THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL POWER ON TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEMS AND KNOWLEDGE UTILIZATION

Many organizations have attempted to develop knowledge management strategies through which they can substantially enhance their employees’ ability to utilize knowledge resources dispersed across business units. While previous studies have acknowledged that social power is one of the critical factors in facilitating or constraining social interactions among individuals, few studies have examined in-depth how social power within a work group influences an individual’s knowledge utilization. Given that social power in an organization determines the processes of recognizing others’ knowledge and applying it to real business, the investigation of the influence of social power on knowledge utilization is of value to researchers and practitioners. Integrating the volitional model and the theory of social power, this study develops a theoretical model that explains how social power influences individuals’ affect, transactive memory system (TMS), and knowledge utilization. The proposed model was tested using data collected from 206 individuals. The results of this study show that social power significantly influences an individual’s affect and TMS, which in turn influences intention to utilize knowledge. Notably, this study reveals that different power bases have different effects on individuals’ cognitive (TMS levels) and emotional (positive affect) aspects in relation to knowledge utilization in organizations

Social Network and Knowledge Accessibility of Project Teams: A Multi-level Approach

This study deals with the relationship between the project team\u27s social network and knowledge accessibility from an empirical aspect. What kind of network structure is desirable to improve project team members\u27 knowledge accessibility? Does a strong connection among group members improve their knowledge accessibility? Otherwise, does the expansion of the external network of a group improve its members\u27 knowledge accessibility more efficiently? This study aims to contribute to developing existing network theories and knowledge management theories by answering these questions. To solve the raised research questions, a multi-level research model was developed on the basis of social network theory. From a social network analysis which was conducted on 172 consultants and 42 project teams in 5 global consulting companies doing business in Korea, it was found that the research results backed the existing two different social network mechanisms: closure mechanism and brokerage mechanism. However, the effect of social network on knowledge accessibility of project team members varied along the type of network involved. This study is meaningful in that it overcame the limits of the unit of analysis shown in existing studies by distinguishing group-level network density from individual-level network properties, and by analyzing the moderating effect between them

THE TYPE OF INFORMATION OVERLOAD AFFECTS ELECTRONIC KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORY CONTINUANCE

In the present competitive organizational environment more organizations are implementing knowledge management initiatives to gain strategic advantage. One such initiative is that of implementing electronic knowledge repositories (EKR) which often leads to a rapid increase in the quantity of information employees must process daily, raising concerns of employees being overloaded. This is especially true for current EKRs using distributive technology, enabling customizable individual workspaces which can result in loose knowledge structures. This paper identifies a new type of information overload (IO), extending the concept as occurring in both knowledge seekers and contributors and uses cognitive dissonance theory to provide evidence that IO can change employees\u27 perception of EKR usage. This research paper provides the first empirical evidence that overload has no sufficient affect on EKR continuance intention directly, but has a significant negative affect on the two main success measures: Perceived usefulness and satisfaction of the system

Sustainability of a Virtual Community: Integrating Individual and Structural Dynamics

This study investigates how virtual communities retain active members and maintain sustainability as they grow in size. By integrating the individual and structural dynamics of a virtual community, this study develops a multi-level research model that explores how structural factors (i.e., membership and clique sizes) at the community level interact with individual factors (i.e., the extent of use of collaborative tools, the strength of emotional ties, and shared information resources) to predict an active member’s intention to stay. We tested the proposed cross-level hypotheses using survey data collected from 164 participants and 15 virtual communities. The results of this study emphasize the need to consider individual and structural dynamics simultaneously to understand virtual communities’ sustainability. Results indicate that membership size does not directly influence an active member’s intention to stay but that it exerts an indirect effect by strengthening the positive relationship between the extent of use of collaborative tools and shared information resources. This study supports the notion that, because members form cliques, the strength of emotional ties among individuals in a virtual community does not decrease despite an increase in membership size. Notably, the results suggest that, in a virtual community, a large clique size may weaken the relationship between the strength of emotional ties and the intention to stay

Investigation of the Effects of Members' Closeness, Size and IT in Virtual Communities: The Social Network Perspective

ABSTRACT There has been insufficient attention on how relationships among members are essential for building of loyalty towards a community and on the effect of size on this relational aspect of VC although being acknowledged as critical factors in Virtual Community (VC) research. The informational and social impact of information technology (IT) usage in a VC is also unclear. Taking the perspectives of Social Network and Social Capital Theory, this paper investigated how size, IT, strength of relationship, members' commitment and members' intention to stay interplay in a VC. A cross sectional survey across various social VCs was conducted and the implications for practitioners as well as academics are also presented

The Role of Attention and Neutralization in Posting Malicious Comments Online

As the activity in the online space increases, the negative effect of malicious comments is getting more serious as well. Previous studies have regarded the anonymity as a one of the major factors for posing malicious comments, but they have presented inconsistent results. On the other hand, although need for attention from others can provide alternative explanation on posting malicious comments, this perspective is rarely considered. Therefore, this study investigates the effects of both anonymity and need for attention on malicious comment to find out a real cause for posting malicious comments so that we may prohibit the negative effect of them in advance. The result of research has revealed that, not anonymity, but the need for attention through neutralization is only significant