Knowledge Management Using Information Technology: Determinants of Short‐Term Impact on Firm Value*

The importance of knowledge management (KM) processes for organizational performance is now well recognized. Seeking to better understand the short‐term impact of KM on firm value, this article focuses on public announcements of information technology (IT)‐based KM efforts, and uses cumulative abnormal return (CAR) associated with an announcement as the dependent variable. This article employs a contingency approach, arguing that the KM announcement would have a positive short‐term impact on firm value in some conditions but not in others. Thus, it pursues the following research question: What are the effects of contextual factors on the CAR associated with the announcement of an IT‐based KM effort? Specific hypotheses are proposed based on information‐processing theory, organizational learning theory, the knowledge‐based theory of the firm, and the theory of knowledge creation. These hypotheses link CARs to alignment between industry innovativeness and the KM process, alignment between firm efficiency and the KM process, firm‐specific instability, and firm diversification. The empirical study utilizes secondary data on 89 KM announcements from 1995 to 2002. The results largely support the hypotheses. Overall, this article provides empirical support for the theory‐based arguments, and helps develop a contingency framework of the effectiveness of KM efforts.     

An Empirical Study of the Effect of Knowledge Management Processes at Individual,Group, and Organizational Levels*

To enhance our understanding of knowledge management, this paper focuses on a specific question: How do knowledge management processes influence perceived knowledge management effectiveness? Prior literature is used to develop the research model, including hypotheses about the effects of four knowledge management processes (internalization, externalization, socialization, and combination) on perceived individual‐level, group‐level, and organizational‐level knowledge management effectiveness. The study was conducted at the John F. Kennedy Space Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration using a survey of 159 individuals and two rounds of personal interviews. Structural equation modeling was performed to test measurement and structural models using the survey data. The emergent model suggests that internalization and externalization impact perceived effectiveness of individual‐level knowledge management. Socialization and combination influence perceived effectiveness of knowledge management at group and organizational levels, respectively. The results also support the expected upward impact in perceived effectiveness of knowledge management, from individual to group level, as well as from group level to organizational level. The study's limitations and implications for practice and future research are described.     

The influence of organizational identification on organizational knowledge management (KM)

Information technology (IT) outsourcing vendor organizations contain isolated business units whose creation and sustenance greatly facilitate business operations. But they also introduce important challenges for organizational knowledge management (KM). In this paper, based on 7 months of intensive field-work at India Inc., a leading Indian IT firm, we looked at how members’ identification with two organizations, their own and their client organization, influences their compliance with an organizational KM initiative. The findings show that members have difficulties in complying with the expectations of the organizational KM initiative owing to a stronger identification with their client organizations. At the same time, they comply readily with KM initiatives at the business unit level. The findings show that KM managers at India Inc. use the help of middle level managers in the business units in their efforts to improve members’ compliance with organizational KM. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study are discussed.     

Understanding the Antecedents of Effective Knowledge Management: The Importance of a Knowledge‐Centered Culture*

Within the context of knowledge management, little research has been conducted that identifies the antecedents of a knowledge‐centered culture—those organizational qualities that encourage knowledge creation and dissemination. In this study, the existing literature on organizational climate, job characteristics, and organizational learning (in the form of cooperative learning theory) are linked with the current thinking and research findings related to knowledge management to develop a theoretical model explaining the relationships among organizational climate, the level of cooperative learning that takes place between knowledge workers, and the resulting level of knowledge created and disseminated as measured by team performance and individual satisfaction levels. The study goes on to empirically test the proposed research model by investigating the climate of organizations, and seeks to understand the linkage between a set of organizational and individual characteristics and knowledge‐related activities found in cooperative learning groups and the resulting work outcomes. The hypothesized research model is tested using LISREL with data collected from 203 information systems (IS) professionals engaged in systems development activities. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications the results have for future research and managerial practice.     

Inter‐Organizational Fit,Relationship Management Capability,and Collaborative Performance within a Humanitarian Setting

Donors and governments are increasingly calling for more collaborative relationships between humanitarian organizations (HOs), to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian operations by exchanging information, knowledge, and resources. This study examines the relative efficacy of partners' characteristics (i.e., compatibility and resource complementarity) and partners' relationship management capability on collaborative relationships, incorporating mutual trust and reciprocal commitment as two mediator constructs. We use Partial Least Squares to examine the proposed hypotheses using a sample of 191 respondents. Data are collected through a web‐survey of international humanitarian non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in countries across Africa, Asia, and South America. The results reveal that (i) resource complementarity and relationship management capability are significant factors influencing collaborative performance through their effects on partners' mutual trust and reciprocal commitment, and that (ii) partners' compatibility (i.e., missions, values, and operational methods) does not significantly drive success or failure of collaboration between international NGOs. These results suggest that given the present diversity of HOs' characteristics, the success of collaboration is associated with the partners' level of understanding of each other's objectives, operations, and values, and to the extent to which organizations efficiently communicate and coordinate their joint activities. The managerial implications of the findings are also discussed.     

Team‐Level Antecedents of Individuals' Knowledge Networks*

Individuals' knowledge networks are widely considered to contribute substantially to the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations. While the positive effects of knowledge networks as a primary driver of social capital have recently received considerable research attention, potential determinants of individuals' network building have not yet been adequately addressed. In this study, we investigate how certain team‐level properties affect team members' development of knowledge networks through the course of a team project. Using data from 430 team leaders and team members pertaining to 145 software development projects, we test cross‐level hypotheses using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). The results indicate that the team's perception of the organizational knowledge‐sharing climate, the team's networking preference, and the team's perceived importance of networking for project success positively affect individuals' network building. Furthermore, a team's perception of the adequacy of its technical competency and a team's perception of the adequacy of its material resources inhibit team members' individual network development. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Financial performance and global start-ups: the impact of knowledge management practices

This paper investigates how knowledge management (KM) practices improve the financial performance of global start-ups (GSs). Using a database of 114 global innovative Italian start-ups, this study is based on the principal component analysis – data envelopment analysis (PCA-DEA) method. In particular, a survey was conducted to investigate KM practices and secondary data was used to evaluate financial performance. This research highlights that the adoption of different knowledge management practices (i.e., acquisition, documentation, creation, transfer and application) has a positive impact on the financial performance of global start-ups. The study contributes to the literature on international entrepreneurship, shedding light on the consequences of KM practices for global start-ups' financial performance, and provides guidelines for business owners, enabling them to understand better how knowledge management can facilitate the achievement of high levels of financial efficiency.     

Knowledge Management for the Entrepreneurial Venture

We synthesize research from operations management, entrepreneurship, organizational science, and strategy to investigate the performance‐enhancing benefits of knowledge management activities throughout the entrepreneurial process of a high‐tech venture from idea conception to commercialization. We adopt a dynamic learning perspective of entrepreneurship to understand how knowledge management activities change throughout four phases of the venture's life cycle. We introduce a framework that identifies a set of knowledge‐based capabilities that enhance the entrepreneurial venture's success. In the context of the first phase, we discuss knowledge as a key driver of entrepreneurial alertness and creativity, both of which impact the quality and quantity of opportunities and innovations discovered. Second, we describe how knowledge enables the entrepreneur to make decisions under uncertainty such as determining which opportunity to pursue. For Phase 3 of the life cycle, we explore the challenges of managing knowledge during the development of the product or technology including the trade‐off between exploration and exploitation. In the final phase, we explore how knowledge impacts the market entry decision, survival, and the value captured at commercialization. We conclude the article with suggestions for future research.     

Knowledge modelling for contract disputes and change control

The construction industry involves many participants with different perspectives and requirements. Contracts can provide significant value, and yet ineffective contract management frequently leads to disputes. In practice, contracts are hardly reviewed, and contract management is limited. This study aims to investigate how firms can improve their internal processes relating to knowledge management (KM) through effective contract management to aid construction practitioners in managing contract disputes and changes. Using a questionnaire survey and a workshop involving experienced industry practitioners and researchers, the findings reveal that project- and individual-level implementation of KM processes is stronger than at the organizational level, and also there are substantial human resources (HR) practices that support contractual KM. Workshop participants believe efficient and effective KM can minimise losses from contract changes and disputes. A construction contract management process framework, a 19-step benchmarking model for contract management and a construction planning checklist for contractors are proposed.     

企业跨部门心理安全、知识分享与组织绩效间关系的实证研究

知识分享是组织学习研究领域中的一个热点话题,本研究旨在探讨跨部门心理安全对组织内部知识分享以及组织绩效的影响机制。本文实证研究发现,组织跨部门心理安全与组织知识分享、组织绩效之间均存在"倒U"关系,而知识分享会对组织绩效的提升产生正向影响,知识分享在跨部门心理安全对组织绩效的作用中扮演中介角色。研究发现有助于加深我们对跨部门心理安全与组织知识分享、组织绩效间作用关系的深入了解,为企业管理实践提供有益的借鉴和启示。     

Internationaler Joint Venture Erfolg: Eine Meta-Analyse

To analyze the success factors of international joint ventures (IJVs), this study meta-analytically integrates 106 studies of 32.318 firms. The results show that the success factors from the partner level (e.g., operational and strategic fit, partner experience) and IJV level (e.g., commitment, trust, control, interdependence, conflicts, conflict management, and organizational learning) determine IJV performance. Further, results reveal that IJV type, industry, and geographical distance moderate the relationships between success factors and IJV performance. Thus, this study contributes to extant knowledge by synthesizing and contextualizing quantitative empirical IJV research.     

The Role of Task Uncertainty in IT Project Team Advice Networks

Advice seeking is often the most critical success factor in today's IT project teams. To understand how advice seekers are motivated, we integrate the antecedents of advice seeking—as defined by network theory (Granovetter, 1983)—into a cost/benefit model based on expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964). To contribute to the research on advice network formation, we integrate the role of task uncertainty—one of the defining characteristics of IT projects—into that research (Wallace & Keil, 2004). Based on a controlled quasi‐experiment, this study demonstrates that when task uncertainty is low, individuals with attractive personalities and similar demographics will be sought out for advice more frequently, regardless of their knowledge and resources (i.e., the benefits to the advice seekers). However, when task uncertainty is high, individuals with greater knowledge and access to resources are sought out more often in an advice network. These results provide clarity to prior research that has found mixed results concerning the effectiveness of the traditional antecedents to advice seeking (e.g., knowledge, power, and transactive memory) (e.g., Xu, Kim, & Kankanhalli, 2010a). In addition, project managers may choose to alter their team structure in order to optimize the advice network based on the anticipated level of IT project risk or task uncertainty.     

The Distortion of a Managerial Technique? The Case of Clinical Networks in UK Health Care

Managed networks are increasingly common in the British National Health Service (NHS) as a means of streamlining and standardizing patient care across organizational and professional boundaries. However, there has been limited research regarding whether this technique is the most appropriate management style for delivery of health services. This article draws upon the authors' research on managed clinical networks for cancer in the UK–a model that set out to guide and develop knowledge flows across cancer service providers. It examines how the initial purpose of these networks was distorted by the broader function of New Labour's ‘modernization agenda’, which has ultimately focused on organizational restructuring and adhering to government targets. Our analysis, which develops Lozeau, Langley and Denis's model of the corruption of managerial techniques, suggests that the initial knowledge‐sharing purpose of networks underwent top‐down ‘distortion’ by the demands of central government. This resulted in superficial bottom‐up adoption of the networks model and limited impact upon organizational processes.     

How Governance Misalignment and Outsourcing Capability Impact Performance

Notwithstanding the popularity of outsourcing as a business strategy, the performance benefits realized through outsourcing efforts are observed to be mixed in practice. This leads to important unresolved questions regarding why some firms are able to derive substantial value from their outsourcing initiatives while other firms are left disappointed. This study joins an emerging literature integrating transaction cost economics and capabilities‐based perspectives to develop a deeper understanding of the drivers of outsourcing performance. I develop a theoretical model that examines the independent and joint influence of governance misalignment (i.e., deviation from transaction cost's predicted mode of governance) and a firm's outsourcing capability on the performance of outsourced processes. I test the theoretical model using a dataset of 172 outsourced and 156 in‐house processes. The finding that governance misalignment corresponds to inferior process performance supports transaction cost's discriminating alignment hypothesis. Interestingly, I also find that a retained technical expertise (TE) and outsourcing knowledge management routines (OKMR; both contributors to a firm's outsourcing capability) positively influence outsourcing performance both directly and via their relationship with governance misalignment. While a retained technical expertise and outsourcing knowledge management routines each positively influence outsourcing performance, they do so in distinctive ways. These findings have important managerial implications and make a significant theoretical contribution. Specifically, this study demonstrates that the notion of a governance misalignment is firm‐specific, conditional on the governance capabilities of the organization. This insight underscores the value of integrating transaction cost logic with capabilities‐based perspectives.     

Should knowledge be distorted? Managers' knowledge distortion strategies and organizational learning in different environments

Organizational learning provides a sustainable competitive advantage for an enterprise facing a highly volatile environment, and managers' knowledge sharing strategies are of vital importance to organizational learning. This study systematically evaluates the effects of managers' knowledge distortion types (i.e., misrepresentation and omission), distortion levels, and distortion preferences in a formal organizational context under various environments. Multi-agent simulation results demonstrate that a slight level of managers' knowledge misrepresentation and a high level of managers' knowledge omission are beneficial in a closed system. With increasing turnover rate, both misrepresentation and omission are detrimental. Moreover, in an open system with environmental turbulence, misrepresentation is valuable to performance, while omission is neutral. In general, misrepresentation plays a leading role in the simultaneous combination of two distortion strategies. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

System Dynamics Understanding in Projects: Information Sharing,Psychological Safety,and Performance Effects

Systems thinking has proven useful in project management planning activities and has been suggested as a critical driver of a range of beneficial organizational behaviors. Yet, empirical evidence on the myriad of ways in which systems thinking can impact internal project dynamics and performance remains limited. This study focuses on one aspect of systems thinking in particular: the ability to recognize and understand the dynamics of systems and their features (e.g., feedback and delay). It makes use of a unique, large‐scale interview data set along with objective and structured survey data drawn from multiple sources associated with supply chain system implementation projects. Analysis suggests that an individual's understanding of system dynamics as well as the similarity of such understanding to that typical of their team is, in fact, a strong predictor of both perceptions of psychological safety and information sharing quality in project work. These outcomes appear to mediate the relationship between system dynamics understanding and performance.     

Managing knowledge in the healthcare sector. A review

Over the past decade, knowledge management (KM), as a concept and a set of practices, has penetrated into the fabric of organizational and managerial processes in the healthcare sector, which has been the site of numerous innovative KM practices. As a result scholars from a range of academic (and non‐academic) fields have begun to document how KM is conceived and practised in health care, what the recurrent issues are and how they can be addressed. The purpose of this paper is to review the current literature on KM concepts, policies and practices in the healthcare sector. Based on the analysis of the most relevant contributions in the last six years, three overarching themes that have occupied the interests of authors are identified and discussed: the nature of knowing in the healthcare sector, the type of KM tools and initiatives that are suitable for the healthcare sector, and the barriers and enablers to the take up of KM practices. The paper concludes with some considerations on what the literature tells us about the state of the art and the future of KM in this important sector of Western economies.     

Experiential and Informational Knowledge,Architectural Marketing Capabilities,and the Adaptive Performance of Export Ventures: A Cross‐National Study

Knowledge‐based view (KBV) theory posits that the acquisition and use of relevant knowledge is key to understanding organizational performance. However, there is relatively little empirical evidence to support or refute several important propositions underlying KBV theory explanations of organizational performance. In particular, the extant literature has focused on individual technical and scientific components of the knowledge bases of firms in dynamic industries, and largely ignored both different levels of informational and experiential knowledge relevant to the market environment, and the increasingly important context of exporting. Our study addresses these knowledge gaps by developing a framework for export venture knowledge management and empirically examining relationships between different types of individual‐level and organizational‐level knowledge relevant to the market environment, architectural marketing capabilities, and the adaptive performance of export ventures. Using primary data collected in the United Kingdom and China, our study indicates that export ventures' organizational‐level experiential and informational knowledge, and individual‐level experiential knowledge relevant to the market environment, is positively associated with export ventures' architectural marketing capabilities, which are in turn associated with the adaptive performance of export ventures.     

面向大规模定制的产品平台管理模型

提出了面向大规模定制的产品平台管理模型的体系结构,从功能视图、技术视图和组织视图三个方面对产品平台管理进行描述。在功能视图,产品功能可划分为基本、附加和潜在功能;在技术视图,描述了产品平台的技术管理过程;在组织视图,对涉及产品平台管理的横向团队的职能和协调进行了研究。在此基础上,构建了产品平台本体,论述了产品平台本体的概念和概念关联集。应用产品平台管理模型和本体描述了个人计算机的产品平台实例。     

Replication of Routines in Organizations: Existing Literature and New Perspectives

Replication of existing routines in new contexts is an important value‐creating strategy for organizations. This paper synthesizes the state of research on replication and organizes the literature around two broad themes: forward knowledge flows (i.e. from a replicator to a replicatee) and reverse knowledge flows. The authors show that the theoretical assumptions of existing research leave important questions around the replication of routines unaddressed. More specifically, they identify research gaps in regard to micro‐level processes of replication. Little is understood about the performance of routines in practice and, related to that, the processes through which routines change during replication. Drawing on recent theorizing on organizational routines, in particular the relationship between the ostensive and performative aspects, helps the authors to unpack the micro‐level processes of forward and reverse knowledge flows. This paper opens two new trajectories for research on replication: (1) a focus on the actions of individual actors in the enactment of organizational routines provides new possibilities for understanding how replication is an inherently political process; (2) conceptualizing change as endogenous within the performance of routines offers a route to a more nuanced understanding of change and deviation in the process of replication. The paper closes with a summary of major theoretical arguments, questions for further research and implications for practitioners.