I work in 3 main streams of research: Knowledge and information management, Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship, and Blockchain

Knowledge management, information processing and knowledge sharing: In examining the topic of knowledge management, information processing and knowledge sharing, I do not restrict my study to the use of IT in facilitating knowledge management. Rather, my perspectives are highly influenced by my work published in Information & Organization (Boh 2017, Information & Organization), which states that a firm needs to use a portfolio of knowledge sharing mechanisms to effectively facilitate knowledge sharing within the firm. Hence, I focus on understanding how individuals share knowledge, and examine what influences the effectiveness of individuals’ knowledge sharing, and in different contexts. As a result, my work straddles both IS and management, as I draw on behavioral theories. This work has appeared in top IS and management journals such as the Management Science, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

In my current stream of work in this area, I apply big data and analytical tools, and integrate them with behavioral theories to gain a more in-depth understanding of knowledge sharing and information transfer in different contexts. For example, I apply text mining and text analysis to identify different types of social exchanges Taobao sellers engage in via different types of communication in online forums, to understand how individuals’ social exchanges on Taobao affect sellers’ sales performance on the e-commerce platform. These current projects aim to leverage the advantage of such data, to combine the power of big data analytics (combining recent advances in machine learning and data analytics) with the rich theories in the area of information sharing and social networks.

Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship. In this research, I examine innovation in large corporations and in start-ups. Working with a network of collaborators, this stream of work aims to provide a thorough understanding of the management of innovation both in large corporations and in start-ups. For example, working with 3M and a large local organization, I investigated how the profile of individuals expertise (whether they are generalists with broad expertise, specialists with deep expertise, or T-shaped experts with both broad and deep expertise), as well as how their social network positions influence the innovativeness of individuals (Research Policy 2014, JMS 2014). Extending this work, I am examining different aspects of innovation, both in large and small companies. For example, I examine how the breadth of experience of different types of investors influence external cooperations and innovation performance amongst listed companies in Taiwan, how managers’ power and resource allocations in large conglomerates influence their resource allocations for innovation, and how startups and individuals make use of crowd funding to support innovation.

Leveraging on my interest and knowledge of this research stream, I have obtained two large grants (amounting to almost a million SGD each) from the National Research Foundation in Singapore and the Social Science Research Council. One grant focused on studying innovation in start-ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore. Another grant focused on examining whether individuals can be effectively trained on opportunities identification.

Blockchain. More recently, I have been studying blockchain through a number of studies examining: (1) disclosure quality of cryptocurrency blockchain projects; (2) how motivations for blockchain forks affect their survival, examining the perspectives of multiple stakeholders - miners, users, and developers; (3) how changes in the platform affect NFT creators and buyers; and (4) challenges related enterprise blockchain implementations, such as traceability solutions, and solutions involving voluntary carbon credits and renewable energy credits.