Examining the Factors Influencing Continued Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Knowledge Repository

Electronic knowledge repositories facilitate knowledge discovery and reuse by providing computer-mediated repositories for users to codify their expertise. However, why individuals volunteer to help strangers in these electronic networks is not well understood. There is no apparent benefit for the contributor and free-riders have same access to the public good as everyone else. Based on previous research positing that the interaction created by network participants produces an online public good of knowledge, the purpose of this paper is to investigate individuals’ intention to continue sharing knowledge in electronic knowledge repository. Drawing from social cognitive theory, and cognitive evaluation theory, we propose a theoretical model employing environmental factors such as feedback, rewards, and communication, and individual motivations such as perceived knowledge self-efficacy and self-esteem to explain person’s behavior (continuance intention) to contribute knowledge in the electronic knowledge repositories

Knowledge Reuse Through Electronic Knowledge Repositories: An Empirical Study And Ontological Improvement Effort For The Manufacturing Industry

Knowledge management adoption is growing, and will continue to grow in no small part because of its recent inclusion into the ISO 9001 quality standard. As organizations look towards ways in which to manage their knowledge, the codification of explicit knowledge through Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) and Electronic Knowledge Repositories (EKRs) will undoubtedly gain more interest. An EKR is a form of KMS that emphasizes the codification and storage of organizational expertise for the purposes of Knowledge Reuse (KRU). Unfortunately, the factors surrounding KRU are not well understood. While previous studies have viewed EKR usage from a narrow perspective, a broader and interconnected view of KRU via EKRs has yet to emerge. Additionally, while there have been numerous benefits linked to EKRs, there are still issues that limit their utility, particularly in the manufacturing arena where information complexity and geography have made it increasingly difficult to share knowledge. Hence, this research employed a two pronged approach. First, using a multi-theoretical perspective to model KRU via EKRs, a quantitative study was conducted and identified several socio-technical factors that predicted greater KRU. These factors had not been previously modeled within the context of KRU via EKRs, and hence add to both the theoretical and practical implications of the domain. Additionally, the KRU construct was also tied to a back end resulting outcome view that was informed by the Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM). Through this view, the research quantitatively validated that KRU not only predicted greater performance, but also impacted greater knowledge sharing and continuance of use. This ancillary benefit helps to reinforce the importance of EKRs in that additional gains are manifested along with the core component of KRU. Second, the research extended the capability of manufacturing EKRs by developing a holistic design and process based ontology that connects key concepts within these domains to provide an overall interconnected view. Additionally, to ensure the relevance of the ontology, a mature and globally recognized industry standard was used as the basis to develop it. The ontology was then formalized and tested via Semantic Web tools: Protege, RDF, and SPARQL. The results demonstrate an improved approach to knowledge recall by providing rich and accurate query returns. The ability to use standalone and federated queries to effectively cull the complexity of this interconnected domain is an enhancement to keyword based and traditional relational database approaches. Additionally, to assist with greater industry adoption a systematic and constructive approach for developing and operationalizing the ontology is provided. Finally, in the spirit of the program in which this dissertation is presented, rounding out the research effort are broader organizational management recommendations for overall knowledge management. Referencing industry targeted literature and syncing them with findings from these two research efforts, several pragmatic and sequentially logical approaches to knowledge management are offered

The Role of Basic Human Values in Knowledge Sharing: How Values Shape the Postadoptive Use of Electronic Knowledge Repositories

A growing body of literature examines how to elicit knowledge contributions to electronic knowledge repositories (EKRs) with the goal of helping organizations increase implementation benefits. While this literature has explained in detail the initial EKR adoption by knowledge contributors, it has not yet examined the drivers of postadoptive EKR usage for contributing knowledge. Postadoptive EKR usage, such as innovative feature use, can potentially result in richer contributions to EKRs. To aid understanding of how to unlock the benefits of EKRs for organizations, this study examines the impact of basic human values on one type of postadoptive behavior that goes well beyond basic usage: trying to innovate with EKR features. We develop a research model that integrates human values and trying to innovate with EKRs, suggesting that human values indicate modes of independent thought and action and can lead to attempts to innovate in EKR use by increasing the frequency of EKR usage. Data collected from 233 knowledge workers support the model. Our findings shed light on how to encourage innovative EKR usage and underscore the importance of human values for the success of knowledge management initiatives

Individual Knowledge Sharing Behavior in Organizations

Knowledge management is one of the most important research streams in IS research since knowledge is being seen as a vital and significant strategic organizational resource that can influence the competitive advantages of the organization. Organizations have been trying to understand how knowledge is created, shared, and used within the organization as they need to capitalize on the knowledge they possess. Knowledge exists and is shared at different levels (individual, group, and organization level) in organizations. This paper reviews existing literature in this area and presents a framework that identifies factors that most significantly influence knowledge sharing between individuals in organizations

Impact of Culture on Knowledge Management: A Meta-Analysis and Framework

Culture, both national and organizational, can have profound impacts on knowledge management. Yet the literature on exactly how culture impacts knowledge management is complex with no clear generalizable results. A meta-analysis was conducted on 52 articles from ten IS journals for the years 2000–2010 combining both quantitative and qualitative studies in a unique methodological approach. Key findings include a marked shift away from normative language towards more interpretive and critical discourse emphasizing the power issues inherent in the cultural context of knowledge management. Trust and openness are key organizational cultural dimensions that impact knowledge management processes, but these traits are achieved through effective business leadership, rather than a particular technological artifact. The most striking generalizable finding from the cross-case analysis is that organizational culture can overcome or mitigate differences in national culture. An overall framework is provided to illustrate the findings and to serve as an important guidepost for future research

An Empirical Investigation of the Willingness of US Intelligence Community Analysts to Contribute Knowledge to a Knowledge Management System (KMS) in a Highly Classified and Sensitive Environment

Since September 11, 2001, the United States Government (USG) has possessed unparalleled capability in terms of dedicated intelligence and information collection assets supporting the analysts of the Intelligence Community (IC). The USG IC has sponsored, developed, and borne witness to extraordinary advances in technology, techniques, and procedures focused on knowledge harvesting, knowledge sharing, and collaboration. Knowledge, within successful (effective & productive) organizations, exists as a commodity; a commodity that can be created, captured, imparted, shared, and leveraged. The research problem that this study addressed is the challenge of maintaining strong organizational effectiveness and productivity through the use of an information technology-based knowledge management system (KMS). The main goal of this study was to empirically assess a model testing the impact of the factors of rewards, power, centrality, trust, collaborative environment, resistance to share, ease-of-using KMS, organizational structure, and top management support to inducement, willingness to share, as well as opportunity to contribute knowledge to a KMS on knowledge-sharing in a highly classified and sensitive environment of the USG IC. This study capitalized on prior literature to measure each of the 15 model constructs. This study was conducted with a select group of USG Departments and Agencies whose primary interest is Intelligence Operations. This study solicited responses from more than 1,000 current, as well as former, Intelligence Analysts of the USG IC, using an unclassified anonymous survey instrument. A total of 525 (52.5%) valid responses were analyzed using a partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) statistical technique to perform model testing. Pre-analysis data screening was conducted to ensure the accuracy of the data collected, as well as to correct irregularities or errors within the gathered data. The 14 propositions outlined in this research study were tested using the PLS-SEM analysis along with reliability and validity checks. The results of this study provide insights into the key factors that shed light onto the willingness of US intelligence community analysts to contribute knowledge to a KMS in a highly classified and sensitive environment. Specifically, the significance of a knowledge worker’s willingness to contribute his/her knowledge to a KMS along with the opportunity to contribute knowledge, while inducement was not a significant factor when it comes to knowledge sharing using KMS in highly classified environments

Understanding Task-Performance Chain Feed-Forward and Feedback Relationships in E-health

The associations between the use of effective technology and user performance, and the effect of user performance on technology use and task-technology fit (TTF), requires further research (Furneauz, 2012). To address this call for future research, we examined the feed-forward from use and TTF to performance and the feedback from performance to use and TTF by using longitudinal data (n = 156) collected from participants using two custom-built e-health systems that we designed to provide education to develop self-management practices for study participants with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. We captured participants’ use of the two systems, their perceptions of TTF, and their health performance through biomedical outcomes every three months over a 12month period. Our findings show significant and different feed-forward and feedback relationships. In general, our results also show that system use and a negative TTF-use interaction significantly affected performance through feed-forward, while participant performance significantly affected use and negatively affects TTF through feedback. We discuss the implications for task-performance chain (TPC) research and developing and using e-health systems in chronic care

Understanding contribution and seeking behaviour in electronic knowledge repositories

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Knowledge sharing and professional online communities acceptance : an integrated model

This study aims to advance empirical research in the realm of the use of professional online communities for knowledge sharing. Use of these communities is likely to be influenced not only by social factors but also by cognitive and technological factors. Hence, drawing upon theoretical and empirical foundations and contextually relevant previous research, three theoretical frameworks were developed and applied, in which relational factors (trust), individual factors (knowledge/system self-efficacy), and technological factors (system quality and content quality) were integrated together with the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to examine the use of professional online communities to acquire/provide knowledge among professionals. To test these theoretical models, an online web-survey was administered to 366 members of eight professional communities in Egypt.Employing covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM), the results of this study confirmed that professional online communities have emerged as an essential channel to facilitate knowledge sharing among professionals. Performance expectancy and personal outcome expectancy were found to be the strongest determinants of professional online community use. Relational capital - trust - was found to be a significant predictor of usage behaviour. However, for members who used the community for knowledge provision, trust was found to have a stronger influence than was perceived trust on using the community for knowledge acquisition. For members who used the community for knowledge acquisition, effort expectancy and social influence revealed significant effect, in contrast to members who use the community for knowledge provision. Regarding the hypotheses common to both use behaviours, the findings demonstrated some significant differences. Content quality, for example, seemed to have a clearly stronger influence on trust than system quality in all models. Content quality showed stronger effect on trust for using professional online communities for knowledge provision than using for knowledge acquisition, while system quality was found to be a stronger predictor of trust in the use for knowledge acquisition. For effort expectancy, system quality tended to have a stronger influence than system self-efficacy in all models; however, the influence of system quality on effort expectancy tended to be more important when online communities are used for knowledge acquisition.As for moderating effects, the influence of performance expectancy on use for knowledge acquisition and the influence of personal outcome expectancy on use for knowledge provision were found to be moderated by users’ gender (stronger for men) and age (stronger for younger users), while the influence of performance expectancy on use for knowledge acquisition was found to be influenced by users’ experience (stronger for less experienced users)