Organizational structure

For many decades, organization scientists have paid considerable attention to the link between knowledge and organization structure. An early contributor to these discussions was Max Weber (1922), who elaborated his concepts of professional bureaucracy. History shows a multitude of other descriptions and propositions which depict knowledge-friendly organization structures such as the ‘organic form’ for knowledge-intensive innovation promoted by Burns and Stalker (1961), professional bureaucracies and adhocracies described by Mintzberg (1983), and the brain metaphor for organization structure (Morgan, 1986). Discussions on such knowledge­friendly organization structures led to many neologisms including the flexible, intelligent, smart, hypertext, N-form, inverted, network, cellular, or modular organization

Social Network Analysis

In knowledge management (KM), one perspective is that knowledge resides in individuals who interact in groups. Concepts as communities-of-practice, knowledge networks, and “encultured knowledge” as the outcome of shared sense-making (Blackler, 1995) are built upon this perspective. Social network analysis focuses on the patterns of people’s interactions. This adds to KM theory a dimension that considers the effects of social structure on for example, knowledge creation, retention and dissemination. This article provides a short overview of consequences of social network structure on knowledge processes and explores how the insights generated by social network analysis are valuable to KM as diagnostic elements for drafting KM interventions. Relevance is apparent for management areas such as R&D alliances, product development, project management, and so forth

Motivation in Collaborative Knowledge Creation

The importance of motivation in knowledge management (KM) debates is now generally acknowledged. Motivation affects the overall quality of knowledge used and produced in the work situation, the willingness to contribute to KM systems, the willing engagement in knowledge sharing and many other facets. Lacking sustained motivation in association with an insufficiently knowledgefriendly culture has often been mentioned as the principal culprit for failed KM initiatives and programs (Davenport, DeLong, & Beers, 1998; McKenzie, Truc, & Winkelen, 2001). As Hislop (2005, p. 44) notes, KM authors have not always recognized this prime role of motivation. In the era when KM was – wrongfully – equated with information technology by many authors, an era that is – again wrongfully – labeled as first generation KM by some authors, motivation was one of many socio-cultural factors that were ignored. In recent years, the KM literature has incorporated and elaborated older, sometimes more critical debates regarding social aspects of knowledge and its role within organizations. These broader developments, fuelled by such concepts as communities-of-practice and social epistemologies and informed by critical rebuttals of KM proponents’ managerialist ideologies, have secured a place for motivation in the KM arena as a socio-cultural factor that is indispensible for understanding knowledge processes and KM

Digital work in a pre-digital organizational culture

Digital natives constitute the majority of new employees entering the marketplace. However, they face an organizational corporate culture that enshrines the vested interests of a very different generation of people, whom they would characterize as digital immigrants or even dinosaurs. This organizational culture has very strict values and assumptions about the way people (should) work, resulting in considerable tension between the digital natives and their non-native colleagues. We explore these tensions in an exploratory case study of a hotel chain marked by its conservatism in IT policy. After reviewing the literature on digital natives, digital immigrants and organizational culture, we examine how digitally native hotel employees in China secure access to the digital media of their choice in the face of corporate obstruction. We discuss the broader implications of our findings for practicing managers, as well as future research opportunities, before concluding this research-in-progress paper