transmission media in organizations by integrating relevant research streams. Furthermore, this robust and new model, which has been applied to a knowledge integration practice of e-commerce platform, can be used to explain the most knowledge integration phenomenon in contemporary society