Applying fuzzy AHP to evaluate the sustainability of knowledge-based virtual communities in healthcare industry

Knowledge sharing is a critical issue in information-rich and knowledge-intensive industry e.g. healthcare industry. The collaborative group of Knowledge-based virtual communities is a way for promote knowledge sharing, which might improve the performance of organizations in competitive environment. However, it is difficult to choose and introduce the appropriate knowledge-based virtual community, owing to characteristics of intrinsic ambiguity and lack of evaluating methods. In this paper, we propose a feasible appraising approach based on fuzzy AHP to decide the sustainability priority of various types of virtual communities in healthcare industry. In order to validate this framework, a case study was conducted to demonstrate the analysis processes and results. Data of pair-wise comparison for fuzzy AHP were collected by questionnaires. The results indicate that community of practice possesses highest priority, the next is e-learning community, and the lowest is ordinary forum. Thus, the managers of healthcare could allocate resource to develop various types of knowledge-based virtual communities according to their priority.