Notice of RetractionAn application of theory of constraints and total quality management to investigate technical problems of knowledge sharing of virtual communities

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

We hereby retract the content of this paper. Reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper.

The presenting author of this paper has the option to appeal this decision by contacting TPII@ieee.org.

The advances of digital technologies of the past decade have penetrated every profession, and have widened the dimension of every aspect of our daily life. One of them is the development of virtual communities, which are becoming a necessity of everyone´s extended society. The management of virtual communities is confronted with competition like other traditional business. It is well known that the ability of knowledge sharing among users of a community is the corner stone in building a successful virtual community. There are many factors that prohibit the willingness of users to share knowledge, which may include factors pertaining to organization, person, and technicality. This research focuses on identifying the technicality factors. We first review research reporting on knowledge sharing problems due to technical problems, then apply the thinking process of the Theory of Constraints to build a Current Reality Tree. The logical verification approach will lead us to the core problems, which allow us to build an Evaporating Cloud. We then apply principles of Total Quality Management as the Tactical Objectives of the Evaporating Cloud to discover the factors due to technicality. We found that the sharing platform is the major factor that may deter knowledge sharing of community members. Too much demand on the user due to unsuitable techniques or unfriendly ways of design could all contribute to undesirable results. This research proposes an approach in overcoming technical factors.