The web 2.0 revolution and knowledge sharing in formal organizations in Poland

Abstract

At the beginning of the 21st century, the development of the Internet led to changes in the co-production of the cultural content, software and useful knowledge, called the Web 2.0 revolution. It also led to changes in the functioning of formal organizations, both commercial enterprises and institutions whose mission is to guarantee access to cultural goods. This particularly concerned the issue of sharing knowledge and therefore building a knowledge-based economy. It became significant for business entities to use such services, through which they could easily reach potential recipients. Cultural institutions, in turn, began to engage in the free culture movement, thereby helping to promote cultural content. The article presents the results of research conducted among formal organizations operating in Poland. 88 surveys were conducted among small cultural institutions using the CAWI method in 2016-2017, while 179 largest business entities were surveyed using the mixed CAWI and CATI method in 2019. The aim of the research was to obtain answers to the questions about openness to knowledge sharing, involvement in cooperation in sharing information and the scope of such cooperation. Research has shown that cultural institutions are more likely to collaborate on content sharing if they have more diverse resources. While in the case of large enterprises, the tendency to share knowledge is small and limited to cooperation with scientific institutions. Conclusions from the research may be useful for actors operating in the free culture movement in the context of selecting entities for cooperation.