Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

 
2007 Annual International CHRIE Conference & Exposition 
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chatting) in the system to allow such interactive participation and promote mechanisms for fair exchange of 
knowledge.
Limitations 
It is acknowledged that there are some limitations to the study. The first limitation is the pretest sample 
which was a group of graduate students and faculty rather than the targeted population (industry professionals). This 
was constrained by the sponsoring association with regards to the direct access to their member database at the early 
stage. From the conceptualization perspective, the second limitation was the elimination of the ownership construct 
due to the low reliability. During the initial literature review, this construct was considered as a significant driver of 
knowledge sharing in online professional communities. The authors hope that future studies can focus on this 
interesting aspect in detail. Finally, the study was conducted with the members of a single international trade 
association. While this provides a rich contextual frame, it might create a potential bias as these members had 
already formed a cohesive unit due to their membership engagement. Future research can also be expanded to take a 
cross-sectional look at the interesting aspect of social capital across a number of tourism-related industries to ensure 
high generalizability