Govind Iyer, Sury Ravindran

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Knowledge Contribution and Reuse Experimental
Survey-Based Studies

• Govind Iyer, Sury Ravindran
• Department of Information Systems

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Introduction and Agenda

• Research Question(s) and Motivation
• Prior Research
• Empirical Models
• Research Method and Data Collection
• Results
• Implications
• Future Research

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Research Questions

• Can knowledge sharing improve organizational
  performance?
• If no, what else is required?
• Knowledge re-use
• Are knowledge sharing and re-use jointly
  determined?
• What are the factors that impact either/both?

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Research Questions (continued)

• many companies, when building knowledge into
  their work, focus on gathering the knowledge base
  of the organisation and rewarding those who
  contribute to it. . while collecting knowledge
  is an important first step, it is the actual use
  of the knowledge where value is generated.
  what gets measured gets done, holds quite true
  for knowledge-based activities.
• a firm needs to measure both what knowledge
  is being used (e.g. number of applications or
  reuses) and what contribution the knowledge has
  made to the business itself (e.g. reduced cycle
  time, greater revenue, fewer errors).
• Tata Consultancy Services, 1999

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Motivation

• Traditionally, the emphasis has been on the
  knowledge supply side
• Xerox Corporation uses DocuShare to enable
  knowledge workers post items to a shared
  repository
• Measures have been introduced to mitigate
  reluctance to contribute knowledge objects to the
  repository (e.g., incentives, championing KM,
  emphasizing cost savings etc.)
• Of 7 articles in a recent special issue of MISQ,
  6 dealt with knowledge contributions
• The 1 exception dealt with ratings of knowledge
  objects in the repository

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Prior Research

• KM participants knowledge suppliers and
  knowledge customers (Markus 2001)
• Supply hurdles natural reluctance, fear of
  becoming redundant, cost of effort required
  (Bock, Zmud, Kim Lee 2005 Kankanhalli, Tan
  Wei 2005a Wasko Faraj 2005)
• Demand hurdles - costs of searching for knowledge
  objects, difficulty in searching, NIH syndrome
  (Katz and Allen, 1982 Garud Kumaraswamy 2005)

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Prior Research (continued)

• Antecedents of successful KM initiatives
• system characteristics, quality of knowledge
  objects, knowledge sharing culture (e.g.,
  reciprocity, trust, pro-sharing norms) , top
  management support , supervisory control
  (Constant, et al., 1994 Jarvenpaa and Staples,
  2000 Kankanhalli, Tan and Wei, 2005a, 2005b
  Kulkarni et al., 2006)

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Prior Research (continued)

• Disutility of knowledge contribution
• Time and effort
• Loss of power (perceived or real) (Goodman and
  Darr, 1998 Kankanhalli, Tan and Wei, 2005a
  Markus, 2001 Davenport and Prusak 1998)
• Disutility of knowledge re-use
• Time and effort to search
• Difficulty in searching
• Results of search not useful

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Research Models

• Common strategies undertaken by organizations to
  get employee buy-in for furthering KM
  initiatives
• Providing Incentives (Microeconomics -
  Eisenhardt 1989)
• For Contribution
• For Reuse
• For Both
• Convincing employees of the usefulness of KM
  system
• Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1987 Taylor
  and Todd, 1995) and Technology Acceptance Model
  (Davis, 1989)
• Preparing employees to take part in KM efforts
• Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986)
• What about other factors?

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Research Model

• Tolerance of Ambiguity ToA (McDonald 1970)
• the extent to which an individual perceives an
  ambiguous situation as desirable (Budner, 1962
  Frenkel-Brunswick, 1949)
• ambiguity tolerant individuals perform better in
  new, complex environments (Jonassen and Grabowski
  1993)
• ToA typically acts as a moderating influence and
  not a direct influence (Gallivan 2004)
• established as holding in diverse professions
  e.g., auditors, nurses, MBAs, entrepreneurs
• ToA is treated as a moderating variable in the
  KM scenario as well

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Research Model 1
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Research Model 1

• Usefulness likelihood of finding a usable
  knowledge object in the knowledge repository of
  the KMS
• Two levels high UH and low UL
• Incentive for contribution and reuse
• Three levels no incentive NI, contribution
  incentive IC and contribution/reuse incentive ICR
• Dependents Intent to Contribute KC , Intent to
  Reuse KU
• Experimental design

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Research Model 1

• Hypotheses (Low ToA group)
• H1 Incentive to contribute IC increases intent
  to contribute knowledge KC relative to no
  incentive NI.
• H2 Incentive to contribute/reuse ICR increases
  intent to contribute knowledge KC relative to no
  incentive NI.
• H3 Incentive to contribute/reuse ICR increases
  intent to reuse knowledge KU relative to no
  incentive NI.
• H4 High level of usefulness of the knowledge
  management system UH increases intent to reuse
  knowledge KU relative to low usefulness UL.
• H5 High level of usefulness of the knowledge
  management system UH does not increase intent to
  contribute knowledge KC relative to low level UL.

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Research Model 1

• Hypotheses (High ToA group)
• H6 IC increases KC relative to NI when
  usefulness level is UH.
• H7 ICR increases KC relative to NI when
  usefulness level is UH.
• H8 ICR has no impact on KU relative to NI when
  usefulness level is UH.
• H9 IC has no impact on KC relative to NI when
  usefulness level is UL.
• H10 ICR increases KC relative to NI when
  usefulness level is UL.
• H11 ICR increases KU relative to NI when
  usefulness level is UL.
• Reuse on Contribution Hypothesis
• H12 Knowledge contribution KC is positively
  affected by reuse KU.
• Contribution on Reuse Hypothesis
• H13 Knowledge reuse KU is positively affected by
  contribution KC.

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Results
MANOVA results
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Results
a 0.10 significance b 0.05 significance c 0.01
significance _at_ null hypothesis holds
Test of Means Low Tolerance Group
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Results
Test of Means High Tolerance Group
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Results
p-values are for one-tailed tests Simultaneous
Equation Estimation Results
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Results
p-values are for one-tailed tests Simultaneous
Equation Estimation Results
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Results
Complementarity Model Estimation Results
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Contributions/Limitations

• Moderating influence of ToA
• Joint endogeneity of knowledge contribution and
  reuse
• Complementarity of Incentives and Usefulness
• Explicit treatment of knowledge reuse
• Use of student subjects
• Experimental setting
• Intention rather than actual behavior

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Research Model 2
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Research Model 2
H1 Incentives increase intent to contribute
knowledge to the repository
H2 Increased document currency increases
intent to reuse knowledge
H3 Higher task complexity increases
intent to re-use knowledge
H4 Increased task complexity increases
intent to contribute knowledge
H5 Higher intent to reuse knowledge increases
intent to contribute knowledge
H6 Higher intent to contribute knowledge
increases intent to reuse knowledge
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Research Model 2
MANOVA Results
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Research Model 2
ANOVA Results
5 significance 1 significance _at_
two-tailed tests Test of difference between
Means
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Research Model 2
Simultaneous Equation Estimation
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Research Model 3
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Research Model 3
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Questions

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