Employing trust in organizing communities of practice for knoweldge management

EMPLOYING TRUST IN ORGANIZING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ANAND MOHAN RAMCHAND (B.Sc(Hons), NUS) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2004 Acknowledgements This experience would not have been quite so exhilarating without the guidance and direction of my supervisor, Dr. Pan Shan Ling, to whom I owe innumerable thanks. Your ability to motivate, inspire, encourage and comfort has made the difficult journey through demanding times manageable. The opportunities I have received, competencies I have acquired and interests I have developed in our time together would not have come to fruition without you. Thank you for your leadership, counsel and friendship. List of Figures / Tables Figure Caption Page 1 The Conventional vs. Iconoclastic Hierarchy of Knowledge 11 2 Boisot’s Taxonomy 16 3 NCS Organization Structure, 2001 62 4 A Holistic Look at the Service Provision Process 64 5 The Initial NCS KM Framework 66 6 The NCS Knowledge Process Model 68 7 The Intricate Web of Individuals, Processes and Information 74 8 The Initial Knowledge Xpress Architecture 75 Table Caption 1 Organization Knowledge Perspectives 2 Summary of Findings Page 30 106-7 Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Research Objectives 1.2 Findings …………..….…………………………………… 3 ………….…………………………………………………… 4 1.3 Organization of Subsequent Chapters 2 ………….……………………….. Literature Review 7 2.1 Toward the Management of Organizational Knowledge ……................... 2.1.1 The Modern Organization and its Need to Manage Knowledge 2.1.2 How this Review is Organized 7 ......…….... 7 .……………………………………… 9 2.2 Understanding the Knowledge Construct ………………………………. 2.2.1 The Distinction Between Knowledge and Information 2.2.2 The Dichotomy of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge 10 ….….……………... 10 ….….………………….. 13 2.2.3 Typologies of Knowledge at the Organization Level ….…………………. 16 ….…….……………. 18 …………………………………………………………. 20 2.2.4 Knowledge and Action – Understanding Knowing 2.2.5 Summary 5 2.3 Understanding Knowledge in an Organizational Context 2.3.1 The Cognitive Approach – Knowledge In Individuals ………………… 20 …………………….. 2.3.2 The Knowledge-Based View – Knowledge as an Organizational Asset ……... 23 ……….. 25 ………………………………………. 29 2.3.3 The Situated Approach – Knowledge in Practice and Communities 2.3.4 The Techno-Science Approach 22 2.3.5 The Role of Information Systems in Managing Knowledge ……………….. 31 2.3.5.1 Knowledge Creation ……………………………………………. 31 2.3.5.2 Knowledge Storage ……………………………………………... 33 2.3.5.3 Knowledge Sharing and Transfer ………………………………… 2.3.5.4 Knowledge Application through Integration 2.3.6 Summary ………………………... 35 …………………………………………………………. 37 2.4 Communities of Practice as a Strategic Knowledge Resource 2.4.1 The Role Of Trust ……………. 38 …………………………………………………... 2.4.1.1 The Trust Construct ……………………………………………. 2.4.1.2 Trust as an Organizing Principle 2.5 Summary 33 41 43 ………………………………….. 45 …………………………………… 48 3 Research Methodology 49 3.1 Research and its Philosophical Assumptions ...……..….……………… 49 ...……….……………………… 51 3.2 The Research Methodology ………………..….……………………….. 53 3.2.1 The Research Model ……………………………………………... 54 ……………………………………………… 56 ……………………………………………………. 58 3.1.1 Choosing an Appropriate Method 3.2.2 The Data Collection 3.2.3 Data Analysis 4 Case Description 4.1 Company Background 60 …………………………………………………. 4.1.1 Organizational Structure …………………………………………… 4.1.2 Moving from Government to Commercial Services 4.1.3 The General Process for Business 63 ……………………………………. 63 4.3 Understanding the Intricate Relationships ………………………... 65 ………………………………. 69 4.4 Knowledge Xpress – The Development of an Organizational KMS ……….. 72 ………………………….. 73 …………………………………… 79 ………………………………………….. 80 4.4.1 Rolling Out and Refining Knowledge Xpress 4.5 Toward A Socio-Technical Approach 4.5.2 Extending the Concept to a Second Community 4.6 Ensuring Sustainability 5 61 ……….…………….. 4.2 An Overview of Knowledge Management in NCS 4.5.1 The Communities of Practice 60 …………………………. 83 …………………………………………………. 88 Analysis and Findings 90 5.1 Structuring COPs with Trust ……………………………………………. 5.1.1 Transferability of Trust and its Generative Capacity 91 ……………………… 91 5.1.2 Delayed Reciprocity ………………………………………………… 95 5.1.3 Role Specialization ………………………………………………… 97 5.2 Mobilizing Trust For Effective Knowledge Sharing and the Role of IS/IT 5.2.1 Disclosing and Screening Knowledge 5.2.2 Identity and Commitment ...………………………………... 99 …………...……………………………….. 5.2.3 Judgement and Opportunistic Behaviour 5.3 Summary ….. 99 …...………………………….. …………………………………………………………..… 101 103 105 6 Conclusion 108 6.1 Summary of Findings ……………………………………………….. 6.2 Contribution and Implications 6.3 Future Research 110 ……………………………………………………. 112 6.4 Concluding Remarks References ……………………………………….. 108 ……………………………………………….. 113 115 Summary The systematic and intentional management of organizational knowledge has increasingly become a strategic action in firms for meeting the demands of today’s increasingly complex business environments. What differentiates the management of organizational knowledge from other organizational actions is its enduring ability to provide inimitable sustainable competitive advantage. Initial approaches to knowledge management (KM) were technicallydriven attempts to harness the storage and computational abilities of technology to capture and disseminate the various complex forms of organizational knowledge. Subsequently, however, the notion of socially-constructed knowledge penetrated organizational efforts, and the role of social and cultural aspects were considered as critical factors to KM’s success. KM has now reached a third juncture in its development in organizations. The dynamic ability of people to understand and use knowledge in their actions in work-related contexts (‘knowing’) has called for more practice-oriented approaches. The notion of communities of practice (CoPs, groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise) provides the conceptual structure by which organizations can leverage on the interactions between individuals to manage tacit and explicit knowledge that can effectively be used to enhance work practices and contribute towards competitive advantage. However, epitomized by their informality, lack of organizational boundaries, fluctuating membership and constant evolution, CoPs cannot be managed by recipe. For organizations to adopt CoPs as a mechanism for knowledge sharing and a strategic communal resource, the richness and frequency of interactions between individuals needs to be nurtured and developed in enduring relationships. Underlying such relationships is the ‘invisible hand’ of trust (a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behaviors of another). In today’s increasingly tumultuous knowledge-intensive environments, the interdependence among actors has increased significantly. work An understanding of the effects of trust can therefore shed light into the management of CoPs, and how to structure and mobilize them for competitive advantage. In a case study of the KM initiatives at NCS, a Singapore-based systems integrator, the effect of trust on CoPs was studied. As an organizing principle, trust can be used to structure enduring and stable interactions between participants, resulting in rich knowledge exchange. The transferability and generative capacity of trust increases the connectedness of individuals and the multiplexity of their relationships. Trust transfer can be supported through agenda, norms, culture, shared values and management support. Generative capacity can be increased by providing supporting communication structures and activities outside the CoPs agenda. The sustainability of the CoP can be developed through the redundancy of roles such that expertise and discrimination does not unevenly distribute knowledge, power and status within the community. The CoP can be mobilized for strategic advantage by permitting easy disclosure and access to information about community members, assisting in developing relation-based trust, and suspending judgements in relationships. IS/IT play important strategic roles in this endeavor. 1. INTRODUCTION The significant and accelerated adoption of advanced communications and information technologies by commercial organizations over the last ten years has altered the way business is conducted today. Paradigm-shifting technologies such as the Internet, advanced customer relationship and data management technologies, distributed networking and interactive capabilities have provided organizations with numerous avenues with which to reach customers, locate and enter new markets, wage ‘wars’ against competitors, create strategic partnerships and operate globally with greater competence. Information technologies have completely revolutionized all aspects of the business environment, altering both buyers and sellers capabilities, and providing opportunities to strategically leverage on technology for organizational growth. However, as firms rush to adopt new information management technologies in the pursuit of lowering costs, streamlining efficiency and raising effectiveness, the struggle to stay a step ahead of rivals in the increasingly competitive and technologicallyfuelled business environment is still a complex endeavor for any organization. The ability to leverage on technology to process data and manage information quickly, and dynamically predict and react to changes in operating environments no longer provides firms with strategic advantages. As a result, firms have turned their focus both outwardly, to their partners, supply chains and value webs, and inwardly, to their micro environments, to seek out resources of strategic advantage. Among the many strategic concepts occupying the tumultuous air of organizational action, the notion of “knowledge management” (KM) sticks out clearly – a relatively recent strategic paradigm aimed at utilizing the knowledge of the firm and its constituents for effective competitive action. What differentiates the KM concept from other organizational strategies, however, is its enduring ability to provide sustained strategic advantage, the difficulty in competitors imitating its success, the virtual impossibility in cloning the value it generates in other firms, and its pervasiveness in radically affecting the various social, technological and practice elements of the organization’s environment - making it a valuable endeavor for strategic competition and organizational growth. Scholars and practitioners alike have attempted to detail the importance of managing organizational knowledge for strategic 1 advantage in today’s knowledge economy (for example, Prahalad and Hamel 1990, Drucker 1988, Stewart 1997, Leonard-Barton 1995, Bell 1999). This has led to a plethora of prescriptions, actions and mechanisms by which organizations have attempted, albeit many unsuccessfully, to increase competitiveness through the manipulation and control of knowledge within their organization and business environments. While the approaches are varied, the value of knowledge as a key organizational asset and KM as an organizational action is ubiquitously recognized, particularly in many of today’s knowledge-intensive industries. Initial approaches to KM were technically-driven attempts to harness the storage and computational abilities of technology to capture and disseminate the various complex forms of organizational knowledge. However, the dynamic ability of people to understand and use knowledge in their actions in work-related contexts (‘knowing’) called for more social- and practice-oriented approaches, in which a firm’s individuals participate in the creation, utilizing and communication of knowledge, which is enabled but not driven by technology. The notion of communities of practice (CoPs) provides the conceptual structure by which organizations can leverage on the interactions between individuals and their work relationships to manage knowledge that can effectively be used to enhance work practices and therefore contribute towards competitive advantage. Such communities are groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise (Wenger and Snyder 2000) and can be used to effectively drive strategy, generate new lines of business, solve problems, spread best practices, and create knowledge. The foundation for the success of such CoPs is the strength of relationships formed between its participants and the depth of exchanges of knowledge they engage in. However, intra- and inter-organizational relationships have undergone significant changes as business environments have changed - the prevalent and widespread adoption of technologies has revamped the interconnectedness of organizations and accelerated environmental changes, requiring managers to make decisions and organizations to compete faster and sometimes without comprehensive detail. In such an environment, plagued with change, uncertainty, ambiguity, risk, and a lack of complete information as the only constants faced by managers, organizational members are now forced to rely on one another’s competence when 2 completing organizational tasks. As a result, interdependence between individuals has increased significantly. Such interdependence relies on trust – trust in the abilities, competencies and willingness of others to provide value to one another, and increase performance by decreasing the uncertainties inherent in a turbulent operating environment (Iivonen 2004). The ability of trust to significantly affect relationships thus makes it a crucial component in the social aspect of managing organizational knowledge, particularly in CoPs. Trust relates to knowledge management and intellectual capital through the ideas of social capital (Huotari and Iivonen 2004) – as human interactions and relationships (i.e. social relations) provide the ability for networked structures and activities to be utilized in organizations, trust must develop within these networks for their successful deployment because these relationships form the foundation for collective action (Huotari and Iivonen 2004, von Krogh 2002), such as the exchange of resources, information and knowledge. As entities in networked activities develop trust for one another, they are better able to cope with the increasing uncertainties in dynamic work environments such as those found in knowledge-intensive work. CoPs are an example of such networked structures in knowledge management initiatives in organizations. However, the interplay of trust within CoPs and its participants has not been understood nor examined, that is, the effects of trust have not been investigated in the context of CoPs and KM. Such an examination of the dynamics of trust within relationships in a CoP would therefore shed light on how trust can be developed within the CoPs, and how it affects the ability of the CoP to provide competitive advantage to the organization. Furthermore, an indepth understanding of the role of trust in CoPs would therefore shed some light on how CoPs can be created, structured and employed to deal with uncertainties in organizational operating environments. 1.1 Research Objectives The objective of this study is thus to understand how and why trust affects the engagement of individuals and, consequently, the formation of enduring, knowledge-exchanging 3 relationships, in the practice-oriented context of the CoP. By understanding the dynamics and interaction of trust among the participants in a CoP, an appreciation of the complexities involved in deploying such an initiative for effective knowledge management can be developed, and insights as to how CoPs can be more effectively used to manage organizational knowledge can be discovered. Such in-depth comprehension can reveal how CoPs can be created and cultivated by maximizing the development of trust, and the activities which can be encouraged to engage its participants in trust-building, trust-maintenance and knowledge-exchange, thus enabling the communities of practice to provide sustainable competitive advantage to organizations by allowing practice-based relationships to contend with the complexities of turbulent and ambiguous operating environments. Being networked structures, information systems and technologies can play a vital role in enabling such community structures and supporting activities that foster the requisite level of interpersonal trust. A review of literature reveals that the concept of trust in an organization has been developed theoretically but has yet to provide sufficient empirical support to integrate the numerous fragments of trust into a coherent set of propositions for organizational research. The literature on communities of practice in KM has demonstrated their ability to act as strategic organizational resources, capable of providing sustained competitive advantage through knowledge-based activities, and has provided many insights. However, the effect of trust in the relationships between CoP participants has not been investigated. Consequentially, such a study would not only demonstrate the ability of trust in organizations to enable or hinder knowledge management activities, but would also provide much-needed empirical support to further the conceptualization of trust in organizational literature. 1.2 Findings To achieve these objectives, a case study was conducted with a large Singaporean systems integrator which had embarked on a socio-practice approach to knowledge management after initial attempts at traditional technical approaches were ineffective in providing the adequate 4 support for KM activities. An intricate understanding of the uncertainty, risk and ambiguity in the knowledge-intensive work of its employees provided an ideal opportunity to study the effects of trust in enhancing a CoP’s ability to reduce operating uncertainties. By thoroughly understanding the nature of this knowledge work, the true threat of uncertainties and risks to the firm is revealed, particularly in the context of the ambiguous and autonomous nature of the knowledge worker’s practices. Subsequently, in an attempt to comprehend the complex environment of and interactions within the community, a recent conceptual framework proposed by McEvily et. al. (2003a) was employed to explain the effects of trust between individuals in the CoPs, and its implications on structuring and mobilizing the CoPs by using trust as an organizing principle. These findings provide (i) an in-depth understand of trust interactions within communities of practice, (ii) insights into how communities of practice can be created, managed and used for sustainable competitive advantage in uncertain environments, and why they are successful, (iii) empirical support to recent attempts to form coherent organizational frameworks on trust. 1.3 Organization of Subsequent Chapters Chapter 2 introduces this study by reviewing the current literature on knowledge and knowledge management strategies adopted by organizations, as well as the role of information systems in enabling these strategies. The role of communities of practice in providing sustainable competitive advantage is discussed further here, coupled with elaborations on the contemporary understanding of trust and how it affects relationships and may be used as an organizing principle to counter the effects of uncertainty and interdependence in work environments. Chapter 3 proceeds to describes why the case study methodology was adopted for this study, as well as how it was conducted to understand the high levels of uncertainty in the work-related actions of the employees involved, the interactions within the communities, and the development of trust between participants as they engaged in shared activities. Chapter 4 extensively describes the organization’s journey in knowledge management, the structure, management and role of its communities-of- 5 practice efforts, and the ambiguous, autonomous and complex nature of the systems integration industry. By examining the communities of practice in the organization, Chapter 5 analyzes how trust interacts within the communities of practice, providing implications on the structuring and mobilizing of the communities by using trust as an organizing principle. Together with the support of information technology, concepts in trust can be utilized to create, manage and effectively use these communities as sustainable organizational resources for strategic advantage. Lastly, Chapter 6 summarizes the findings of this study, together with implications for future research to further extend the understanding of trust and communities of practice in knowledge management. 6 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 T OWARD THE M ANAGEMENT OF O RGANIZATIONAL K NOWLEDGE The management of knowledge is a modern concept in the history and development of commercial organizations, yet has emerged through the evolution of organizations over time, and is not a passing fad or simply a contemporary management catchphrase. Organizations, fundamentally, use human and social resources, interactions and inventions to solve problems and exploit opportunities presented to them in their operating environments. Over time, as the environmental conditions vary and the problems change, organizations adapt their use of these resources with suitable strategies to meet these demands. Such is the case with knowledge management (KM) – both scholarly and industry studies provide conceptual grounding and practical evidence supporting the management of knowledge for sustained organizational growth. In attempting to understand why, an examination of the precursors that led to this concept of managing knowledge contribute to an understanding of the significance of this concept and its importance to modern management thought and strategy development. 2.1.1 The Modern Organization and Its Need to Manage Knowledge From the general merchant practices of the late-18th century to the post-WWII industrial-age organizations of the mid-20th century, business enterprises have been constantly inundated with waves of changes in their economic, social and technological environments. These undulating movements in the environmental landscape, over time, significantly increased business activity, opened new markets, introduced new competitors and led to the need for firms to constantly monitor and alter their operations to compete using the technological opportunities available in their time. As technological developments, economic expansion and increasing market demand called for organizations to improve the efficiencies of diversification, mass production and distribution channels, the path for big business and 20th century capitalism was laid, and with it, the need for appropriate management theory to 7 highlight the planning and control of resources involved. Organizational strategies such as the decentralization of decision-making and flattening of organizational structures were used to deal with the increasingly complex and dynamically changing environment. As businesses churned out and utilized more and more data in this pursuit, the efficient processing and effective exploitation of information developed into an organizational priority, leading to an information and decision-making school of thought that focused on the design of information systems and information-processing models to manage information flow in constantly changing business environments. Technology played a key role in enabling organizations to fundamentally shift from data-processing entities into information-based organizations (Drucker 1988). Various studies in management theory conducted until the late 1980s suggested organizational success would be determined by the ability of organizations to harness information to dynamically and efficiently meet resource constraints through various means, including streamlining operations and processes, effectively using technology, improving product quality and changing management structures. Subsequently, however, scholars noted the driving force of organizational change and success in the ‘90s would be based on the ability of organizations to cultivate their core competencies (Prahalad & Hamel 1990). Focus on such core value-creating or differentiating activities would increase an organization’s competitive advantage, but would require specialization and its requisite expertise. Skills, knowledge, innovation and creativity have thus become key resources to organizations and the employees able to harness these resources have increasingly become the most valuable capital to the organization. These knowledge-workers deal with the increasing complexity in a constantly changing knowledgebased economy, and the management of that expertise affords the knowledge-based organization the ability to meet customers’ needs, through the value-adding and wealthcreating activities of these highly skilled experts, and thus lead to larger profits (Reich 1991). This management of expertise, as opposed to the management of the experts, aims to get the most out of an organization’s intellectual capital, or knowledge. This strategic objective gives “birth” to knowledge management – how organizations manage their intellectual base, and 8 leverage on it, to create a sustainable competitive advantage1 - which will be a driving force for organizational change. 2.1.2 How This Review Is Organized While the above introduction briefly describes the emergence and importance of managing organizational knowledge from a strategic perspective, the foundation for studying knowledge comes from a wider, more fragmented, constellation of literature, deeply rooted in philosophy and sociology (Grandori and Kogut 2002), psychology, economics, and grounded further in disciplines such as cognitive studies, the management of information systems and technology, management science and organizational behavior, to name a few. The dialectical interactions between these various disciplines accounts for the numerous perspectives and theoretical groundings behind the diverse and fragmented definitions, taxonomies and prescriptions put forward in knowledge management studies today. Recent literature has frequently called for and attempted the consolidation of these diverse perspectives into comprehensive knowledge management frameworks and theories. As this review develops, it will reveal how, through this contemporary literature, the management of knowledge, from the individual level, has far-reaching implications on the organization, and raises questions with regard to the fundamental characteristics of the firm, including its management, structure, behavior, culture, boundaries, processes, activities and coordination, as the firm is viewed as a distributed knowledge system (Tsoukas 1996). In understanding knowledge management, it is imperative to consider these various contemporary schools of thought, which lead us to our interpretation of knowledge today, and identify the issues in its management. A clear understanding of this (section 2.2) is essential before we can understand the relationship between an individual’s knowledge and the management of organizational knowledge, and consider the various perspectives of managing knowledge in organizations (section 2.3). 1 An important distinction is made between competitive advantage and sustainable competitive advantage. Barney (1991) clarifies that both forms involve the utilization of a “value creating strategy not simultaneously being implemented by any current or potential competitor” (p. 102), however a sustainable advantage is only achieved when the other firms are unable to and have ceased efforts to duplicate the advantages of this strategy. As this review develops, it will synthesize concepts that demonstrate how organizations can achieve such an advantage through the management of knowledge. 9 Finally, an understanding of the importance and dynamics of trust and control mechanisms within the organizational context (Section 2.4) sheds insights into its effects on knowledgerelated activities. 2.2 U NDERSTANDING THE K NOWLEDGE C ONSTRUCT In attempting to understand knowledge management, a useful starting point is considering the various definitions (Section 2.2.1) and characteristics of knowledge (Sections 2.2.2) available in literature that constitute our interpretation of the knowledge construct today. These characteristics have developed the types of knowledge deliberated on in research and by organizations (Section 2.2.3). Stemming from diverse theoretical traditions, contemporary studies present this on a variety of levels – focusing on the knowledge of individuals, the collective knowledge of socially-enacted groups, and knowledge on an organizational level. These various modes of knowledge, their characteristics and implications on the individuals in an organization are presented here, and are prevalent throughout the discussion of managing knowledge in organizations. The notion of how an individual’s knowledge influences, and is influenced by, action and practice in a situated context provides a crucial stepping stone to understanding its context in the organization, and is discussed in Section 2.2.4. 2.2.1 The Distinction between Knowledge and Information As literature prescribes, a fundamental step in understanding and leveraging knowledge is differentiating it from information. Data has been defined as raw numbers and fact, “a set of discrete, objective facts about events” (Davenport & Prusak 1998, p.2), an “ordered sequence of given items” (Tsoukas & Vladimirou 2001, p.976), for example structured records of transactions. Characterized by its lack of relevance, purpose and context, data is stock-piled to be converted into useful organizational information. Davenport & Prusak (1998) suggest that this is done through several means - categorizing, contextualizing, calculating, correcting 10 and condensing - to provide value, meaning and purpose to the data. With this contextual meaning, data becomes information, “the flow of messages or meaning” (Nonaka 1994, p.15), a “context-based arrangement of items whereby relations between them are shown” (Tsoukas & Vladimirou 2001). Knowledge, on the other hand, distinguishes itself from information with the added element of human cognition and reasoning in providing the context. Information becomes knowledge, “the judgement of the significance of events and items… from a particular context” (Tsoukas & Vladimirou 2001), when it is “anchored on the commitment and beliefs of its holder” (Nonaka 1994, p.15). Davenport & Prusak (1998) consider it as “a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information”. The subtle difference stems from the state of “mind of individuals… [Knowledge] is personalized information related to facts, procedures, concepts, interpretations, ideas, observations and judgements” (Alavi & Leidner 2001, p.109). Nonaka (1994) regards the quest for knowledge as “a dynamic human process of justifying personal beliefs as part of an aspiration for the ‘truth’”. This process of judging and evaluating information occurs in the minds of individuals, but is reflected in their actions and interactions. In light of new information, individuals “re-order…rearrange…re-design” (Bell 1999, p. xiv) what they previously held true into categories in their minds. However, the criteria for such judgement lie in a domain of action or practice (Tsoukas knowledge data information information data knowledge Figure 1: The Conventional vs. Iconoclastic Hierarchy of Knowledge 11 & Valdimirou 2001), in which these categories are formed and constantly redefined, and where they possess their meanings. It is only through frequent action and interaction within this domain or context that individuals can learn to effectively use the categories to classify new information. Tsoukas and Valdimirou paraphrase these various insights and further define knowledge as “the individual ability to draw distinctions within a collective domain of action, based on an appreciation of context or theory, or both” (p. 979). When individuals draw upon the context and generalizations set forth collectively by the members of their organizations, the ability to make distinctions becomes useful knowledge to the organization. Based on the above discussion, literature evidently prescribes to a hierarchy from data to information to knowledge (see Figure 1), each varying along some characteristics such as context, interpretation or usefulness. In this hierarchy, data is the fundamental resource from which knowledge is created. Recent literature asserts, however, that this view cannot withstand rigorous evaluation (Alavi & Leidner 2001). Tuomi (2000) proposes that the hierarchy should be reversed – data can emerge only when there is knowledge and information. This iconoclastic argument is supported by Alavi and Leidner (2001), who bring to light that for information to be “personalized” (thus becoming knowledge), in must be sieved through the cognitive ‘filter’ of an individual’s existing knowledge. This notion that information requires knowledge to become new knowledge implies that knowledge must exist before information. Tuomi (2000) proposes that information can be viewed as knowledge which has been articulated, through linguistic and conceptual contexts, into a more conventional form such as verbal or textual information. Data, in turn, is created by restructuring information into a fixed representation and interpretation that can be processed easily. Such a view of knowledge, information and data is held in this paper, and has deep implications on how organizations should approach the management of knowledge, as expounded in subsequent sections. 2.2.2 The Dichotomy of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge 12 In his studies relating to validity of human perception in positivist scientific research, Michael Polanyi contributes one of the most widely-cited theoretical constructs in the field of knowledge at an individual’s level – his epistemological concept of tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1962). Using this construct, he presents the notion that knowledge, to a large extent, is personal to the people that hold it, and resides in their subconscious. This dimension of knowledge refers to the knowledge embedded within the human brain and body – knowledge that people commonly have difficulty expressing - such as the actions involved in the ability to ride a bicycle, or in detailing how individuals are able to recognize a face. Spender (1996) stresses that tacit knowledge is not impossible to articulate or codify - it is possible to communicate what we know, but highly difficult to express how we know it (Swart & Pye 2002). Sanchez (1997) iterates this notion, explaining that the term ‘tacit knowledge’ brings up an epistemologically discrepancy because its interpretation consists of knowledge that is “unarticulated” but may be expressed with difficulty through effort, and also “knowledge that is not capable of being articulated” (p. 165). A more appropriate term for the former would be ‘implicit’ knowledge, while the latter would be truly ‘tacit’ knowledge. However, in either case, the all-encompassing expression ‘tacit knowledge’ is commonly used, possibly because it is unlikely to be articulated (Leonard & Sensiper 1998), either due to the inherent difficulty involved in the task or the lack of incentive to so. Tacit knowledge is characterized by its deep roots in an individual’s personal beliefs, experience and values (Pan & Scarbrough 1999). Nonaka (1994) notes it is this fundamental level of involvement that renders tacit knowledge difficult to formalize and communicate. The information received by an individual becomes knowledge when the semantic component of that information is enveloped by and interpreted with the beliefs, commitments and value systems of the individual. This notion is regarded as the fundamental trigger behind the creation of new knowledge (Nonaka 1994). Spender (1998) argues that personal experience and values form the primary source of learning and an individual’s cognitive capabilities, in turn, make this knowledge. 13 Other characteristics of tacit knowledge include its subjective and experiential nature (Wagner 1987) and its simultaneous (Sutton 2001) and analogue behavior as it is a “continuous activity of knowing” (Nonaka 1994, p. 16). Nonaka furthers this by elaborating on the cognitive element of tacit knowledge by which individuals perceive the world and reality (through mental models, schemata, paradigms and viewpoints) and contrasts it with the its technical element (including specific crafts, skills and know-how). Leonard & Sensiper (1998) describe it as the “semiconscious and unconscious” (p. 113) knowledge that leads to gut-feelings and intuition. Blackler (1995) describes a similar concept - embrained knowledge - as the knowledge that is dependent on conceptual skills and cognitive abilities. The various interpretations and usage of tacit knowledge in literature are numerous and in some aspects problematic. However, as the literature demonstrates and does not refute, the implications of this tacit dimension of knowledge are significant, highlighting the insight that it is the individuals who are the holders of knowledge within an organization. Tacit knowledge is localized within these individuals, and can be difficult to extract. Furthermore, this knowledge is difficult and expensive to transfer within the organization and easily lost when the individual employee takes it with him upon concluding his working stint. Thus organizations striving to achieve a strategic advantage from its knowledge must base their efforts on the knowledge of the individual worker. Similarly, organizations must be weary of losing such knowledge as employees leave. The diametrical concept to tacit knowledge is explicit knowledge – knowledge that is easily articulated and codified. The explicit dimension accounts for documented and communicated knowledge, which can be symbolic or expressed easily, through the use of formal language, mathematical expressions, documentation, manuals, specifications, symbols, objects and other artifacts (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995). Such knowledge can be represented in objects such as software, patents, reports and blueprints (Stenmark 2002). Easily shared between individuals, it constitutes the primary means by which organizations traditionally share knowledge among their employees and also with other organizations. In contrast to its 14 counterpart, explicit knowledge is characterized by being objective, rational, sequential, displaced (Sutton 2001) and digital (Nonaka 1994). Based on Polanyi’s insights, however, explicit knowledge is deeply rooted in and only has meaning through the tacit knowledge that resides in an individual. The two form a dichotomy, and yet are complementary to one another. The argument stems from the proposition that explicit knowledge, albeit tangible and articulate, may not be immediately and completely comprehended and valued by the intended recipient. In such an instance, Stenmark (2002) regards this simply as information and not knowledge. For information to be converted to knowledge, it needs to be received, interpreted, and understood within the envelope of the recipient’s value system, beliefs, perceptions and commitment. That is, information becomes knowledge when it is placed into the context of an individual’s tacit knowledge, as highlighted in Tuomi’s (2000) iconoclastic view of the knowledge hierarchy in the previous section. For the transfer of information to occur as intended and to be interpreted as a form of knowledge, both the recipient and contributor should be communicating through the same values, beliefs, assumptions and commitment. In short, the knowledge should ideally be transferred through the same envelope of tacit knowledge. However, this condition is highly unlikely to occur. Stenmark (2002) indicates that groups stemming from similar affiliations (such as organizations or professions) are likely to have more tacit knowledge in common, a concept he highlights (through the work of Tuomi) as ‘communities of thought’. As the context of these affiliations bring forth their own values, and affect the perceptions, beliefs and assumptions of individuals, a greater level of mutual tacit knowledge would be shared among individuals, and thus promote better knowledge sharing. These issues have direct implications on the organizations that attempt to use knowledge for competitive advantage. As the knowledge that resides in the individual affects the proper interpretation of new information, it is in the organization’s interest to facilitate and promote mutual tacit knowledge, through the use of common organizational artifacts such as routines, procedures, hierarchies, technology and rules, known as ‘embedded’ knowledge in Blackler 15 (1995). The process of achieving such shared understandings has been labeled ‘encultured knowledge’ (Blackler 1995), and is rooted deeply in socialization within the organization. The facilitation and promotion of open interactions between individuals in the organization has led to organizational culture becoming an important contributing factor to the success of knowledge in the organization. However, the discussion so far has tied explicit and tacit knowledge together through the cognitive process of individuals – knowledge is largely a state of an individual’s mind. Explicit knowledge, while objectified and articulated, deeply stems from and is dependent on tacit knowledge located in and possessed by individuals. These notions form the foundation of the knowledge construct. 2.2.3 Typologies of Knowledge at the Organizational Level Apart from the dichotomy of tacit and explicit knowledge, literature contains propositions of other taxonomies of knowledge as well. Boisot’s (1995) classification of four types of knowledge is based on the dimensions of readiness of the knowledge to be transmitted Codified Proprietary Knowledge Personal Knowledge Public Knowledge Common Sense Uncodified Undiffused Diffused Figure 2: Boisot’s Taxonomy 16 (codified) and the ease by which it can be shared (diffusion). This classification is illustrated in Figure 2. Prior to this Boisot identifies a matrix of 4 types of personal knowledge based on its degree of generality (abstract/concrete), and its extent of diffusion (diffused/undiffused). This typology includes esoteric knowledge (abstract and undiffused, this knowledge is held by individuals or a group and while possessing potential for social application, it is difficult to share), scientific knowledge (abstract and diffused, such as scientific laws), topical knowledge (concrete and diffused, this includes knowledge of current events, and is based in a particular context) and local knowledge (concrete and undiffused, this knowledge is based on individual experience and is difficult to share). Noting that this typology does not distinguish between the ability to code the knowledge, an important consideration in applying the taxonomy at an organizational level, Boisot furthers this by identifying public, personal, proprietary and commonsense knowledge types. Public knowledge, commonly referred to as “knowledge in society” (p. 146), is easily codified and diffused, resulting in its hard-to-control characteristic. Once such knowledge has been accepted and used over time, it becomes difficult to contest, as “it acquires inertia” (p. 147). Examples of just knowledge include scientific knowledge, structured and tested knowledge, and formal and informal product information. Proprietary knowledge, on the other hand, is easily codified, but not widely diffused. This form of knowledge develops through an individual’s personal interpretation of available knowledge in a particular context and situation. The distinction lies in the codification process. Boisot suggests the wide acceptance of public knowledge stems from the use of well-known and well-structured codes in the codification process, thus making it easily communicable. As a result, the diffusion of such knowledge does not require much personal interaction, and the knowledge becomes detached from its source over time and use. With proprietary knowledge, on the other hand, situational conditions cause the need for individuals to rely on personal codification processes and techniques to understand their context. While easily codified, this knowledge is not easily diffused because the use of personal codes renders it irrelevant and uninteresting to contemporaries. 17 Common sense knowledge is as widely spread as public knowledge, but not as codified, as it is acquired slowly through as “idiosyncratic distillation of personal learning experiences and face-to-face encounters” (p. 147). However, such knowledge does have the ability to diffuse throughout a population’s boundaries, thus creating cultural and even sub-cultural differences within social structures. Personal knowledge is more idiosyncratic in that the codes used are embedded in an individual’s context and developed through the individual’s own actions and experience. Such knowledge has the potential to be widely diffused through interactions, and eventually codified, but the elements of personal knowledge that do not achieve this will die out. Recognizing the significance of Boisot’s typology in understanding an organization’s internal knowledge, Choo (1998) expounds on the typology and proposes that organizational knowledge may be categorized into tacit, explicit and cultural knowledge. Cultural knowledge creates a context for individuals in the organization to integrate available explicit knowledge with their tacit knowledge. Cultural knowledge within an organization creates cognitive structures that individuals use to perceive and evaluate reality from the organization’s context, and builds shared beliefs, values and norms that guide individuals in evaluating their actions and interpretations to new information. Sackmann (1992) identifies 4 types of cultural knowledge from literature: Dictionary knowledge includes common definitions, expressions and description used throughout the organization to describe the “what” component of situations, such as what is a problem. Directory knowledge includes common practices within the organization with respect to particular situations, describing the “how” of situations, such as how to solve a problem. Recipe knowledge provides prescriptions for situations to rectify problems through action. Axiomatic knowledge explains “why” events occur, providing reasons and explanations to account for the occurrences. These typologies provide hints to what kinds of knowledge organizations may leverage on to achieve competitive advantage. 2.2.4 Knowledge and Action - Understanding Knowing 18 The discussion of literature thus far has treated knowledge as a resource that is owned at the individual, group or organizational level. Cook and Brown (1999) argue that knowledge should not simply be considered through a single epistemology of possession by individuals or groups. Their contention that literature typically treats knowledge as a possession, which does not sufficiently capture and explain what is known, is harmonized by the proposition of a counterintuitive epistemology of practice, which complements possessed knowledge with knowledge acquired through action. This practice of action (called knowing) provides an explanation for the epistemic work done as a part of action. While knowledge is possessed, abstract, static and necessarily used in action, it is not action itself. Knowing, on the other hand, is part of action, dynamic, concrete and rational, and is not possessed in the mind. In this light, knowledge is then seen as “a tool at the service of knowing, not as something that, once possessed, is all that is needed” (p. 388). Neither is knowing tacit knowledge, which does not require action. Knowing, however, makes use of tacit knowledge possessed in the mind to interact with the social and physical world. Linking knowledge possessed and knowing in action with interactions in a context begin to explain how individuals and groups can begin to create new knowledge, and shed light on how organizations can take harness and facilitate such a process. As Cook and Brown iterate: “It is by adding knowing to knowledge that we can begin to account for the relationship between what we know and what we do. And it is also how we can begin to see how new knowledge and knowing are generated.” (p. 393). Brown and Duguid (1991) provide an interpretation of how service technicians use noncanonical social practices in their approach to problem-solving and collaboration in daily work – unconventional practices which are not formalized within the organization’s work practice, yet are sought out and looked to by employees to gain knowledge in achieving work objectives. The notion that such knowledge is situated in daily work practices, rather than canonical organizational routines, provides impetus to consider the knowing from action as a vital constituent of the knowledge construct. Orlikowski (2002) stresses 19 that knowledge and practice are “reciprocally constitutive” (p. 250), and therefore the significance of knowing is considerably high, so much so that it must not only be seen to complement the knowledge construct, but is inseparable from tacit knowledge - as capabilities are generated through knowing from action, they evolve into continued competence as the actions are practiced over time and across contexts, allowing individuals to reorder, rearrange and redesign their knowledge. 2.2.5 Summary The discussion so far has explored the epistemic roots of knowledge and their development into a theoretical construct with relation to the individual and organization. While many of the taxonomies treat knowledge as a possession and state of mind of the individual, the notion that knowledge is partly constituted in situated action and practice illuminates a link between the individual and the organization. As individuals act, practice and interact with the people and world around them, their knowledge is restructured to suit their current context, possibly adding to and challenging current knowledge. These changes are manifested in their actions and value systems, which directly affect organizations as competence develops over time. As organizations aim to achieve strategic competitive advantage through knowledge management, questions still lie in how and what mechanisms could be employed to harness and mold such knowledge in the organization. The subsequent sections discuss these in the context of the organizational knowledge interactions and strategies proposed by literature to manage such knowledge. 2.3 U NDERSTANDING K NOWLEDGE IN AN O RGANIZATIONAL C ONTEXT The term ‘knowledge’ is instinctively identifiable with knowledge on an individual or personal level. While many studies have paid close attention to this, much relatively current scholarly 20 work focuses on the management of knowledge within an organizational context, and even between organizations. Prior sections in this review have discussed the role of individuals and their knowledge, but when considered collectively in an organization’s context, the benefits of managing this knowledge provides organizations with abilities to overcome traditional boundaries, obtain insights to solving problems, find new means to achieve competitive advantage, change outmoded processes and define new strategies. The recognition of these capabilities has led to organizational knowledge gaining status as a critical resource to an organization’s survival in a global market and knowledge-based society (Drucker 1993). With this in mind, organizations able to tap into their knowledge assets effectively may achieve these benefits. Success cases in this respect, including Chaparral Steel, Honda, Canon, and Buckman Laboratories, establish the business case for knowledge management (LeonardBarton 1995, Nonaka 1991, Stewart 1997). Despite the realization of its significance, many organizations are still slow, or struggle, to adopt thorough and planned approaches to managing their knowledge – a phenomenon associated with the inherent difficulties of understanding knowledge management, and developing and implementing suitable programs without comprehensive frameworks to guide such initiatives (Holsapple & Joshi 2002, Nonaka 1991). Frameworks do exist but, argue Holsapple and Joshi (2002), “seem to address only certain KM elements” (p 49). Yet, if knowledge is valued as an organizational asset, it needs to be well managed. This fundamentally implies a conceptual understanding of the characteristics of knowledge, from individual to collective knowledge, and the processes involved in effectively managing knowledge within an organizational context and its implications on the organization. As described earlier, the diverse theoretical traditions behind the exploration of the knowledge construct have led to numerous fragmented perspectives. Organizational knowledge perspectives have frequently been based on the views of (i) knowledge as a state of mind and possession of the individual, (ii) knowledge as an object possessed by the organization, and more recently (iii) knowledge as an embedded property of communities of individuals (Wasko & Faraj 2000). In his recent work, Patriotta (2003), in a similar fashion, broadly distinguishes 21 four contemporary approaches to organizational knowledge management (cognitive, knowledge-based view, situated and techno-science approaches) based on their theoretical roots, providing a thorough understanding of their assumptions, pitfalls and contributions. The following subsections examine these perspectives, their related literature, motivations, implications and the role of IS, in providing a holistic view of knowledge management in organizations. 2.3.1 The Cognitive Approach - Knowledge in Individuals The cognitive approach was developed through studies in cognitivism and organizational behavior, where theorists strived to develop causal relationships to explain human behavior within organizational settings (including works by Boland and Tenkasi, Argyris and Schon, Weick, Nelson and Winter). The focus on understanding how individuals in an organization think, reason and then act, based on their response to the world around them, form a substantial platform for understanding knowledge and knowing in the organization. Studies from this approach formed the analogy of the individual mind as a computer, within which knowledge is viewed as a computational activity of cognitive representations used in rational reasoning. Knowledge here is considered as a state of mind, inseparable from and controlled by the individual, and thus not owned by the organization, but rather, treated as a ‘boundary resource’ (Wasko & Faraj 2000). Consequently, such models of individual behavior can be extended to the organizational level, being viewed as a brain in which knowledge is stored in ‘mental’ structures or organizational routines and mechanisms, used in the sense-making of turbulent environments. Sensemaking leads to questioning, and subsequently modifying, established practices and organizational routines to adjust to changing environments. Viewing these routines as organizational tacit knowledge, a link is deterministically formed between the action of individuals (with their knowledge) and their organizational context. However, since knowledge is owned by the individual, knowledge sharing will only occur as a result of self-interest. 22 Furthermore, the organization’s knowledge is not more than the sum of knowledge of its individuals. Organizational knowledge, therefore, can only be increased with the addition of new employees or through the learning of new knowledge by current employees. Wasko & Faraj (2000) argue that this perspective suggests knowledge loses some value once codified, restricting the ability to capitalize on information systems to enhance its management. In this perspective, a knowledge management system (KMS) should be designed to establish links between knowledge seekers and knowledge holders within the organization, through communication tools such as online directories and intelligent email systems, and must remain accurate and up-to-date in providing such connections. However, criticisms of this approach include its continual focus on the rationality of the individual in an objective reality, while the amplification of knowledge from the individual to the organizational level is left hazily explained (Patriotta 2003). Furthermore, knowledge can neither be converted into nor treated as an organizational asset, making its retention and transferability a questionable issue. 2.3.2 The Knowledge-Based View - Knowledge as an Organizational Asset The knowledge-based view of the firm stems from economics and strategic management studies (including works by Nonaka and Takeuchi, Grant, Spender) and views knowledge as a vital factor of production within an organization, extending from the resource-based theory of the firm (RBT). Knowledge, in this perspective, can exist separate from human cognition and action, and can be codified into organizational assets, including procedures and routines, and easily stored in KM systems and repositories. The organization is thus viewed as a collection of transferable knowledge assets. As organizations are not regarded as equal under RBT, competitive advantage is seen to stem from within the organization. Knowledge therefore, if leveraged upon, can provide the firm 23 with sustainable competitive advantage. Knowledge affects the elements of the resourcebased view, namely material, human and monetary elements, and the external environment. Studies in this perspective identify 6 forms in which organizational knowledge can be represented – participants’ knowledge, culture, infrastructure, knowledge artifacts, purpose and strategy. Thus, the search for and employment of suitable structures, routines and other internal control mechanisms to facilitate the sharing, transfer and use of such organizational knowledge as a means for differentiation are the focus of this approach. By understanding the various attributes of these representations of organizational knowledge, and their interactions with one another and the external environment, a series of knowledge manipulation activities and influences are prescribed for organizations to achieve performance advantages (Holsapple & Joshi 2002). Grant’s (1996) attempt to build a knowledge-based theory of the firm considers the activities and processes of knowledge transferability (sharing), aggregation (collection, storing and integration), appropriability (value), acquisition and application to be critical to the firm, and must be managed and coordinated. The existence of the organization is to successfully instill the conditions that coordinate, integrate and apply sources of specialized knowledge into meaningful and efficient production. Such a view of the firm begets implications on its hierarchy, requiring greater control for coordination and cooperation among its individuals. Grant stresses that the integration of knowledge into the firm can only be brought about through the use of rules and directives, which should not impose authority, but instead facilitate the integration of knowledge from various specialist located throughout the firm. The use of fluid cross-functional team-based structures and increasing accessibility to specialized knowledge can increase competitive advantage by providing the firm with access to timely and relevant knowledge. This view is similar to Nonaka’s (1994) recommendation to form selforganizing teams, thus allowing the organization to tap not only its local knowledge, but also knowledge from other firms as well. 24 The role of the KMS in this perspective is to facilitate easy codification, storage and transfer of various forms of knowledge in repositories. Intelligent filters and advanced search engines are useful tools in facilitating the retrieval of such stored knowledge (Wasko & Faraj 2000). However, while these underlying assumptions have led to practical perspectives, criticisms lie in the inability to measure knowledge and the knowledge base, and recognize its value to the organization in terms of an enhancement to performance. Furthermore, the assumption of knowledge as an organizational commodity discounts the importance of practice and knowing in the creation, use and transfer of knowledge, treating organizational knowledge as a transparent, independent variable in the quest for competitive advantage, thus not completely elaborating the construct in its entirety (Patriotta 2003). Furthermore, the view of knowledge as an organizational, rather than individual, asset implies that knowledge sharing and exchange should occur like other work practices, requiring incentives for individuals to participate in such activities. When treated as a private good, the sharing and exchange of knowledge is hindered, thereby heightening the significance of organizational culture, rather than the use of technology, in encouraging such behaviors. Lastly, this perspective provides insights into the provision and availability of knowledge in the organization, but not necessarily its application by individuals (Wasko & Faraj 2000). 2.3.3 The Situated Approach – Knowledge in Practice and Communities The situated approach distinguishes itself from the previous approaches by rejecting the assumptions that knowledge is a cognitive representation (as suggested by the cognitive approach) and a commodity (as suggested by the knowledge-based view of the firm). Instead, this approach focuses on the learning and innovative practices of individuals within the context of their work in the organization as the source of knowledge and knowledge creation – inline with the discussion of knowing in the previous section. Brown and Duguid (1991) argue that the abstract perspectives of innovation, learning, work and knowledge in organization research have lost the details of practice, which is the root to understanding 25 these concepts. Authors in this perspective (including Lave, Wenger, Brown and Duguid, and Orlikowski) move away from the traditional view of knowledge and examine knowledge within the intricate environment of socially interconnected individuals in their action. Work is part of a socially constructed reality. As systems, organizations break complex operations into simpler tasks. However, in reality, employees interpolate these abstractions to meet dynamic situational demands with their own means and practices. Individuals frequently rely on socially-constructed non-canonical practices such as narration and collaboration in their work practice. These individuals do not construct their own learning experiences and knowledge; rather they tend to be enculturated into a community of practitioners – they learn to function within the community of similar and like-minded individuals. It is through interactions with other practitioners that individuals become practitioners themselves, rather than simply learning explicitly about the practice itself (Brown & Duguid 1991). Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) provide insights into how this occurs. The distinct concepts of tacit and explicit knowledge are furthered by the authors, who posit that the tacit knowledge in individuals can be converted to explicit knowledge, and vice versa, resulting in the formation of new knowledge. Nonaka (1994) puts forth the scenario that, as individuals interact within the organization, tacit knowledge is transferred from one individual to another, largely due to the shared experiences and emotions these individuals encounter in their similar organizational context. This process of socialization can occur with or without the use of formal language (for example, through on-the-job training, shared experiences and apprenticeships). Individuals will attempt to articulate their newly acquired tacit knowledge into understandable forms. This externalization of this knowledge is achieved through the use of metaphors, “two contradicting concepts incorporated into one word” (Nonaka 1994, p. 21). Metaphors afford the incorporation of the individual’s perceptions, beliefs and intuition into the free representation of the tacit knowledge in symbols. Similarly, analogies can be used through rational thinking to associate these symbols with logic. As an individual interacts and communicates the newly externalized knowledge with others, an opportunity arises to correct, validate and justify this explicit knowledge, as it integrates together with existing explicit 26 knowledge. This combination creates more complex set of explicit knowledge, as the new knowledge causes ‘disturbances’ in existing knowledge, requiring the need to reorganize, sort and reconfigure the existing knowledge. With practice and commitment, these new sets of explicit knowledge are crystallized into the individual’s behavior, benefiting the organization. Nonaka & Konno (1998) highlight the need for practice in the internalization of this explicit knowledge into tacit understanding. As the individual acts on this new knowledge, changes in behavior, beliefs and values occur, within the greater context of the organization. Together, the four processes, known as the SECI model, bridge the concepts of explicit and tacit knowledge to provide a glimmer of understanding to how organizations can use knowledge in individuals to create new knowledge. Success for knowledge creation lies in an organization’s ability to creatively support and provide a context for practices that “amplify” the individual’s knowledge, and eventually “crystallize” it as part of the organization’s knowledge network. In achieving this amplification of individual knowledge into the organization, Nonaka (1994) stresses the importance of interactions between individuals. The more voluminous the interactions and participants, the larger and faster the amount of knowledge amplified, thus accelerating the creation of new knowledge. To raise the quality of the individual’s tacit knowledge, these interactions should introduce the participants to a variety of hands-on and job experiences (“high-quality experience”, p. 21) on a committed, personal level (“knowledge of experience”, p. 22), leading to reflection (“knowledge of rationality”, p. 22) that ultimately unites the actions of the individual’s body with the mind. Such continuous high-quality interactions between tacit and explicit knowledge allow new knowledge to be integrated into the individual’s own belief and value systems, perceptions and interpretations. Providing the support for such interactions includes the provision of ‘ba’ (Nonaka & Konno 1998) - a Japanese concept which translates to “a shared space for emerging relationships” (p. 40). Ba creates an organizational context which may be harnessed for creating knowledge, affording individuals the ‘space’ to reflect, or collectively, a ‘place’ for social interaction. The concept of ba refers to physical and/or mental space, and places the individual in a greater context than the self, rising above the individual’s boundaries and 27 perceptions into those of collective participation. Nonaka and Konno stress ba as an important platform for organizations to concentrate their knowledge resources. Coupled with the SECI model for knowledge diffusion and new knowledge creation, the authors develop 4 distinct types of ba – originating, interacting, cyber and exercising - one for each of the SECI processes. The individual’s knowledge is therefore subjected to the social construction of the collective and in a context greater than his or her own. The importance of a context plays a significant role in this perspective, taking the ownership of knowledge away from the individual and embedding it into a socially-constructed system and reality within, and potentially across, the boundaries of organizations. In such a manner, organizational knowledge is distributed across the organization’s communities of workers, with common knowledge among these communities represented in organizational routines and established practices. These communities of practitioners differ from groups in that they are non-canonical, not recognized by the organization, do not conform to the organizational boundaries (and are thus fluid), and they are emergent rather than formed based on organizational requirements. These emergent communities of practice (COPs) form part of the organization which, in this perspective, can itself be viewed a community-of-communities. Wenger and Snyder (2000) define communities of practice as “groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise”, and identify how these COPs can effectively drive strategy, generate new lines of business, solve problems, spread best practices, develop members’ skill-sets and help create knowledge and retain talent. However, the very characteristics of COPs that render them beneficial to the organization in terms of knowledge creation and sharing provide complications in their management. Epitomized further by their informality, lack of organizational boundaries, fluctuating membership and constant evolution, COPs cannot be managed by recipe, but need to be nurtured and cultivated through organizational support and facilitation (Teigland 2000). Studies in this perspective therefore focus on the development and support of the interconnections and interdependencies between the entities involved. Linking cognitive knowledge with action, and the individual with 28 the collective, such communities can serve as a communal resource for organizational knowledge and its sharing (von Krogh 2002). The literature in this perspective has, however, not developed a complete theory of organizational knowledge yet. As a result, the authors from this perspective consider it a critical piece of the puzzle, complementing the other perspectives of knowledge management, but not a standalone perspective to organizational knowledge management. Other criticisms of this perspective include the understudied importance of existing practices (shared objectives, organizational routines and beliefs) in affecting knowing in practice, i.e. how an organization’s tacit knowledge affects the knowledge created, shared and used by its employees in their daily work practice. However, this body of literature still succeeds in furthering the understanding of knowledge in the organization (Patriotta 2003). 2.3.4 The Techno-Science Approach Understanding the divergence between the previous perspectives in terms of the assumptions knowledge and knowing, the techno-science approach focuses on holistically addressing both issues and their relationship. While largely empirical, this perspective is grounded in the study of knowledge in the process of scientific and technological innovation, and the web of interactions between the entities involved – including scientists, engineers and managers. As with traditional scientific knowledge, knowledge here is treated as controversial, needing to be contested and agreed upon before becoming fact. Rather than highlighting the exchange of knowledge involved, this perspective treats the interactions and dynamics of knowledge as a black box, focusing instead on the socially-constructed interactions between the various functional-spanning entities involved throughout the process of validation and production of scientific and technical knowledge. In using such an approach, the scientific nature of the validation process precludes any assumptions made on the humanity of the entities involved, rendering the studies lopsided toward a non-human participant behavior (Patriotta 2003). 29 Perspective Characteristics COGNITIVE o Aims to understand how individuals think, reason and then act. o Knowledge is viewed as a cognitive representation in the individual’s mind o Knowledge is possessed by the individual, no the organization KNOWLEDGEBASED VIEW o Knowledge is a factor of production and an organizational asset which can be used to achieve competitive advantage. o Knowledge can be separated from the individual, easily coded and transferred. o Organizations should manage the knowledge sources and integrate and apply them into production. SITUATED TECHNOSCIENCE Organizational Knowledge & IS Support o o o o o Creation - only occurs through the addition of employees and individual learning. Storage - knowledge loses value when it is codified. Sharing – only occurs out of self-interest. Application – knowledge is used in sense-making. IS use - technologies can be used to facilitate links between knowledge seekers and providers. Creation – Knowledge stems from the individuals in the organization. Storage – knowledge can be stored easily in KMS. Sharing – Knowledge can e shared through the KMS. Application – Knowledge is made available, but is not necessarily used. Directives, routines and team structures can be utilized to increase application. o IS use – advanced KMS storage, search, retrieval and update functionalities must be present to enable proper management of knowledge. o o o o o Focuses on learning and action in socialization processes o Knowledge belongs to the community and is distributed across the organization. o Creation – occurs through action and socialization within a context. o Storage – knowledge is distributed throughout the communities in the organization. o Sharing – occurs through intense interactions with action and socialization, with the community provided the ‘ba’ for sharing. o Application – knowledge is applied when individuals become competent practitioners and learners in the community. o IS use – to promote effective communication and group support, embed knowledge into workflow, and capture specialized knowledge o A holistic view of knowledge and knowing o Focus is on the social construction of scientific knowledge o o o o o Creation – occurs when knowledge is contested and validated as fact. Storage –.knowledge is stored in scientific and technical processes Sharing – knowledge is contested in the web of interactions between cross-functional individuals. Application –.knowledge is negotiated, validated and used in innovation IS use – to facilitate linking entities involved across functional units and storing well-structured knowledge. Table 1: Organization Knowledge Perspectives 30 2.3.5 The Role of Information Systems in Managing Knowledge When considered individually, the four perspectives outlined above provide somewhat conflicting implications for managing knowledge in the organization (summarized in Table 1) – knowledge is considered as a commodity, yet deeply rooted in the cognitive interfaces and collective practices of the individual within the organization. Each perspective provides prescriptions and descriptions for the effective management of knowledge in organizations through the management of knowledge activities such as creation, storage and sharing. In the information systems (IS) literature, characterized by its multidisciplinary nature, studies conducted draw from the strengths and assumptions of these various theoretical foundations as well, in providing opportunities for technical IS support in KM. While IT cannot support all aspects and activities of organizational knowledge management, Alavi and Leidner (2001) recommend the organization should deliberately manage at least the four basic processes and activities of knowledge management – creation, storage, application and transfer – and highlight the opportunities for IS support. These processes and the potential of knowledge management systems is discussed here. 2.3.5.1 Knowledge Creation A commonly held perspective in IS literature for the process of knowledge creation stems from the previously described SECI model (Nonaka 1994), in which knowledge is created through the interaction, amplification and justification of individual tacit and explicit knowledge within a socially constructed context. In facilitating knowledge creation, Nonaka posits that high-quality interactions between individuals can be advocated through the socialization process in ‘self-organizing’ field teams, consisting of organizational members (and even individuals from outside the organization) collaborating to create a new concept. With a contextual purpose for collaboration (the ‘field’), the individuals’ knowledge can be expressed through their various perspectives. Similarly, 31 differences in perspectives can be resolved interactively in their socialization. The role of the organization is to provide such a context, and construct these teams based on the principles of self-organization, and not the traditional role- and authority-based structures. Nonaka (1994) suggests a middle-up-down approach and a hypertext organizational design to managing the organization to promote the creation and integration of new knowledge in the organization through such teams. Citing the location of knowledge creation as a problem in the traditional top-down and entrepreneurial bottom-up management approaches, the middleup-down approach stresses on the role of middle management in bridging the gaps between top management’s objectives and visions of the firm, and the realities faced by lower managers and front-line staff. Top management’s role in this structure of the firm is to guide knowledge creation by providing the self-organizing team with the organizational context and autonomy necessary to channel their collective knowledge onto the organizational and interorganizational levels, through the implementation of conceptual frameworks, clear directions and guidelines, organizational metaphors and symbols, and standards for evaluating the knowledge created. The notion of a hypertext organizational design and its characteristics exposes opportunities for the support of information systems in knowledge creation. Alavi and Leidner (2001) further the SECI model by suggesting various uses of modern information systems and computermediated communication technologies to create and enhance the supporting ‘ba’ for knowledge creation by increasing the ease of access to information, and quality and frequency of interactions between individuals. Cyber ‘ba’ provides virtual interaction for the combination of explicit knowledge between individuals, and can be facilitated by data warehousing and data mining technologies, document management systems and software agents. Collaborative and communication technologies such as email, group support systems and intranets can be harnessed to increase the connectivity between various individuals, thus intensifying and quickening the knowledge creation process. Intranets can further provide wide-spread and easy access to organizational tacit and explicit knowledge. Software tools such as computer simulations and smart software tutors can also aid individual learning, while communication networks can increase the quality of knowledge creation by extending the 32 ability of individuals to interact through technologies such as discussion forums and bulletin boards. 2.3.5.2 Knowledge Storage The storage of knowledge within the organization also includes the processes of knowledge codification and retrieval at both the individual and organizational level. As noted earlier, the storage of knowledge not only makes it retainable, but transferable as well. Explicit, structured, documented and historical (i.e. codified) organizational knowledge can be easily stored and accessed in electronic databases and repositories, while individual knowledge can potentially be codified into expert systems. Intranets possess the potential to make documented organizational knowledge such as product, customer, competitor and market information and procedures and best practices, easily accessible and retrievable, in the effort to quicken work cycles and improve customer service. The utilization of group support systems and distributed groupware applications allow knowledge to be stored and retrieved across time and space. The use of advanced retrieval technologies would not only facilitate easy access to knowledge, but also diversify the range of knowledge codified and stored. Sophisticated query languages and multimedia databases are two possible technologies organizations could harness in this endeavor. 2.3.5.3 Knowledge Sharing and Transfer The transfer and sharing of knowledge occur at various levels – between individuals, individuals and explicit knowledge sources, individuals and groups, within and across groups, and from groups up to the organizational level. As knowledge lays distributed among these various sources, organizations may encounter difficulties because they may neither not know 33 what knowledge they possess, nor be able to locate or retrieve it. As a result, transfer is more effectively promoted by strong communication and information flows within the organization. The purpose of knowledge sharing is to transfer the right knowledge to the right place and people at appropriate times. As organizations strive to make relevant knowledge accessible to the correct people in a timely fashion, information technologies can provide the necessary support, particularly in enhancing the channels for effective communication and information flow, increasing the reach of individuals or groups beyond conventional and traditional means. However, as knowledge can be potentially shared through communication and information flows, its effective transfer is countermined by the cognitive and filtering capabilities of its recipient. Depending on the type of knowledge transferred, transfer mechanisms may vary – formal channels such as training sessions ensure knowledge may be transferred and received as intended, but may curb creative processes for problem-solving; informal mechanisms such as unscheduled meetings may promote the socialization process, but may be limited in range; personal channels such as apprenticeship or personnel transfers may be highly context specific; impersonal channels such as knowledge repositories may be most effective for the dissemination of generalized and articulated knowledge (Alavi & Leidner 2001). The use of IS and IT can support all these forms of knowledge exchange. Technologies such as intelligent agents and video conferencing can provide a variety of interfaces and increase accessibility to a diverse and rich range of different kinds of knowledge, potentially proliferating the right knowledge to the parts of the organization and the individuals that need it most (Alavi & Leidner 2001). Another aspect in enabling rich knowledge sharing is increasing the individual’s reach to a variety of knowledge sources, including the network of associates an individual seeks knowledge form. The connections underscore the ability to discover new ideas, interact and creatively generate new knowledge. Electronic discussion forums and bulletin boards create links, albeit weakly, between individuals that facilitate easy knowledge seeking. Corporate directories and ‘yellow pages’ on an organization’s intranet allow individuals to locate knowledge sources throughout the organization rapidly. 34 2.3.5.4 Knowledge Application through Integration From Nonaka’s (1994) work on tacit and explicit knowledge, it is suggested that new knowledge is created when the various ontological levels of knowledge interact (e.g. tacit and explicit knowledge). However, value for the organization is only created when the appropriate knowledge is applied - located, transferred and utilized - to solve a problem in a timely manner. Alavi & Tiwana (2002) argue that knowledge application is the least studied process of managing knowledge, but deserves the most attention for organizations to achieve competitive advantage from knowledge management. The authors posit that the distributed knowledge in the organization can be applied through either transfer or integration (“the synthesis of individuals’ specialized knowledge into situation-specific systemic knowledge”, p. 1030), but suggest transfer to be a time-consuming and inefficient means of applying knowledge. Knowledge integration, on the other hand, is viewed as a more effective means because it is able to synthesize distributed knowledge without extensive communication or transfer of that knowledge. Knowledge that lies in the individuals’ minds can be articulated through action and interaction in a group context, thus pooling knowledge resources and creating group knowledge. These groups are able to utilize this pooled knowledge to sense, interpret and respond to organizational problems, threats and opportunities effectively. Studies from the knowledge-based view of the firm propose that organizations can effectively instill knowledge integration through the use of directives (easily accessible and explicit rules, procedures, standards and instructions created as the result of the conversion from tacit to explicit knowledge), organizational routines (frequently used activities, protocols and processes that embed the application of specialized knowledge without the need to articulate it explicitly) or self-contained task-teams (teams consisting appropriate specialists with the objective of problem-solving, formed when routines and directives are insufficient or inaccessible) (Grant 1996, Alavi & Leidner 2001). 35 The integration, and thus application, of knowledge can be supported by using systems and technology to easily capture, update and disseminate organizational directives and routines. Making directives and routines available on corporate intranets promotes quicker adoption of and adaptation to changes within the organization. Routines, such as industry best practices, can furthermore be codified and embedded into systems to eventually become organizational norms, reducing the need for communication and coordination of new knowledge throughout the organization. For example, workflow automation systems can automate organizational routines into everyday work practice. Embedding knowledge into organizational information systems, rule-based expert systems and workflow automation systems can assist employees in decision making, increase the ability of the organization to predict or react to changes in its environment, and reduce the need control structures However, the use of IT here can be undermined by two issues – firstly, the knowledge being used may be outmoded or ineffective, requiring organizations to constantly re-evaluate their actions and reactions in a given context; secondly, as the knowledge base of the organization grows, the various choices of what knowledge to apply to a particular task still require organizational members to evaluate their judgements and understanding of the problem at hand (Alavi & Leidner 2001). Task-teams can consist of individuals with diverse knowledge bases, and can be distributed over time and space, making them distributed knowledge systems. Alavi and Tiwana (2002) propose the use of high-level KMS to support virtual teams, in particular, by facilitating rich exchanges and communication, and joint problem-solving environments, so that knowledge sharing, creation and integration can be socially-enacted. The KMS can enhance the team’s ability to integrate knowledge by supporting transactive and external memory (for e.g. by providing online yellow pages, libraries of codified knowledge, bulletin board systems and repositories of internal and external information). Furthermore, a KMS can also facilitate the development of mutual understanding between team members to enhance shared comprehension, interpretation and communication within the team. This can be achieved through the incorporation of rich, multi-channel communication systems and collaborative tools, such as electronic whiteboards. 36 However, knowledge creation is facilitated by weak ties between members in a group, while sharing and integration are facilitated by strong ties. This dilemma can be addressed by using a KMS to support transitory strong links between weakly coupled teams through the use of feedback and access mechanisms. 2.3.6 Summary The discussion has so far detailed the various perspectives of knowledge, created conceptual bridges linking knowledge, individuals, teams, organizations and practice, and highlighted a variety of considerations and characteristics for organizations to consider in managing the essential processes of knowledge, particularly with the exploitation of information technology. These perspectives provide the theoretical roots from which further discussion of knowledge management stems, yet they also reveal the complex and multifaceted nature of approach knowledge management, and the profound implications such initiatives may have on the organization in terms of structure, management, behavior, culture, boundaries, processes, work activities and coordination. However, underlining these perspectives and concepts (and even the notion of knowledge management) is the intuitive impression that knowledge can be shared. Knowledge creation occurs as the result of rich interaction between individuals. Knowledge is stored with the intention of making easily accessible to other individuals in an organization, across both time and space. Knowledge is transferred when individuals seek it out, integrate it and apply it to solve problems in their daily work practices. While the process of knowledge application may be the key to successfully achieving competitive advantage through knowledge management, it is supported, sustained and substantiated through knowledge sharing. However, knowledge sharing is itself multifaceted, dependent upon the type of knowledge shared, the tacit beliefs and cognitive capabilities of the recipient, the available sources of 37 knowledge, and the relationships between knowledge seekers and knowledge providers. As a result, organizations need to provide suitable structures and systems to facilitate the proper sharing of knowledge. The community of practice, coupled with proper organizational information systems, can provide such a ‘ba’ for proper knowledge sharing. Communities of practice provide the conceptual links bridging organizational, collective and individual knowledge, and action in context (knowing), while providing the vital shared space to encourage common tacit understandings among members for proper knowledge transfer. However, the question remains how these communities can be structured as organizational forms which provide sustainable knowledge-based advantage to the organization. The subsequent section describes how they can be nurtured within the organization to become strategic communal resources for knowledge sharing. Underlying this notion is the concept of trust, through which sharing and resource exchange can be structured and managed to provide sustainable knowledge-based benefits to the firm. 2.4 C OMMUNITIES OF P RACTICE AS A S TRATEGIC K NOWLEDGE R ESOURCE Von Krogh (2002) considers knowledge sharing between a receiver and giver as a bidirectional process - a ‘sequenced collective action’ problem, in which the both parties must be willing to give and receive knowledge through a series of activities where each one’s cognition and action are subjected to influence and change. In the sharing process, the receiver can combine newly received knowledge with his current knowledge to produce new knowledge, as outlined in the SECI model (Nonaka 1994), and thus provide the giver with this new knowledge as well. In such a situation, knowledge is not only shared, but bilaterally exchanged through interaction. The organizational setting can thus provide ideal opportunities for successful knowledge sharing by facilitating the intense interaction between individuals, while factoring for their varied knowledge bases, interests and motivations through human resource incentives. Instruments to facilitate such an environment typically attempt to 38 increase the exposure between individuals in the organization, including the formation of problem-solving groups and task forces, creation of knowledge units to create and manage knowledge sharing initiatives, or the adoption of a hypertext (Nonaka 1994) or matrix organizational structure. However, sharing can become a complex process when the parties involved are not from the same ‘communities of thought’ (i.e. do not share similar tacit knowledge), which is likely because an individual’s unique and manifold interests underpin his current tacit and explicit knowledge, as well as the interpretation and cognitive filtering of newly received knowledge. This complexity is compounded when the social behaviors of free-riding and self-interest prevent individuals from interactively sharing knowledge with one another. Organizations usually counter such collective action problems through control mechanisms, such as the use of external agency and extrinsic motivation and incentives. However, some tacit knowledge may still be difficult and costly to share effectively through such control mechanisms as increased exposure and human resource incentives do not resolve mismatches in individuals’ interests and tacit knowledge bases. As a result, organizations need to nurture the intrinsic motivation to share in individuals, providing the givers and receivers with utility and satisfaction as an impetus to share. The communities of practice (communities with a high degree of collective interests) within the organization’s context can provide such an environment for effective knowledge sharing. The characteristics of COPs make them ideal communal knowledge resources. Unlike other organizational assets, they develop and evolve into increasingly valuable resources the more they are used. Existing outside the formal organizational structure and boundaries, the communities cannot be regulated by traditional incentive mechanisms and organizational controls. Furthermore, the community of practice consists of individuals centered on particular tasks, work, experience, knowledge, affect and empathy, where membership stabilizes over time and creates networks of relationships, within which members form long-lasting social bonds, identity and solidarity in collective action. 39 COPs have the potential to lower knowledge search costs (members typically possess information or at least cues about other members’ knowledge), bargaining costs (enduring relationships formed through membership make it easier to offset mismatch gains in the exchange of knowledge) and monitoring costs (high degrees of shared interests, intense and continued interaction and enduring relationships mitigate free-riding behaviors and receivers motivated by self-interest alone, as well as promote the sharing of the best knowledge available). Furthermore, interaction within the communities suspends the need for immediate satisfaction from sharing, preserving the sequence of activities in the collective action and allowing the giver-receiver relationship to develop. However, individuals’ interests are subject to change and negotiation and are affected by the dilemma of monetary incentives and career interests (requiring individuals to be motivated by self-interest). As individual’s objectives, contexts and interests change over time, communities may evolve into liabilities rather than resources, undermining the use of common interests as the community’s foundation. Von Krogh suggests the communities should be based on their evolutionary stability, where the factors of opportunity structures and social norms, supported by information systems, can provide impetus for and facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange, making the CoPs communal resources. (a) Opportunity Structures: Opportunity structures refer to the “occasion and benefits of sharing knowledge in the community” (von Krogh 2002, p. 92). As members of an organization interact, opportunities to share knowledge present themselves in the form of emerging relationships, which are guided by cues and rituals as to where and with whom certain knowledge lies, and what knowledge others in the community are capable of providing. Cues take into account the varied interests between individuals in the community and provide hints to where certain knowledge lies, lowering the costs and time of knowledge seeking. Rituals within the community sustain interaction and membership (countermining the effects of free-riding and self-interested individuals, thus lowering monitoring costs), and create criteria for membership and recognition for knowledgeable individuals. 40 The formation of relationships within the community depends largely on the benefits and costs of sharing knowledge on the individual and collective levels, as well as the types of knowledge available. When opportunity structures are narrow, sharing occurs through limited relationships, at specific times and places. However, facilitating broad opportunity structures by creating awareness on sharing possibilities promotes continuous interaction, knowledge exchange and the formation of communities. (b) Social Norms: Like all communities, COPs develop their own languages, norms, rituals and values over time, through intense interactions. Members begin to provide care for one another, through trust, active empathy and providing help and lenient judgement. Over time, care develops into a social norm subscribed to by individuals within the community, affecting the sharing of knowledge by promoting knowledge as a public good, lowering the costs involved, eliminating free-riding behaviors and allowing the relationship between giver and receiver to develop based on the cognitive abilities of the receiver, without the immediate need for satisfaction. Care and authenticity (the qualities of the knowledge shared within the community – its accuracy, validity and reliability) work hand in hand. Members of a community derive satisfaction by giving knowledge when care is established as a community norm; knowledge seekers derive utility from searching for and authenticating the reliability of knowledge by applying it. When authenticity is established as a community norm, it can result in the criticism or rejection of certain knowledge, as well as the creation of new knowledge. 2.4.1 The Role of Trust Von Krogh (2002) sheds light onto the strategic benefits of utilizing communities of practice as knowledge sharing resources, as well as the mechanisms for increasing the quality and quantity of knowledge-based activities within these communities - as opportunity structures broaden, meaningful interactions and exchange between individuals increase. Social norms, 41 such as care and authenticity, provide the impetus for individuals to interact and exchange knowledge efficiently and effectively, enabling the community as a strategic communal resource within the organization. However, underlying these interaction mechanisms is the “invisible hand” of trust. Communities are primarily social structures, and the ability of trust to significantly alter relationships and interactions between individuals directly affects the width and depth of opportunity structures, the formation and adoption of social norms, and thus the management and effectiveness of CoPs in organizations. Like knowledge, trust is a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted and complex concept - stemming from the disciplines of sociology, psychology and economics (Rousseau, et. al 1998), it has evolved through a renewed interest in recent organizational literature for numerous reasons. Firstly, technological changes have altered the means and methods of conducting business and performing tasks in organizations (McEvily, et. al. 2003b). As organizations employ more advanced information and communication technologies, tasks are performed in increasingly networked environments and at increasing speeds, such that organizational members are faced with new uncertainties, ambiguities and risks that necessitate reliance and interdependence on others’ performances without the ability to control their behaviors, actions, intentions or performance. Social capital theories propose that trust is necessary for such collective action and cooperation to be effectively performed (Reed 2001) and controlled (Bachmann 2001). Secondly, some organizational research, in particular economic theories, tends to “strip organizations of their inherent social qualities” (McEvily 2003b, p. 1). This is particularly important as collaboration increasingly becomes a source of competitive advantage in global marketplaces. As social systems, organizations rely on trust to impose order on the free and self-interested agents in its employ, in the quest for a reduction in indeterminacy, risk and chaos (Knights, et. al. 2001). Furthermore, trust has been shown to enable the adaptation of flexible organizational forms including self-organizing structures, reduce harmful conflicts, decrease transaction costs, and promote effective responses to crisis (Rousseau, et. al. 1998). 42 As a result, understanding the effects of trust within and between organizations is insightful, yet simultaneously complicated. Trust acts as a basic precondition for social interaction, and also a resource that can render strategic action because it permits informational gaps in the organization to be bridged (Bachmann 2001). However, trust can also be misplaced and betrayed, introducing considerable risk to the organization. Understanding the role of trust in the interactions of members of a community of practice would therefore shed further insights into how to management and utilize CoPs for effective and strategic knowledge-based advantage. 2.4.1.1 The Trust Construct While the trust concept is developed in studies from a variety of disciplines, critical similarities exist across them upon which a universal foundation for its meaning can be built – trust consists of (i) a trustor’s confident expectations in a trustee’s intentions and capabilities and (ii) a willingness to be vulnerable toward the trustee. Thus, for trust to exist, the conditions of risk (a perceived probability of loss by a decision maker) and interdependence (where one’s interests cannot be achieved without reliance on another) must exist. These conditions provide the characteristics and context for trust. Trust is therefore widely held as “a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behaviors of another” (Rousseau, et. al. 1998). The operationalization of the construct occurs at various levels and at various units of analysis throughout literature (Rousseau, et. al. 1998). Trust has been viewed statically as a single point (either trust or distrust), as well as changing over time in inter-personal communication (trust develops, builds, declines and resurfaces). Trust has also been used in literature as a dependent (outcome), independent (antecedent) and interaction (moderating) variable, as well as at various levels of analysis – interpersonal, interorganizational, group, and national levels. It has also been studied separately as an expectation, willingness and 43 behaviour. Trust also possesses a dispositional or attitudinal element. Throughout these various forms and contexts, however, the conceptualization of trust has demonstrated a common psychological basis and a spectrum of varying degrees of trust and distrust. These commonalities point to the importance and effect of trust in the development of relationships by introducing the varying levels and types of trust that are present (Rousseau, et. al 1998, McEvily, et. al. 2003a, Bachmann 2001): (a) Deterrence-based trust: Trust can be established between two parties because of the imposition of costly sanctions that make any breach of trust in favor of opportunistic behavior disadvantageous. However, such sanctions may inhibit the trust-resulting behavior of cooperation. As a result, some authors do not consider this a form of trust, while others do. (b) Calculative (or calculus-based) trust: Trust can be formed when one party perceives through credible information from external sources that the other intends to and is capable of performing an action that is beneficial. At this level of trust, risks are continually monitored and exchanges between parties constantly verified, limiting trust to specific interactions and shortterm relationships. (c) Relational (or affected-based): As interactions between individuals increase over time, information regarding the behavior of the trustee is no longer obtained from external sources, but from experiences within the relationship itself. As reliability and dependability of previous interactions increase positive expectations, emotion structures the relationship between the parties. (d) Identity-Based trust: At this level, repeated interactions of exchange, risk-taking and successful fulfillment of expectations strengthen the interdependence of parties on one another, forming common beliefs and 44 reducing the sentiment of negative intentions. As a result, exchanges include the sharing of a larger variety of resources, care and concern, resulting in the formation of a shared identity. (e) Institution-Based trust: Institutionalized trust (Reed 2001) refers to “trust relations tied to formal societal and organizational structures that shape the interactional patterns through which reciprocal exchanges are negotiated, elaborated, reproduced and transforms” (p. 203). Institutionalized trust provides cognitive security to the trustor by supplying guarantees and safety nets (McKnight, et. al 1998) and factor in the effects of reputation and status within the organization. This level of trust also acts as a supporting structure that encourages risk-taking and trusting behaviors through culture, norms and expectations. However, such a level of trust may also reduce the opportunities for and undermine the formation of trust by imposing controls on the parties. When operationalizing trust, scholars recommend that the various forms must be considered together (Rosseau, et. al. 1998, Reed 2001, Becerra and Gupta 2003, McKnight et. al. 1998) to avoid missing the richness and multiplexity of trust and its effects in the organization. 2.4.1.2 Trust as an Organizing Principle The renewed interest in trust has lead to significant development and evolution of the multifaceted concept. However, authors note that while theoretical work has advanced, empirical work has not sustained the development of the concepts. Furthermore, the accumulation of theories have not provided a well-integrated, coherent set of propositions about the direct and enabling effects of trust on the organization. In an attempt to consolidate the various fragments of trust literature, McEvily et. al. (2003a) proposes the use of trust as an organizing principle in firms. 45 Organizing principles are the logic by which activities and work in the organization are coordinated and information necessary for that work gathered, disseminated and processed, affecting the methods by which organizational members interpret and represent information, select behaviors and coordinate actions through routines. Organizing principles provide direction and insights to distinct mechanisms that orient, enable and constrain economic behaviour in the organization. According to the authors, the employment of trust as an organizing principle represents a way for organizations to resolve the problems of uncertainty, risk, ambiguity and interdependence plaguing contemporary business environments because trust is important where performance is ambiguous, unobserved and uncontrolled or where controls to do so are costly or difficult to implement. The authors further suggest that trust influences organizing through structuring and mobilizing – because of the interplay of the various levels and types of trust, organizational activities must be organized and coordinated (structured) to promote stable interactions in the social system of organizational members. Similarly, organizational members can be motivated through trust to combine, share and coordinate resources towards the collective good of the organization and one another (mobilized). Structuring: More specifically, structuring relates to the “development, maintenance and modification of a system of relative positions and links among actors situated in a social space” (p. 94), resulting in stable and sustained formal and informal interactions, as well as the social stratification of members accordingly to status, power and knowledge. By structuring organizational activities using trust, the interaction and social structure characteristics of density, multiplexity, stability and non-redundancy are respectively affected by trust’s transferability, generative capacity, ability to delay reciprocity and discriminating of specialized roles. Mobilizing: Mobilizing subsequently refers to the conversion of decentralized and unevenly distributed material and non-material resources into organizational activities that can be 46 performed by interdependent organizational members. Trust as an organizing principle encourages members to contribute, combine, coordinate and utilize their resources in shared organizational action, steering them toward the achievement of organizational goals. Specifically, trust mobilizes actions such as knowledge sharing by increasing the behavior of disclosing information and reducing screening of knowledge, committing to organizational goals through identifying with others, and reducing safeguarding of resources by promoting the suspension of judgement. If, as suggested, the influential effects of trust (structuring and mobilizing) can be adopted as an organizing principle to reduce environmental ambiguity, risk and uncertainty, as well as enable new organizational structures, trust becomes a significant consideration in the creation and management of CoPs. As organizations nurture CoPs to strategically manage and harness knowledge to deal with environmental uncertainties and the autonomous nature of work in knowledge-intensive environments, this conceptual framework can provide insights into the knowledge sharing activities within communities of practice. As institutional trust and control mechanisms are lowered and shifts are made to predominantly individual- and networked-levels of trust in organizations, new organizational structures such as CoPs will revolve around the interdependence of members. These self-organizing structures will primarily rely on the trust between such interdependencies (Rosseau, et. al. 1998). As a result, such organic organizational structures can be facilitated by trust as opposed to control mechanisms (McEvily, et. al 2003a). An investigation into the interaction patterns and effects of trust on CoP members would thus cast insights into how to structure CoPs and mobilize their members for effective and efficient, sustainable knowledge-sharing. By considering trust as an organizing principle for communities of practice, the interaction patterns among relationships between CoP members that eventually lead to evolutionary stability can be investigated. Trust would affect the interaction patterns in CoP relationships through its transferability, generative capacity, ability to delay reciprocity and discrimination of specialized roles. Consequently, the growth and sustainability of the CoP as a strategic knowledge resource for the organization can be 47 explained. In particular, the structuring and mobilizing effects of trust in interpersonal interaction can suggest how organizations can use trust to create, organize, and manage CoPs, as well as coordinate value-creating knowledge activities that stabilize interactions while maintaining flexible control over such new organizational structures. 2.5 Summary This review has started with a broad look at knowledge, investigated its epistemic roots and typologies, and examined its management strategies in an organizational context. In an attempt to capture the social and practice aspects of knowing, the community of practice has been adopted as an organizational form which strategically integrates the various types of knowledge into the everyday work routines of organization members. However, the effectiveness of the CoP stems from the relationships between its members. By organizing these relationships on trust, the CoPs stand to gain numerous advantages such as lower transaction costs and easier access to timely knowledge. The transferability, generative capacity, delay reciprocity and specialization of roles afforded by trust help to stabilize interaction patterns among relationships. Applying these concepts to the CoP context can explain how CoPs can be strategically structured and mobilized to provide sustained advantage to the organization. 48 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A research methodology presents the guidelines and strategies for a disciplined and systematic form of inquiry and investigation into a particular phenomenon. It sets the philosophical assumptions for the investigation and its validation, as well as for directing the researcher to appropriate methods for designing, conducting and analyzing the phenomenon. The research methodology keeps the researcher in check - by prescribing checkpoints and guiding him throughout a well-ordered sequence of activities that eventually justify and validate the conclusions reached, allowing them to be evaluated, accepted, replicated and most importantly, trusted, by a larger community. 3.1 R ESEARCH AND ITS P HILOSOPHICAL A SSUMPTIONS All systematic social science research stems from certain philosophical assumptions about how the world works and how to understand it. The ontological (the nature of being, existence and reality) and epistemological (the nature of knowledge and how it arises) perspectives and assumptions a researcher subscribes to leads to an appropriate methodology for conducting research. Numerous perspectives exist – positivism, post-positivism, realism, relativism, constructivism, deconstructivism, hermeneutics and interpretivism, et cetera – each with differing assumptions and philosophies of how to understand the world. A commonly subscribed taxonomy for IS research distinguishes these ontological and epistemological assumptions into three schools of thought – positivist, interpretive and critical (Myers 1997). The positivist school of thought has dominated much traditional scientific research. It views the world as an objective reality that is observable and measurable, operating through deterministic laws of cause and effect. Scientific research and knowledge is viewed as a means to understand, predict and control behaviors in the world. Empirical observations, measurements and manipulations are the focus of this school of thought in determining the laws by which the world operates. As such, subjectivity is eliminated from the research 49 process, and the researcher is detached from his observations. The researcher typically forms an a priori model of the phenomenon to be investigated and subsequently derives hypotheses to be tested empirically. Knowledge progresses when the hypotheses are supported in a variety of contexts and conditions, when predictions can be explained. Interpretive research assumes that reality can be explained through many subjective interpretations, and thus cannot be studied objectively. Reality and phenomena are socially constructed and embedded in the context, frames of reference and meanings given to it by people. Interpretive research stems from hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) and phenomenology (the study of phenomena as they are understood in, and thus not independent of, human consciousness), and aims to understand and analyze subjective interpretations of reality and phenomena and their consequences (Myers 1997, Robey 1994). The interpretive researcher does not begin with a priori hypotheses but focuses on the emergence of models within the complexity of the phenomenon and context studied. As a result, the researcher is embedded within the study, and negotiates his interpretation into an analysis of the phenomenon. New knowledge is based on the discovery, communication and understanding of a phenomenon through the researcher’s interpretation, making the realization and acknowledgement of prior assumptions of the world important. Lastly, the critical school of thought assumes reality is cemented in its historical construction, produced by people, but also oppressing people with mechanisms that preserve the status quo. The purpose of inquiry and knowledge is therefore to unveil the nature of such mechanisms, not necessarily by examining negative situations and phenomena, but by focusing on contradictions and inequalities in society. Rather than based his study deeply within a specific context, as in the interpretive school, the critical research must question broader aspects possibly related to a phenomenon, including social, cultural, economic and political environments, without bias. The result of critical studies aims to highlight the nature of suppressive mechanisms and provide knowledge through alternative concepts and practices as a stepping stone for an alternative reality. Critical research is subjective (and in a sense, 50 interpretive) in the manner that its contributions are not based solely on logic and scientific analyses, but it rejects the notion that explanations strictly lie within the phenomena studied. 3.1.1 Choosing an Appropriate Method Scientific investigation and inquiry is based on logical reasoning. The philosophical underpinnings of a researcher affect both his methods of reasoning as well as methods for conducting research. Typically, reasoning can be categorized in deductive or inductive approaches. Deductive approaches begin with the formation of a structured theory and a set of hypotheses to test that theory. As observations are made, specific data is collected to confirm or reject the hypotheses and thus the theory. Inductive reasoning works from the ‘bottom’ up, starting with observations and data to recognize general patterns, which lead to the formation of hypotheses and the development of theory. The classifications of research methods are varied, with one of the most common being the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research (Myers 1997). Quantitative research aims to determine relationships by quantifying the effects of one entity (the independent variable) on another (the dependent variable) within a population. Data is usually gathered using structured research instruments and methods, such as surveys, and experiments, and is analyzed objectively using numerical, mathematical and statistical modeling. The data is collected based on a representative sample of a population, and the conclusions can usually be replicated with high reliability. Qualitative research (broadly defined by Strauss and Corbin (1990, p. 17) as "any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification") aims to understand phenomena from and within the perspective of its context and the entities embedded within it. Data is usually collected using less structured 51 instruments, such as interviews and direct observation, with the researcher himself being the primary instrument, and tend to be more in-depth and flexible, based on the context at hand. The data is collected through small sample sizes that do not represent the population, and the results may not be easily replicated in different contexts. Analyses of the observed phenomenon tend to be subjective in nature, based on the interpretation of the researcher. However, qualitative research accounts for the complexity and dynamism embedded in real world contexts. Qualitative research results in different kinds of knowledge from quantitative research. The debates regarding the better taxonomy to adopt are endless - both schools having fundamental differences. Patton (1990) argues that the appropriateness of the methodology should be the primary criteria for judging its use and quality in a study. The choice of a suitable research method may, therefore, stem from the combination of the philosophical assumptions made by the researcher, the nature of reasoning, the questions being asked, the type of access to the data and how the data can be effectively analyzed to reach sound conclusions. A positivist approach lends itself to deductive thought processes, starting with a set of hypotheses to be confirmed or rejected in light of a previously developed theory. An interpretive approach, on the other hand, lends itself to inductive reasoning, where patterns of observations in particular context can lead to the formation of a new theory or shed light on an existing one. A common misconception is that deductive reasoning cannot be achieved through qualitative methods, while inductive reasoning cannot be accomplished through quantitative methods. While in practice, there is some truth in this generalization, it is far from definitive. Many case studies (a qualitative method) in Information Systems literature, for example, are conducted through positivist approaches (and thus deductive reasoning). In actual fact, both qualitative and quantitative methods can be used to address various research settings - quantitative studies can be exploratory in nature, and qualitative research can be used to confirm hypotheses. Again, debates exist arguing the use of both methods within the study. 52 Thus, deciding on philosophical assumptions and choosing a suitable research methodology is not as easy task – there are no fixed rules to guide the endeavor, making it ‘more a craft than a slavish adherence to …rules’ (Miles & Huberman 1994, p. 5). The following section describes the settings for this study, and conjoins the various elements and factors involved to describe the methodology used and its justification. 3.2 T HE R ESEARCH M ETHODOLOGY The intention of this study is to explore and investigate the adoption and implementation of knowledge management initiatives in National Computer Systems (NCS), a large systems integrator in Singapore. The initiatives revolve around the implementation of information systems in the organization to support knowledge processes, as well as the formation of communities of practice to enhance knowledge sharing. Of particular interest was the adoption of the communities of practice as a sustained source of organizational knowledge and the quality of interactions between CoP members. Such an organizational scenario is not commonplace in Singaporean organizations, and the orientation towards the study was one of discovery and exploration, intended to reveal latent aspects on and surface insights into the conditions giving rise to such an organizational endeavor, and the practices used to constitute effective knowledge management. As discussed in the review of literature, the organizational adoption of knowledge management strategies and supporting systems is not merely technical in nature, but roots itself firmly in a cultural context, interwoven with social interactions and understandings of reality (particularly for communities of practice). Various studies on knowledge management initiatives highlight numerous inherent conditions and entrenched factors in the organization’s context, and more importantly, in the individuals embedded within that context. The ability to study such a phenomenon, therefore, would rely on a deep understanding of the entities involved in their context. Particularly, to understand the relational effects of trust in the CoP 53 would require an in-depth understanding of the quality, frequency and depth of interactions between members of the CoPs. A qualitative approach is, therefore, justified on a number of factors. In qualitative research, the focus lies in understanding ‘real’ situations and phenomena in their naturally occurring settings. Such research can be used to understand a phenomenon that is not known, or gain new insights or information on phenomena that is already known or where it is difficult to express quantitatively (Patton 1990). As data is collected from within the context (as opposed to via phone or mail, as in the case of quantitative surveys), the understanding of the phenomenon is bounded in its preserved context, providing local groundedness. Furthermore, qualitative research allows for flexibility in the means and timing of data collection as the study proceeds. This flexibility permits the researcher to understand the phenomenon in depth and pursue various aspects of it, as the study progresses. The data provided in such investigations is rich and holistic, allowing complex phenomenon to surface. Qualitative data collection is conducted over a sustained period of time, making the examination of processes, events and structures open to questions of why and how (Miles & Huberman 1994). 3.2.1 The Research Method Within the school of qualitative research, many methods exist to guide researchers in their investigation. Among these methods, action research, case study research, ethnography and grounded theory are common in IS literature (Myer 1997). An interpretative single case study was used here, with a grounded theory approach. Apart from the qualities of qualitative research mentioned above, as a research method, the case study is suitable for conducting exploratory, descriptive and explanatory studies (Yin 1994), particularly when the observations need to be explained in their natural settings, and where handling “sticky, practice based problems where the experiences of the actors are important and the context of action critical”. Furthermore, the method is useful when the investigator has no control over the events or resulting phenomenon, and where there are more variables of 54 interest than there are data points. A case study is also useful in studying contemporary phenomena, as opposed to historical ones. The case study allows the researcher to answer questions of why and how in depth, providing an understanding of the processes involved in the phenomenon and its inherent complexities (Benbasat et al 1987). Case study methods are the most common used form of qualitative research in information systems studies and have been advocated because of the shifting focus in the field from technical to organizational issues. (Myers 1997). Single case studies are purposeful in representing critical cases (that support or refute theories and propositions), exemplary cases (where the phenomenon observed is unique or extreme), or revelatory (where phenomena could not previously be accessed) (Yin 1994). As a result, the case study method provides the ability to understand the context within which knowledge management has emerged and evolved within the organization, as well as the complex web of interactions between units, communities, employees, systems, processes and organization culture. However, the exploratory nature of the study is further enhanced though the adoption of grounded theory strategies in unraveling the complex reality of the organization in a conceptual well-knit whole. Strauss and Corbin (1990) define the grounded theory method as “a systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon" (p. 24). Stern (1995) considers the use of grounded theory best “in investigations of relatively uncharted water, or to gain a fresh perspective in a familiar situation” (p. 30). Grounded theory prescribes that theory must emerge from data, and the two are not independent. As a result, the investigation is usually inductive in nature, being concerned with theory-development and not theory-testing. Data collection is fused together with and guided by its analysis throughout the progress of the study, resulting in each subsequent phase of analysis being ‘grounded’ in the data obtained, particularly since the boundaries of the phenomenon may not be clearly distinguishable (Yin 1994). This provides the researcher with flexibility to pursue observed patterns as well as unexpected discoveries, possibly increasing insights into the development of a theory. 55 Using such an approach, data collection begins before the investigation into existing research. This ensures an analysis made is based on the data obtained, rather than being biased by existing studies, constructs or theories. Thus, the specification of a research question at the beginning of a study is not a norm. Rather, areas to be studied are left opened initially, and guided by the data and its iterative analysis. As data is collected, emerging themes are identified (open coding) through the researcher’s interpretations, and conceptually categorized. As the study progresses, these conceptual categories are refined and redefined, with their interconnecting relationships revealed (axial coding). Once a complete interpretation is obtained and a conceptual model developed, the researcher proceeds to describe the findings (Miles & Huberman 1994, Yin 1994). Holistically, this approach allowed for the investigation of the knowledge management initiatives within NCS, starting from the beginning of their endeavor, with particular depth and understanding, interweaving the practical and situational conditions of the ‘real’ organizational environment with the experiences faced by its respective units and employees in managing the knowledge processes as part of the organization’s operating structure. 3.2.2 Data Collection Data was collected from a variety of sources, primarily through the use of systematic semistructured and open interviews with various employees throughout the organization. Initial interviews were conducted during the period of November-December 2001 to gain an understanding of the organization’s knowledge management initiatives. The majority of interviews were subsequently conducted during the period of February-September 2002. The interviews were conducted with a variety of participants. In understanding the choice of participants, it is necessary to briefly explain the complex history of NCS and its knowledge management program. The initial interviews conducted in 2001 revealed a complex narrative of the emerging nature of the program - the organization was previously a government agency, distributed around Singapore, and was undergoing shifts in organizational structure 56 and culture since its privatization; communities of practice did already exist within the organization and its functional units, but were not advocated by top management; a technical system aimed to “achieve” knowledge management was already in post-development phases. However, a number of factors (expounded in the next chapter) instigated the formation of a knowledge management unit to oversee the initiatives within the organization, and the formalization of the communities, as well as the initiation of a new IS development project to further the knowledge management program. Given the complexity of the situation, the interviews were conducted with individuals from both ‘eras’ – before and after the formalization of the knowledge management initiatives. These individuals range from a variety of backgrounds and seniority – many having worked in the organization when it was a government agency. Newly recruited employees (between 1-2 years with NCS) were also interviewed to provide different aspects of the organization’s culture and practices. Participants and non-participants of the communities of practice, from both ‘eras’, as well as the individuals responsible for managing the communities were interviewed as well. The knowledge management unit and the IS department were interviewed (including follow-ups), providing the perspectives from the stakeholders themselves. The range of interviews conducted including various positions along the organization’s hierarchy – from directors and middle-management and newly recruited software developers. Completely, 32 interviews were conducted, each lasting on average between 30 minutes to 1 hour (with the exception of certain long interviews lasting up to 2½ hours), for a total of approximately 49 hours of interview data. A substantial amount of this time was spent in understanding the complex work practices in the organization, the interrelated routines between various functional units and the means by which members of the communities sought help and contributed to their affiliates. While the majority of the interviews were conducted in meeting rooms, offices and cafeterias at the organization’s headquarters, a handful were conducted at customer sites, where certain employees were located at well. As interviews were conducted, field notes were taken, particularly highlighting contradictions or reinforcements of particular observations made 57 during the course of the investigation. All interviews were also recorded and transcribed for reference purposes, with the exception of two, where the interviewees felt uneasy about revealing sensitive information on record. Other sources of data were utilized to triangulate and confirm the data obtained from the interviews. These include organizational documentation such as organizational charts and hierarchies, web pages, and public and private presentation slides, and unit-specific documents such as minutes and notes of meetings. Direct observations were not permitted; however, video tapings of the communities of practice at meeting sessions were viewed to indirectly observe the agendas, culture and practices within the communities. Discrepancies and contradictions found in the data were usually clarified with the access gatekeepers to the investigation – the knowledge management unit. 3.2.3 Data Analysis The data obtained from the interviews was transcribed verbatim and manually coded to reveal the emergence of common themes. The purpose of the coding was to describe the phenomenon, and also to develop a thorough understanding of it from the perspective of the participants. Events leading to the various aspects of the knowledge management initiative, details of its implementation and their implications were understood through this means. The confidence in these understandings was further grounded by confirming them with the relevant parties and gatekeepers in the organization. Intended to obtain and reveal insights as to the implementation of knowledge management in the company, the analysis was exploratory in focus, and involved multiple readings of the transcriptions and secondary data, and the use of simple codes to represent multiple concepts. Diagrams and references to diagrams were frequently used during the interviews, as well as in analysis, to visually capture the various activities described by participants, from the structure of the organization and the individual structures of business units and communities, 58 as well as the processes involved in work and community activities. Similarly, diagrams were also used to comprehend the technical architecture of the organizational information systems in understanding its role in the knowledge management initiatives. Through the phases of coding of interview and secondary data, the codes were refined and began to represent emerging themes, as salient characterizations surfaced from the mass of data and narratives - the formalized COPs created links between the employees of the organization, within and across their functional units, aiding them in their daily work practices and routines. The use of information systems and technology not only facilitated, but enhanced their interactions, and linked the communities to the development of knowledge management processes and practices as dictated by the organization, in its holistic approach to embedded knowledge in the organization’s processes and practices. This effectuated the communities as communal resources for knowledge sharing, providing further insights and empirical evidence to von Krogh’s (2002) postulates on the community as communal resources of knowledge in the organization, as well as revealed the complicated role of the Information Systems technology, unit and developers in supporting such initiatives. The description of the data based on the codes is synthesized in the next chapter, while the discussions on the findings and analysis are provided subsequently. 59 4. CASE DESCRIPTION This chapter presents the data obtained from the study of knowledge management at National Computer Systems during the period January – September 2002. 4.1 C OMPANY B ACKGROUND National Computer Systems Pte Ltd (NCS) is an IT service provider and systems integrator in Singapore, as well as the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, Malaysia, India, China and Hong Kong. The organization provides IT consulting and solutions in numerous areas, including both the public and private sector. The organization specializes in IT service provision in a variety of industries, including Education, Defense, Healthcare, Financial Services, Bioscience, Public Services, Telecommunications and Transportation & Logistics. With over 2000 employees and the largest number of certified IT project managers in Singapore, NCS is one of the largest IT service providers in the region, and delivers projects of various complexities and sizes. Unlike other commercial organizations, NCS has deep roots in the public sector. The organization was formed in 1981 as the IT service arm of the Singapore government, and was known as the National Computer Board (NCB, now known as IDA, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore). NCB embodied the role of the Singapore government’s CIO, by developing and establishing government-wide IT plans, standards, policies and practices. In April 1996, in a move to liberate the market for government IT projects to the private sector (thus simultaneously increasing the pool of IT resources available to the government, as well as opportunities available to commercial organizations), NCS was corporatized, and subsequently completely divested in 1997. The organization is now a commercial and wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecom, but its core business has remained unchanged, as it continues to play an important role in the government’s Civil 60 Service Computerization Programme, as well as support its previous government projects, on top of its growing private and public sector clientele. 4.1.1 Organizational Structure NCS is structured functionally based on its 5 lines of business (LOBs) – Global Competency, Industry Solutions (consisting of the Commercial Solutions and Government Solutions LOBs) and Infrastructure Solutions (consisting of the Infrastructure Integration and Infrastructure Outsourcing LOBs). Figure 3 depicts the organization of the NCS business structure. The Commercial Solutions and Government Solutions LOBs consist of their various business executives and IT development members, working in project teams to deliver solutions, services and IT opportunities to customers and clients of the organization. Project teams are the essence of NCS’s project-oriented contracts, and must remain flexible, efficient and effective. Each group varies in size, depending on the requirements and size of the project, and the availability of manpower and expertise. To facilitate the optimal availability of expertise and enhance the flexibility of the LOBs, both the Commercial and Government Solutions LOBs are further sub-managed based on their respective categories of domain expertise. The Global Competency and Infrastructure Solutions LOBs are structured horizontally across the organization’s business structure, acting as a service rather than a profit center. The Global Competency LOB provides business consulting and domain expertise to clients, as well as to other NCS LOBs, particularly when solutions and projects involve significant changes in the client’s business processes. The Infrastructure Solutions LOBs provide hardware, networking and infrastructure services, solutions and expertise that are available to clients, and are also tapped upon by the other LOBs as well. 61 Figure 3: NCS Organizational Structure, 2001 62 Project teams in NCS are formed on a per-project basis and dissolved after the completion of a project. Each project is supervised by Project Managers (PMs), who report to the General Managers of their expertise domain within their LOB. Profit Center managers manage each LOB, in turn. Each Profit Center manager is accountable to an Assistant Chief Executive (A.C.E) in the organization. The LOBs are supported by a horizontally organized support structure including NCS’s Information Systems, Corporate Shared Services and Corporate Strategies divisions. 4.1.2 Moving from Government to Commercial Services Before its corporatization, NCS solely serviced the Singapore government’s departments and ministries. The organizational structure was significantly different, particularly without any lines of business targeting the commercial sector. Its offices were scattered throughout Singapore, but were mainly used as data centers and for administrative and support staff. Working on government projects, most project teams were situated at and attached to their clients’ sites, and not within NCS premises, for up to years at a time, to implement and support long-term projects. After 1996, however, NCS slowly moved into the provision of IT services to corporate customers and private-sector clients, largely eliminating the need of their staff to work at the client’s site, as project life cycles became shorter and the need for on-site support was not required. Initially, many IT developers and experts were situated in one NCS office location, but from January to September 2001, NCS consolidated its entire organization to a new single location, called the NCS Hub. Simultaneously, the organizational structure was in constant change and adapted to its present form, based on commercial and government lines of business, to suit the new business needs. 4.1.3 The General Process for Business 63 From an all-encompassing perspective, the typical service provision process for NCS consists of 3 broad parts (Figure 4), explained briefly below: Pre-Sales Contract/Tender Proposal & Award Post-Sales Figure 4: A Holistic Look at the Service Provision Process (i) Pre-Sales: Account Managers (AMs) and Business Development (BD) executives identify business opportunities for NCS to capitalize on and add value to. These opportunities are either identified by the clients’ account executives, for example in providing further or enhanced solutions and services to existing customers, or called upon by clients, for example by requesting proposals for solutions or service provision. (ii) Proposal & Award: Domain experts and Solution Managers from the relevant LOBs conceptualize the solutions, together with the account managers and business executives, and provide a comprehensive proposal in response to requests or tenders. (iii) Post-Sales: If NCS secures the contract or tender for a particular service or solution, a Project Manager and group are assigned to deliver the specified solution. The PM determines and evaluates the constraints of the project, and the project is commenced using various software development life cycles (SDLCs) until completion, according to the specifications of the contract. As this process indicates, a number of actors are consistently involved in the NCS business process. Account Managers and Business Development executives play an important role in the pre-sales activities of scouting and identifying business opportunities and managing client relations. Downstream, Solution Managers and Project Managers play a vital role in the 64 provision of NCS’s solutions and services, while maintaining quality standards, adhering to financial and manpower restrictions, and keeping the project’s scope within profitable margins. At the Post-Sales stage, the project development commences, requiring developers to create and seek technical solutions for the client‘s various needs. This process is further elaborated in Section 4.3. 4.2 A N O VERVIEW OF K NOWLEDGE M ANAGEMENT IN NCS The recognition of how knowledge management (regarded by the organization as the systematic process of harnessing useful ideas and experiences for collective learning and achieving differentiating advantage) could lead to a sustainable competitive advantage for NCS arose in 1997, when informal discussions led to the formation of a task force, championed by a handful of motivated employees, to develop an overall knowledge management framework for the organization (Figure 5). The framework resulted in the determination of a knowledge process (Figure 6), and the definition of pilot projects that NCS would undertake to enable a knowledge management strategy, primarily, the creation of an organization-wide strategic knowledge repository, the Knowledge XPress, comprising of 5 smaller repositories, focused on various competencies in the organization. Due to its corporatization and a changing focus from public-sector to commercial clients, the organization underwent various structural and staff changes after 1996. In 1999, the responsibility of managing knowledge activities in the organization was placed upon a newlyformed Knowledge Management Office (KMO), which would act as a central body to coordinate and facilitate KM activities, including the development of the Knowledge XPress system. A pioneering member of the now-defunct KMO explains its role and an important implication the organization realized from the early stages of its journey: 65 “After the task force, we realized that if we don’t have one particular group driving and facilitating the initiative, it would just die off. So, KMO was formed to facilitate the whole process. We felt that we need a central body to coordinate all the activities and promote knowledge sharing and be the evangelists, because people here are so busy.” Subsequent restructuring led the management of KM initiatives to be undertaken first by the STRATEGIC INTENT Knowledge Process Organization Information Technology Guiding Principles Figure 5: The Initial NCS KM Framework The framework revolved around 3 aspects – the organization, IT, and the knowledge process (fig. 3) – to use knowledge management to achieve the organization’s strategic intent of facilitating the whole of NCS to become a leader in knowledge management. NCS Center of Learning, on to be shifted again, in 2001, to the Learning and Development (L&D) department. L&D, which formed part of the human resources function within NCS, focused on HR development, organizational culture and staff competency. In managing the organization’s KM initiatives, the department positioned its role as “the facilitators of integrating knowledge into the competency of NCS” staff, rather than as owners of the KM 66 initiatives, as previously done by the other units. One of the L&D executives explains the usefulness of having those who use the knowledge take responsibility over its management: “Early on, we found we needed someone to drive the project. We took the responsibility, but we wanted ownership to go back to the [business] units. We’re doing the part of facilitating – to collect the requirements, to make sure the system is built. It will not just be delivered either – we will still monitor the feedback. But by re-launching using the different approach of owners, we want to the communication to be very clear about the process – when the data will be put in, who should put it in, who can check and monitor if the data is populated – close checking and monitoring will be necessary to kick off the process. By making them the owners, we can make it take off.” While the initial efforts by the task force, KMO and Center of Learning focused on the implementation of the strategic KMS, the L&D unit also worked toward promoting a sharing culture through the formation of relationships and peer-networks among NCS employees, encouraging their participation in communities. This approach towards addressing social issues was brought about when initial difficulties in using the KMS led to questions being raised on how to better share knowledge among employees, rather than relying on a technical system. An executive involved in the promoting such activities shared the rationale behind this: “In NCS, we still regard information in a very people oriented way – if I know you, then I‘ll know where to get my sources, and I’ll rely heavily on my network. Networking and relationships are very important. We need to constantly keep in touch with people and encourage them to use [the system] and really reach the people on the ground, rather than just implement it and say 67 ‘This is your KM system, now you have to use it!’. We realized the approach did not work the last time around.” These initial challenges to the functionality of the KMS, coupled by further restructuring and the development of new in-house information systems, led to the narrowing of its scope from Business Strategy Core Competencies Knowledge Identification Knowledge Creation Knowledge Sharing Key Measurements Knowledge Capturing Knowledge Application Figure 6: The NCS Knowledge Process Model 5 repositories to 2, revolving around the core business processes of the organization. It also led to the formation and formalization of 2 strategic communities of practice (CoPs) to allow employees in like-minded work to interact and network, as well as to leverage off each other’s experience. 68 These approaches to organizing and managing the KM initiatives in the organization are elaborated in the subsequent sections. Prior to this, however, a detailed examination of the core processes involved in serving its clients is useful in illuminating the intricate web of interactions between actors, linkages and circumstances involved in the organization’s journey to use its knowledge as a sustainable advantage. 4.3 U NDERSTANDING THE I NTRICATE R ELATIONSHIPS Project teams are the essence of NCS’s project-oriented contracts. The various lines of business serving government and commercial clients each consist of business executives and IT development members, working in project teams to deliver solutions, services and IT opportunities to these customers. To successfully manage their limited manpower with numerous customer contracts, the lines of business strive to remain flexible, efficient and effective. Each project team varies in size, depending on the requirements and size of the project, and the availability of manpower and expertise, and is headed by one or more Project Managers (PMs). The typical service process for NCS consists of 3 consecutive stages – Pre-sales, Contract/Tender Award, and Post-sales (Figure 2). The typical pre-sales process in providing IT services begins with the Account Managers (AMs) of client accounts and Business Development (BD) executives from the various departments of domain expertise sourcing for new business opportunities. When an opportunity is identified or a proposal sought by potential or existing clients, the AMs and BD executives work hand-in-hand with IT Solution Managers in conceptualizing the relevant solutions and service strategies for the client. The Solutions Manager usually comes from a line of business with the relevant domain knowledge for the proposed project. In many cases, the Solutions Manager can also be a senior and experienced Account Manager or Project Manager, as well, working on dual roles with varying scope in the organization. 69 A project proposal is put up (in response to a tender for services, in the case of government projects), and after a period of evaluation, in which changes and clarifications are made to the proposal, the organization will learn if it has been awarded the contract for the provision of its solution. A successful outcome to the bid process leads to the assignment of a PM and project team to deliver the solutions/services specified by the contract. The PM may or may not be the Solutions Manager involved in the conceptualization of the solution, and in some case, may even be the AM of the client account. The project team will proceed to work out the project’s details, including its deliverables, budget, the structure of the team, and strategies on how to keep the project within suitable project margins, under time and manpower constraints. Once the project is commenced, development of the solutions is based upon in-house SDLC and project management practices, specified and guided by the organization’s Quality Management Center (QMC, the organizational-wide support unit that develops standard and processes), and further refined by each line of business’s own needs and practices. At various stages of the project, project learning and monitoring are performed to ensure the project requirements are still met and constraints within check. Concurrently, lessons learnt are communicated back to team members. Project managers put up monthly status reports for the various ongoing projects, which are then collated at Project Office. A senior project manager elaborates on this process: “This is where we would look into the various parameters of the project – what went well, what didn’t go well, what issues did we encounter, how we went about resolving them, what were some of the lessons we learnt – and we have what is called a Project Office where we submit our learning reports, consolidate these at the [Profit] Center – and even organizational – level and share 70 them with other project teams as well. This is the more formal process, specified by our QMS [Quality Management System]”. Once implementation of the solution is completed, the project moves into a postimplementation phase, where maintenance ‘crews’ take over the smooth running of the solution in yearly, 2-yearly or 3-yearly contracts with the client. The maintenance crew usually consists of a large proportion of the initial project development team, and possibly a Project Manager, if necessary. Further reviews and learning reports are put up at this stage. The learning reports act as a means of transmitting some of the various important experiences encountered by PMs to other PMs as well. However, “[they are] more relevant to a particular business unit because it is relevant in a particular business context”. The learning reports and project reports are stored on the organization’s LAN for various PMs within the same department to consult, and are managed by the respective Project Offices. Throughout this entire process, the AM and PM act as contact points between the client and NCS. The in-depth look at the process involved in providing solutions to clients surfaces the importance of the Project Manager, Solutions Manager and Accounts Manager working independently at their own parts throughout the flow of the process, as well as working together across the entire process, to manage the relationship with the customer, while managing the complexity of the project, and maintaining high quality standards. These intricacies expand manifold when each PM, AM and Solutions Manager are working on different clients and different solutions with different project teams in a variety of roles and capacities at the same time. Figure 7 builds on Figure 4 to graphically demonstrate the web of relationships and its complexities involved. As a result, the roles played by the Business Development executives (in particular, the Account Managers) and the Project Managers (including Solutions Managers) are the focal 71 point of the entire service provision process. Much of the organizational knowledge lies at these levels of the hierarchy, in their work processes and routines and in the knowledge of the customer and operating environment. The organization saw the opportunity to enhance their work performance through the use of information systems, potentially leading to considerable performance gains. 4.4 K NOWLEDGE X PRESS – T HE D EVELOPMENT OF AN O RGANIZATIONAL KMS Development of the Knowledge XPress system was a recommendation by the initial task force in 1998 as a pilot project for structured KM implementation in NCS. The Knowledge XPress is an integrated knowledge repository and environment, built atop the NCS corporate Intranet, as a means for distributing, sharing and capturing knowledge from across the organization (Figure 8). Both the knowledge environment and the Intranet play important roles in this effort, notes a senior executive: “[The task force] had one of those more structured approaches which aimed to address certain needs of knowledge in this organization. The vital part is also the Intranet which, when we started, was meant to capture some of the vital information you traditionally get from many different places but are not suitable to be kept in traditional databases.” The Knowledge XPress and Intranet aimed at eliminating two difficulties encountered by NCS in developing a suitable knowledge environment. A unique characteristic of the organization is that many of their project teams work from their clients’ sites, particularly for public sector projects. This surfaces the first problem – how NCS would reach out to its employees working at various locations around Singapore. 72 Secondly, because of the vast number of employees and simultaneous projects, facilitating an exchange of information regarding projects to different people posed a problem, aptly described by a project executive: “No one person knows what’s happening in other projects – even if you have some knowledge about it, you will not have an indepth understanding.” The solution was to leverage the web technology of the Intranet and to piggyback the Knowledge XPress repository and engine on it. Prior to the system’s development, the NCS management identified 5 key areas of knowledge that would provide the organization with a competitive advantage. The Knowledge XPress repository was broken down in 5 subrepositories with different target participants and objectives – Project XPress, Solution XPress, Technology XPress, Business XPress and Competency XPress. Focus groups were used to identify the necessities of the system. The system was developed internally by the NCS Information Systems division. However, due to coincidental organizational restructuring and handing over of offices throughout the organizational structure, the project was not carried out on a full scale throughout the organization. 4.4.1 Rolling Out and Refining Knowledge XPress In its small pilot rollout in May 2001 with 100 users, the system was not completely accepted and faced resistance from pilot users. This was largely due to the fact that it lacked enough existing information, and required users to key in the information on top of their already-hectic workloads. One user noted: 73 NCS QMS Global Competency LOB Industry Solutions LOB Domain Experts PMs PMs & developers Infrastructure Solutions LOB AMs & BD execs Domain Experts Project Office Pre-Sales Tender/Contract Negotiation Solution Managers and AMs conceptualize solution Project Proposal Project Proposal f Existing & New Customers g Project team created, PMs and developers assigned. SDLC i Deliverables & Learning Reports h j Feedback e PM & project team AMs, Solution Managers Project proposal d Request for solutions c Seek business opportunities AMs & BDs Post Sales/Project Life Industry & Technology Partners Figure 7: The Intricate Web of Individuals, Processes and Information 74 NCS INTRANET Best Practices (QMS) KNOWLEDGE ENGINE Interface, content, search facilities Project XPress Solution XPress Technology XPress Business XPress Competency XPress Figure 8: The Initial Knowledge Xpress architecture The 5 knowledge repositories lay transparent below the Intranet, interfaced only through the knowledge engine. “The challenges were to populate it with sufficient information that was useful, because people were only willing to contribute information if they could get something out of it. I think it was a chicken and egg problem because when you pilot it at such a 75 limited number, you don’t have much information there, and people would not really have any incentive to give any information out, and if you do not have the impression that it’s too useful then you’d not be too enthusiastic to contribute more.” Another user notes a similar problem: “For the Project XPress, this is where they would extract the relevant information based on what we feedback to our Project Office – which is part of the process already – the project, scope, deliverables, and other project information. So this is obtained directly from there. But for the Solutions XPress, I would need to summarize and provide a synopsis into the repository. The main issue is people are very busy. It is somewhat difficult to expect people to set aside time to write up a synopsis to contribute to the system.” Having felt the importance building the knowledge management activities into the employees’ normal work processes, the development team felt the need to refine the system from the feedback provided, as noted by one of their members: “We realized that the time it was piloted, it started with 4 [repositories]. This was a big bang approach, coming up with all 4. We had difficulty sustaining it. There was some resistance in getting them to update the system because they usually don’t have the time to enter the information. There was some restructuring, and certain departments were no longer doing things, and they had other means of sharing their knowledge and other systems were being developed, so we decided not to keep certain repositories, by instead to concentrate on just 2 – the 76 most critical would be Project and Solution [XPress]. We don’t really have to start from scratch. The system needs to be finetuned. We want to beef it up in terms of content before opening up to the others. Now, since we have other systems coming up, certain information can be extracted from there, so users need not key in so much.” System developers felt the focus on the 2 core repositories to be practical and constructive in their journey because of the emergence and enhancements of numerous other systems throughout the organization, in meeting changing technologies. One developer noted the inter-relation of the numerous systems as a further enhancement to the KMS: “There’s another thing to consider. None of this knowledge is standalone. They have to be linked to other systems or processes, so as you build more systems in the organization, you have ready information to be exported into the knowledge base.” The QMC was thought to play an important role in refining the organizational work processes to incorporate the knowledge management activities. To put together an integrated approach to the problem, the QMC participated in the planning process, as notes one of the executive planners: “We involved QMC because, at one point, when we were trying to see the process whereby how and when and who is going to input the data and information into the repository, it might affect the current process and methodology. So sometimes we consult them, in the sense of whether they think it’s logical to place these [activities] at certain parts of the process.” Another executive provides an example of QMC’s involvement: 77 “We are now automating some of the processes, and that’s where they get involved. For example, we said we want a different way of capturing the project report, and they take care of the templates and so on – what needs to be captured, etc. It’s partly because we want KM to be part of the working process – it’s natural and not extra. That’s where QMC comes in.” Further from being technologically and process related, a management executive shared the following on enhancing the knowledge management activities from a more social aspect: “First you’ve got to convince people to put aside their time to do something for the organization. You could do it by sheer force or management directives. But it’s not easy to get people to put down their work and input information into the system. That is one of the main challenges we’ve encountered. Subsequently, how do you get more people to do this, to make it a habit? Over the years, we’ve learnt that it’s not like a typical system implementation – for knowledge you need people to contribute. Most people like to get things out, and nobody wants to put things in. How do we bring about this culture – it’s easy to say, but how do you actually get people to do this?” Furthermore, as NCS learnt more about KM from their own experience, a question on the effectiveness of the IT solution was brought up, as key staff in the initiative posed: “Is this process the best way to share? Are the few lines that people put in [the system] useful? That’s where we thought the CoPs would help. Learning is a social event.” 78 4.5 T OWARD A S OCIO -T ECHNICAL A PPROACH Further from being technologically and process related, a management executive shared the following on enhancing the knowledge management activities from a more social aspect: “First you’ve got to convince people to put aside their time to do something for the organization. You could do it by sheer force or management directives. But it’s not easy to get people to put down their work and input information into the system. That is one of the main challenges we’ve encountered. Subsequently, how do you get more people to do this, to make it a habit? Over the years, we’ve learnt that it’s not like a typical system implementation – for knowledge you need people to contribute. Most people like to get things out, and nobody wants to put things in. How do we bring about this culture – it’s easy to say, but how do you actually get people to do this?” Furthermore, as NCS learnt more about KM from their own experience, a question on the effectiveness of the IT solution was brought up, as key staff in the initiative posed: “Is this process the best way to share? Are the few lines that people put in [the system] useful? That’s where we thought the CoPs would help. Learning is a social event.” With this in mind, and the newly-formed L&D department now facilitating corporate culture, staff competencies and KM initiatives and in the organization, the decision was made to redesign the system, promote a sharing culture, and build KM into the work process. A senior PM notes how this will take place: 79 “We will be encouraging PMs to share their knowledge after the project’s completion. We intend to build it into the formal process. When you share your lessons learnt, you have to enter it into the system. We are in the process of doing this. The key is that you make is natural and implicit. The system is still very important. But we’re now redeveloping, after we’ve accumulated all these lessons – what is necessary and what is needed.” The L&D unit, working closely with the IS department to develop the system and QMC to incorporate knowledge activities into the work processes, places a heavy emphasis on a learning and sharing culture as a success factor to the implementation of knowledge activities in the organization. The first step taken was to form strategic CoPs. 4.5.1 The Communities of Practice To encourage learning and sharing as part of the organization’s culture, L&D and QMC extended the concept of a withstanding practice in NCS of facilitating the meeting of employees. This practice was part of QMC’s initiatives to spread knowledge about quality standards, such as the Singapore Quality Award, industry best practices and changes in work processes in NCS. The department organized large meeting-sessions as and when needed, and disseminated relevant information to the invited parties. Extending on and formalizing this concept, the idea of a structured sharing session was developed. Essentially a meeting of employees involved in like-minded work, the sharing session acts as a platform for NCS staff to learn from one another’s experiences and tribulations. NCS management identified staff involved in Project Management and Business Development as critical to receiving the most benefit from this, and thus the ability to secure competitive advantage in their work. To facilitate the busy schedule of employees, the formalized sharing session would allocate time during office hours for the participants to gather if they could. 80 To ensure the sustainability of this activity, however, NCS approached the organization of the sharing sessions from a different perspective – rather than taking a management-driven topdown approach, the L&D unit invited a handful of PMs from the various departments and lines of business in the organization to form a community of practice named PM Jazz. This community of practice would assume ownership of the sharing sessions, as well as outline and evaluate other means and methods of sharing knowledge and promoting a learning culture among PMs and other staff involved in Project Management. One of the CoPs members noted that the main objective of the PM Jazz CoP is: “to enable the community [of Project Managers] to learn from each other. I think it’s a very good initiative – I think there’s a realization at the organizational level that we need to have this process of sharing among managers in particular domains like project management”. The PM Jazz CoP would organize the periodic sharing sessions, and determine their agenda as well, to provide the most relevant and timely sharing of knowledge to members of the greater Project Management community. To facilitate the CoP’s activities and provide management support, funding and logistics, members from L&D and QMC also sit onboard PM Jazz. In October 2001, the first PM Jazz sharing session was conducted. A member of the CoP iterates its use: “The primary objective is to provide a forum or staff involved in Project Management to share issues, learning points, best practices and so on, in this area. A lot of subtle things are very hard to document in black and white, and are residing in the 81 individual PMs, so this is where, through informal sharing, we hope to harness it.” The idea of the sharing sessions stemmed from the realization that increasing workloads and working conditions were making it difficult for peers to meet and get to know one another, let alone leverage off each other’s knowledge and experience. L&D facilitators explain the objective of such meetings: “We’d like to allocate them time for them to gather. And we’ve deliberately designed it during office hours, so they leave their work and come here. Some of our PMs are outside at client premises, and only come back for training and meetings. So they never really meet the rest of the people doing the same thing as them. So firstly, the meeting’s about networking. Secondly, it’s really the learning – they tend to learn and share with each other, and hopefully they can come up with ideas and suggestions for improvement, to facilitate and support their work needs - and the community will form to support them. We want to enable this.” Prior to the sharing sessions, the CoP brainstorms on the agenda and theme for the session, and invites other PMs to prepare informal presentations for their colleagues. Furthermore, external speakers and vendors will be invited on occasion to keep the extended community of PMs up-to-date on latest technologies. During the session itself, the atmosphere is kept informal, and the audience is given time to get to know one another better and to enhance their individual personal networks. One of the organizers iterates the ability to network at the session: “The first contact would be to meet others with similar responsibilities - you don’t know that another person may be 82 handling another project similar to your own. It’s through this session where we can establish the first contact. It’s about personal contact.” The sharing session also aims to promote and foster human relationships and a support structure for employees to turn to for problem solving and experienced advice. One senior PM participant notes how experience can be shared: “In a typical real life situation, we do have formalized processes and documents such as functional specifications that we obtain acceptance from clients. But along the way, there will be business changes; typically what we call scope creep, and this is an area that’s somewhat challenging to manage because on the one hand, if we manage it rigorously, it tends to affect the customer relationship. So it’s a matter of give and take. There would be some managers that handle things in a better way. By having some forum, hopefully, we’ll see some ways of handling these issues. Hopefully, those would be professionally handled and we can adapt this for future projects.” Prior to this initiative, however, PMs did not meet regularly with one another outside their own social circles. However, contrary to the beliefs of the uninitiated, the work of a Project Manager relies very much on that social network, to enable them to help themselves. The sharing sessions aim to serve this purpose of increased support channels for employees, as an organizing PM notes: “Prior to the formation of PM Jazz, [sharing] was more or less on an informal basis – meeting up for lunch to chat. It’s an informal channel. But I think with PM Jazz, this is where we’d have a more – I always want to say formal process, but we try to keep it 83 informal – so I would say a more well-defined forum where various managers handling project management can share their experiences.” 4.5.2 Extending the Concept to a Second Community A similar concept was launched for the community of Business Development (BD) executives as well. However, the business development community already had a long-established community of practice, BD Buzz, working very similarly to PM Jazz. One committee member of BD Buzz CoP notes: “The idea of BD Buzz was for interaction between the business personnel. NCS is pretty big and we might not even know each other or have spoken to each other face-to-face. The purpose was for everyone to come down together and interact - a place for networking. At the same time, we’d try to have some agenda like external parties to talk about their products or new technologies.” BD Buzz was usually a catered affair, organized by the now defunct O&D department in NCS. The meeting was held after office hours and off-NCS grounds. However, BD Buzz experienced some problems. Frequently, BD executives could not attend the events because of commitments after office hours. Secondly, sourcing relevant speakers general enough for cross-functional information dissemination was a difficult task. As a result, a consistent drop in attendance was noticed at each bimonthly meeting. In 2001, L&D decided to adopt a similar strategy for the BD Buzz group as it did for PM Jazz. BD Buzz was given a ‘make-over’ and renamed Business Connect. A Business Connect committee member explains the transition: 84 “The change to Business Connect was to cut the budget, and bring everything in house. The concept is similar, but this time, we’re pushing more the idea that the people involved make it happen. Before, we used to cater an event to lure people to come in, but now we try to position it is by getting people to tell us what they are interested in. We will help you educate yourself – if you think this is an area you’re lacking in – maybe you’re not too sure about a certain product, or you want some skill knowledge, like public speaking.” Furthermore, rather than focusing on BD executives only, Business Connect was opened up to employees involved in Solutioning as well, because of their close involvement with BD executives in the pre-sales work process. The formalized Business Connect CoP was formed, consisting of BD and Solutions executives, as well as L&D and QMC personnel. One member of the CoP notes the differences between BD Buzz and Business Connect: “Our attendance from before used to fluctuate mainly because it depends if the people are interested in that topic. This time around, we want to make sure that majority of people are interested in the topic, then get them together, as well as having time slots for interaction, and also to help our people help OUR people – for those who are really experienced to get up and explain how it’s like in NCS, their hiccups, how they resolved certain problems. I think it’s helpful for the newcomers especially because in an organization that’s pretty huge, there are a lot of procedures.” A senior executive also notes the advantages of attending the sessions for senior staff: 85 “I think it’s still very useful because there are new faces all the time, people are changing heir roles. Today you are here, tomorrow you are somewhere else”. Other members stress the importance of being able to seek out the right people for help. These CoP-organized sharing sessions provide staff with an additional avenue to obtain this help, as noted by a BD executive: “It’s the people who attend that make everything work. Before we used to cater the event to lure people in, but now we’re positioning it as ‘Why Don’t You Tell Me What You’re Interested In and We’ll Help You’!” A participant of the BD Buzz sessions notes that while BD Buzz was a social activity, as learning is, it was not the best solution: “BD Buzz was more social – it was a lot about just going out. There was some learning process when we invite people for sharing. It has a more relaxed atmosphere. Now it’s incorporated within work hours. It’s more meeting-like, more classroom-like. The depth of knowledge and sharing is more substantial. BD Buzz did have product vendors some in to give presentations in very informal ways, which was informative. The only snag was that it was after office hours and people have their own commitments.” However, the consensus to the relatively long-standing practice of the sharing session among BD executives is that it is vital to their work: 86 “When people present their solutions, technology, experiences, it helps in our own work when we face similar situations, whether it’s similar products, similar technology and similar processes. A lot of times, we develop something that many not have been developed before – something new. If we’re used to the technology, then that’s fine and good. But if we aren’t, then it’s always useful to check with the people who have used it – what were their learning points, what should I look out for. Otherwise, when you come up with a new solution, there’s always a risk. Either pad up the risk and overprice yourself, or underestimate and make a loss. So you want to make sure your solution is sound.” And this is noted as a necessity for competitive advantage in today’s environment by a senior PM: “Before, we may not have been that aggressive – so you go for safe projects – you know the technology, you know the customer, you know their plans - so you’re confident.” Prior to these sharing sessions, both PMs and BD executives frequently used mass mailing lists to seek help from others in the organization. Many employees keep these emails in their own personal “repositories” - shared folders on their networked computers – for future reference, as one PM notes: “I store all these emails in my folders and every time I need it, I run through them and know who to look for already! With all our addresses and contacts on the Intranet now, it’s so much easier. Even the person’s picture is available there!” 87 The PM Jazz and BD Buzz CoPs are keeping these cultures in place, and try to effect further improvements and facilities, such as online forums, special interest groups and virtual communities for these communities to carry on their sharing and discussions online. However, a senior manager still notes the importance of face-to-face contact: “In 1997 we brought in technology like discussion forums onto the Intranet to facilitate discussions. It was easy to start, and kept going for some time with moderators taking care of different forums like C++, Java, etc – things that were ‘hot’. It was easy because would talk about their likes and dislikes and it was natural because they have a common interest. But project management is different because it is process driven and every project is unique. So the CoPs are the platform for people to come together, and when you create the opportunity, people tend to talk more than they usually would on the forum.” After each sharing session, the CoPs seek the feedback of the participants and audience in preparation for the next sharing session, including what the greater community would like to hear more about and what other activities they would like to see. The approach has already paid off for many employees, as one PM notes: “I was involved in managing a project that involved a certain technology and we did a fair amount of work to try and integrate different components. I approached another PM who had done some similar implementation and he was able to help me overcome some of my issues.” In the meantime, NCS is developing and evaluating possible measurements for the success of their initiatives, including how many people contribute to the repositories, any evidence of 88 upward trends towards usage of the repositories, and feedback from the employees themselves. 4.6 E NSURING S USTAINABILITY The final aspect of the approach to the CoPs lies in its management and organization. To ensure sustainability, members of the organizing CoP are not burdened by its responsibilities permanently. Instead, the CoPs change their organizing members after a period of time – every year, new PMs are added into the organizing CoP, while those who have completed their tenure are no longer involved in its management. The notion of rotating organizational members into its management provides a number of advantages – firstly, previously involved PMs buy-in to the ideology of the sharing sessions and the community, and thus influence their immediate colleagues, peers and subordinates; secondly, the PMs are not burdened with an extra responsibility for a long period of time; thirdly, this mechanism allows younger as well as senior PMs to interact closely with one another, creating a dynamic that will drive the community’s activities as well as increase network ties. At the same time, new employees recruited into NCS as developers or PMs undergo a mentorship program, in which their activities are monitored and assisted by senior, knowledgeable employees. These new employees are, thus, also thrust into the NCS way of learning and managing knowledge and relationships in their work routines. 89 5. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS The case describes the strategies adopted by NCS in establishing and deploying a successful knowledge management program. Through a thorough understanding of the work processes involved, it became apparent that much of the organizational knowledge that could lead to a sustained competitive advantage lay in the work practices and management experiences of its employees, specifically its Account Managers and Business Development executives in dealing with customers, the Project Managers in managing project deliverables, constraints and technology and the Solutions Managers (who could also be Account or Project Managers) in meeting customer requirements by creating and proposing IT solutions. Highly autonomous and complex, the work of these employees involved dealing with substantial uncertainty and ambiguity, absorbing risks in their work through their previous experiences. The initial initiative to develop a KMS, the Knowledge Xpress, was not successful in enhancing the knowledge-intensive work practices of these individuals. However, subsequent approaches to managing knowledge through social practices, supported by a functional KMS, proved to be more advantageous in promoting the timely dissemination of appropriate knowledge to the people in the organization who needed it most. The effectiveness of knowledge sharing activities in the organization stemmed from the socialization of individuals rather than the mere availability of codified knowledge itself located in information systems. The interactions between the individuals provided them the ability to tap the tacit knowledge and experiences ingrained in one another’s work practices and management skills, and use this knowledge in their own practices. However, the mere availability of such interactions through the formation of communities of practice did not lead to successful knowledge sharing, evident from the defunct BD Buzz community. The newer communities of PM Jazz and Business Connect were structured and nurtured to create an environment which developed sustained trust in the individuals’ competencies in one another. As discussed in the literature review, this provides the opportunity to understand how trust affects and can be used to structure such new 90 organizational forms, in particular CoPs, where trust is an antecedent and intended result, as well as moderating condition, for the success of such forms. Such a perspective also reveals insights on how to use trust within the communities to mobilize them for sustainable competitive advantage through knowledge activities. These issues are discussed here, together with the role of information and knowledge management systems and technologies in enabling this strategic endeavor. 5.1 STRUCTURING COPS WITH TRUST The organization of CoPs affects the coordination, development and modification of relationship meanings and interdependence between its individual participants. These characteristics of the relationship are largely affected by the trust individuals within the CoPs possess of one another. As trustors perceive trustees in a relationship to possess positive and meaningful intentions in their participation in the CoP, the foundations of the relationship and the interdependence between individuals are strengthened, and interactions become more stable, meaningful and long-lasting. As these interactions with one another increase and relationships develop, trust is further bolstered and its growth fostered – such is the dynamic nature of trust that it further begets trust (Mandelli 2004) – enabling effective sharing of knowledge. Particularly, relationships in the CoPs are influenced by transferability of trust between members, and effective knowledge sharing is affected by the generative capacity of the relationships, and the delayed reciprocity and role specialization that high trust levels afford (McEvily, et. al. 2003a). 5.1.1 Transferability of Trust and its Generative Capacity Dispositional theories suggest that factors exists within individuals that provide them with the inclination to trust or distrust unfamiliar individuals (Bigley and Pearce 1998), thus hindering the exchange of knowledge in a CoP, particularly when the trustor and trustee have no 91 previous interaction or experience with one another. In such unfamiliar situations, this predisposition is the primary influence over an individual’s behaviour (Rotter 1980). However, the formation of new knowledge-exchanging relationships between two individuals (and thus the expansion of their individual networks) can occur when trust is transferred from a common third-party whose trust in the individual parties lays the foundation for the relationship (Becerra and Gupta 2003, McEvily, et. al. 2003a, Shapiro 1987). This concept of trust transferability stems from the social capital theory where initial trust in a relationship is built upon impressions received from an indirect information source or third party rather than direct contact between the relational entities (Rosseau, et. al. 1998, Huotari and Iivonen 2004). Furthermore, increasing levels of trust creates a generative capacity (a form of trust transferability) that increases the multiplexity, or depth, within a particular relationship (McEvily et. al. 2003a). As unfamiliar individuals learn more about one another, this knowledge as opposed to third-party information drives the relationship (Rotter 1980). The generative capacity of trust results in the gradual changes in the relationship between individuals where, through repeated interaction, growing trust increases the scope of the relationship (Becerra and Gupta 2003) to include resource atop information exchange, and the growth of care and concern for other in the relationship (McEvily, et. al. 2003a). The structure and coordination of interactions in the CoP in enabling such transferability (increasing an individual’s connectedness) and generative capacity (increasing the quality of exchanges) is an important consideration in the building and employment of trust, behaviors of cooperation and thus the engagement of individuals in effective knowledge sharing. In their experiences with the now-defunct BD Buzz community, members found it worthless to share experiences with people outside their immediate social and working circles. While the objective of the gatherings was to interact with one another, trust between unacquainted attendees was calculative and economical in nature, and interactions were thus limited to ingroups and social cliques or to where participants found rational and immediate gratification from forming new, but fleeting, relationships. One disgruntled member described the purpose of the meetings as a means for participants to socialize without any agenda toward work practices, citing the reasons for attending to be grounded in deterring the reduction in 92 workplace reputation and status rather than receiving the benefits of interaction. The intention for many participants was to have a good time, after office-hours, within one another’s social circles rather than interact on a work-related purpose. (a) Transferability of the Appropriate Trust Levels Such levels of trust hindered its transferability and did not provide value congruence between individuals (Rosseau, et. al. 1998), effectively hindering effective knowledge sharing. To engage in the creation and development of relational-based, and eventually identity-based, trust within the community, the newer NCS CoPs’ activities revolved around (i) work-related agendas and (ii) increasing the network density in members’ networks of support. (i) Developing Work-Related Agendas: The PM Jazz and Business Connect activities were primarily interactive sessions, where the numerous individuals involved in similar work could come together for experience-sharing and knowledgeexchange in a face-to-face manner, with an agenda catered toward enhancing work practices. The agenda, which focused on sharing work-related practices, provided opportunities for participants to learn from other’s experiences in dealing with practice related issues. Story-telling and narratives of previous case-based experiences were presented by senior managers for the benefit of the community’s members. As individuals learn more about one another’s abilities, intentions and shared problems, relational trust is developed as the knowledge and vulnerability between parties increase and drives the relationship (Bigley and Pearce 1998). This approach was fostered further by organization-level mechanisms – the explicit proliferation of the organization’s values and mission statements created cultural expectations and organizational norms (von Krogh 2002) which the members of the CoPs shared with one another. Furthermore, the participation of senior management and the support and recognition from top management to the L&D initiative provided institution-based levels of trust that supported the building of relational-trust between 93 the individuals. Such institutional mechanisms are necessary to maintain favorable trust environments for exchanges under conditions where interactions are between unacquainted individuals (Bigley and Pearce 1998). The development of agendas by the core CoP, consisting of members from various levels of the organization hierarchy and business units, bolstered this approach by ensuring high-level organizational control over the CoP did not hinder trust development. Instead, the members of the CoP itself were responsible for its activities, providing supportive institutional-trust levels to the community. (ii) Increasing Network Density: As members of the CoPs congregated to learn more of one another’s experiences through presentations from specific individuals (with whom they may have been unacquainted), other activities of the agenda included ad-hoc group based activities and specific time set aside for socialization, particularly with unknown parties, and primarily through the mediation of common friends of senior managers. Such activities triggered and also enhanced social exchanges between members, providing opportunities for participants to increase their networks of contacts and close structural holes in ties between individuals in the community. Such increases in network density were facilitated by the transferability of trust, as opportunity provided the increased awareness of each other’s good intentions toward increasing work performance and creating support, resulting in the creation of a shared identity within the community, gradually increasing relational-based trust (McEvily, et. al. 2003a, McKnight, et. al. 1998). (b) Intensifying Generative Capacity As the CoPs structure bolsters new layers of trust between individuals, the types and methods of knowledge sharing and support provision among participants change as well. High trust levels, stable interaction and perceptions of good intentions among individuals in 94 the community intensify their relationships in terms of the quality and quantity of resources made available to one another (McEvily, et. al 2003a). Increasing levels of trust have been shown to lead to increasing intensity in cooperative behaviors (Gambetta 1988). Before the formation of the PM Jazz community of practice, project managers and developers relied heavily upon their social in-groups and work teams for support and problem-solving help, resulting in specific advice frequently provided through emails or phone conversations. After initial sharing sessions with the PM Jazz community, suggestions from participants included the provision of email lists and discussion forums for post-gathering communication. Participants took advantage of the community structure to widen their search for support to include those with whom they had no acquaintance. As participants stem from the same practice of project management, i.e. the same community of thought, the multiplexity of ties can be expected to develop quickly (von Krogh 2002, Reed 2001). Many found that replies to their calls for help included not only information, but suggestions and advice, access to further relevant contacts within and external to the company, websites, internal organizational documents and reports, and even software code and programs to resolve their problems. As many as 50 calls and responses for information were sent throughout the mailing list in its first week of operation. The provision of such resources was done in the pursuit of helping one another, but also with the expectation that such actions would be reciprocated in the future as well. 5.1.2 Delayed Reciprocity In an exchange, there is an immediate need for gratification, and delays in compensation may cause a temporary inequity in the exchange between the related entities which, if exceeding an acceptable period, can result in the hesitance to participate in future exchanges due to perceived increased risk, or even lead to the disintegration of the relationship altogether 95 (McEvily et al 2003a, von Krogh 2002). High levels of trust among relational entities may reduce the need for such immediate gratification, delaying the reciprocity of exchanging. Stable, trusting relationships may lower uncertainty and perceived risk in the behaviour of other participants, increasing the expectation for delayed rewards in the exchange. Such expectations reduce the need for “perfect congruence in value” (McEvily, et. al. 2003, p.96) as individuals build expectations that a long-term equilibrium in value will be reached if relationship continues. However, in a situation of distrust, relationships may be unstable in their interactions (Rosseau, et. al 1998), which have direct effects on the structure of the community of practice. Such instabilities can undermine the strategic objective of the CoP as well as damage its sustainability. The ability of the CoP to support temporary inequity in exchange is based largely on the perceptions of its participants for delayed reciprocity from one another as well as the community as a whole. Trust enables such expectations by creating conditions for serial equity to occur (McEvily, et al 2003a) - by increasing expectations of a sustainable and continued relationship and by developing positive expectations of returns and reducing negative expectations of intentional harm and opportunistic behaviour in the relationship (Bigley and Pearce 1998). The core CoPs groups in NCS instilled such levels of trust and fostered these valuable expectations by engaging in their activities on a regular frequency. Bimonthly sharing sessions were scheduled in advanced and agendas made known early to participants, together with reminders, via email. Furthermore, these sessions were scheduled during office hours and at the organization’s premises to lower the burden on members to participate in them. Postsession feedback was sought with regard to members’ preferences on how future sessions would be conducted, as well as post-mortem emails distributed to summarize the CoPs activities, both for those present and absent from the sessions. Lunchtime talks were held on a weekly basis, and invited participants to socialize and continue their relationships outside the community’s scheduled meeting times. Such organizational mechanisms cultivated 96 trusting perceptions of sustained community interactions to be created within participants, promoting the behaviour of cooperation through exchange albeit with delayed rewards. Furthermore, by creating public mailing lists and participants’ profiles on the organizational intranet, participants were given access to information on each other’s competencies, skills, experience, background and contact information, thus allowing trust to be instilled within relationships of one member to another as information about counterparts grew. The effect of such trust leads to the ability of relational entities to adjust comfortably to mutual terms of exchange and its coordination (McEvily, et. al. 2003b), and allows relationships to develop with their own volition and resiliency. These structural elements of the community are enabled by high levels of trust, and do not only apply to bilateral relationships between two individuals, but sow the seeds of trust within the network of relationships between participants and the members in the community on a whole as well. Such structure does not constitute organizational control (McEvily, et. al. 2003a), which would undermine trust development within the community, but instead increases the stability of interaction patterns among the participants within the community, enhancing the flexibility of exchanges and moving the control over relationships to the members themselves. 5.1.3 Role Specialization McEvily et. al (2003a) propose that placing trust in particular individuals within the organization through specialized roles reduces redundancy within the organization, as these individuals form exclusive and privileged bridges to other, disconnected individuals, within or external to the organization. Such reduction in redundancy is difficult to achieve in the absence of trust, and more so in the presence of distrust, as the delegation of control over relationships with disconnected individuals creates status and power differences that pose risks and provide for opportunistic behaviour. Such role specialization does not affect the 97 density of networks and the interaction patterns, but rather the discrimination between individuals within the network with regard to their job functions. In the CoP context, however, role redundancy encourages the sharing of knowledge and increases the quality of knowledge creation (Nonaka 1994) in community of practice. Such discrimination of roles may lead to certain participants being perceived as more valuable than others with respect to their access to control mechanisms and resources. While McEvily et. al. (2003a) consider role specialization and the reduction in redundancy as key to efficiently organizing structures based on trust, the view held here is that for optimal knowledge sharing in CoPs, such discrimination should be controlled appropriately by the organization. In particular, the core CoPs consisting individuals, whose task is to plan, organize and administer strategic activities for the entire community, play a vital and powerful role. They act as the gatekeepers and representation of the community to top management, and other communities, as well as have an impact on the structure of the CoP and its sustainability. While trust in these individuals to perform their CoP-related duties may reduce redundancy in planning and structuring the CoP, NCS believes it would have two undesirable effects. Firstly, it would permanently increase the job responsibility for the core members of the CoP, in effect triggering the need for organizational control mechanisms to establish such roles, and effectively low trust levels because of such high-level intervention. Secondly, a fixed core organizing CoP would lead to power differences within the community as well as other possible detrimental effects such as groupthink and decreasing levels of innovation and performance over time, reducing the effectiveness of the CoP as a whole. To counter such possible effects, innovative institutional arrangements are required to support such complex transaction systems (Bigley and Pearce 1998). The core CoP group consists of individuals representing various units within the organization, at various levels of the organization hierarchy, contracted on a voluntary basis to serve as the CoP’s organizing committee for tenures of 6-12 months. This sliding and rotating arrangement allows for flexible changes in the organizing committee while maintaining trust between the committee 98 and its individuals, where every business unit and level of hierarchy is represented equally. Agendas are thus catered with the various units in mind. For example, while one sharing session may cater to project managers working in healthcare industries, community members are confident that presentations will be general enough to apply to their industries as well. Furthermore, trust in the core organizing committee builds confidence that, at a future session, the agenda will cater more specifically to other industries as well. These mechanisms place trust upon the core CoPs to act in the community’s and thus organization’s best interests, while restricting the need for organizational control mechanisms to ensure such trust is not breached. 5.2 MOBILIZING TRUST FOR EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND THE ROLE OF IS/IT While the previous section was concerned with the effects of trust on organizational forms, in particular CoPs, mobilizing trust points to means of converting organizational resources into activities performed by the organizational members, and motivating them to contribute toward such initiatives. Trust influences organizational actions and behaviors such as disclosing and screening knowledge, the formation of identity and the increasing the levels of commitment toward action, and suspending judgement and guarding against opportunistic behaviour (McEvily, et. al. 2003a) – all of which are antecedents to effective knowledge management in CoPs for competitive advantage. Together with the strategic use of I.S/I.T. technologies, the organization is faced with numerous opportunities to engage its CoP members in knowledge sharing activities. 5.2.1 Disclosing and Screening Knowledge In managing knowledge sharing activities, trust acts as a mediating factor that encourages desirable behaviors, such as cooperation between individuals (Rosseau, et. al 1998, Gambetta 1988). With regard to CoPs, it does so by encouraging the provision of access to 99 knowledge between individuals (disclosure), while discouraging the screening of received knowledge – relational-based trust bestows the knowledge provider with levels of expectations and beliefs of reciprocity and benign intentions in the receiver sufficient to reveal sensitive knowledge, personal limitations in his abilities and his work experience. Similarly, it provides the knowledge receiver with the capability of accepting new knowledge without the immediate need to verify or respond to it because of the levels of trust the receiver possesses about the provider’s abilities and competencies as well as benignity in providing useful knowledge (Jones and George 1998). With organizational action in mind, such levels of trust can be developed through the provision of information about receiver and provider, as well as through interactions between the two, either directly or via trust transfer through a third party. A variety of activities planned for the CoPs facilitated such developed. The introduction of face-to-face sharing sessions in NCS provided an opportunity not only for learning and knowledge exchange, but for interactions to occur and develop into trusting relationships. As discussed earlier, the sessions were structured to facilitate stable and sustained interactions between members of the community, leading to long-lasting increases in individuals’ networks of support, rather than fleeting opportunities to exchange information. Such stability permits trust to develop from calculus-based to relational-based levels as knowledge between entities’ intentions and capabilities is increased (McEvily, et. al. 2003a) Role of IS/IT: The use of IS/IT technologies in this endeavor provides further support to the access of information and interaction between participants. The provision of members’ information on the corporate Intranet, for example, spells out previous work experience, skill sets, contact information and even photographs of members for easy identification, increasing knowledge or cues (Von Krogh 2002) about parties and where knowledge resides, the determination of value congruence and increasing approachability to one another in forming relationships. As the CoP evolves and stabilizes, IS can provide restricted access to 100 participation, records of interactions for historical and reflective purposes, and virtual spaces to lower costs of sharing. Other technological devices include the provision of collaborative, workgroup, conferencing and communication tools such as mailing lists which allow for effective communication when face-to-face meetings are not possible, allowing the relationship to flourish outside specified meetings. Such technologies play a vital role as the effective exchange of trust-building information between individuals is affected by the frequency of interaction. While face-to-face sharing sessions provide an initial step to forming relationships, it is their sustained interactions that allow the appropriate levels of trust to develop within the community and thus for the organization to leverage on knowledge sharing for sustained competitive advantage. 5.2.2 Identity and Commitment Within a community of practice, strong identity association is recognized as a factor for the community’s strategic success in sharing and creating new knowledge. Such shared identity fosters the development of trust, but is also developed because of trust between community members. As trust between individuals develops their relationship, relational-based levels of trust are cultivated into identity-based trust, where common goals, values, beliefs and language are shared (Rosseau, et. al 1998, McEvily, et. al 2003, McKnight, et. al, 1998). This occurs through the provision and sharing of information and knowledge, sustained interactions between the parties, trust in the intentions of community members and the continued use of common knowledge sharing spaces where identity is developed. As community members learn more about their counterparts through direct interaction, the congruence of value in creating supporting and exchanging relationships is developed through relational levels of trust. At this level, information regarding the intentions of relational entities is obtained from within the relationship itself, creating space for emotional connections of benevolence and faith in one another to develop (Rotter 1980). Over time, as the various 101 relationships in the community provide support and exchange of knowledge and resources, a shared identity is developed. This shared identity and emotion in relationships foster commitment toward the community as a whole by creating behavioral norms and expectations with regard to the intentions and practices of community members for one another – community members begin to act for the good of the community, further increasing the interdependence on one another toward common strategic goals. Such shared values further result in behaviors of cooperation and promote social interaction and creativity (Jones and George 1998). Apart from their stable interactions and access to information regarding community members highlighted previously, the members of the CoPs in NCS stem from the common practices of project management or business development, creating the generative capacity for trust to develop thicker ties in their respective relationships. As such thicker ties are developed, trust is increased to relational-, and eventually identity-based levels. The strong organizationallevel values, culture, norms and expected behavior are inherited into the relationships (Jones and George, 1998) between community members as well, forming another common foundation level on which participants based their trust and expectations on one another. During their sharing sessions, CoP members work together in small group exercises that promote in-group emotions, as well as inculcate common practices, understanding and the use of collective language to develop shared norms and behaviors, leading to a shared identity. Lunchtime talks promote not only knowledge exchange, but the further infiltration of such communal behaviors on a more frequent basis, building upon shared language and understanding to instill the shared identity further. As the shared identity develops, so does the commitment of individuals to the common objectives of the CoP of knowledge sharing and support, iteratively further increasing levels of trust. Role of IT/IS: In this endeavor, common knowledge sharing spaces provide the capacity for communal norms, behaviors and understandings to form based on trust (Jones and George 1998, Nonaka and Konno 1998). Distribution lists and publicly available email support form 102 community members, as well as discussion forums and easy access to organizational and group level documents and reports would increase levels of trust within the community by steering identity-formation in the appropriate direction through the availability for platforms where common language can be utilized, understood and learnt. Information systems can be utilized to enable such behaviors at lower costs. Network communications such as email and bulletin boards transcend time and space, providing rapid and accessible help to members, while creating opportunities to share knowledge seamlessly and effortlessly (von Krogh 2002). 5.2.3 Judgement and Opportunistic Behavior In relationships between individuals, trust promotes the expectations that counterparts are acting with the individual’s and community’s intentions in mind, rather than out of opportunistic behaviour (McEvily, et al 2003), thus reducing individuals’ needs to monitor their relationships with and motives of counterparts by suspending their judgement. Such non-productive mechanisms to safeguard resource exchange increase transaction costs in the relationship, decreasing value congruence, autonomy and flexibility in relationship negotiation. Trust reduces the effects of calculus-based trust for emotional involvement, and can be “recognized by the absence of an active appraisal process” (Holmes 1991, p. 82) in the exchange of knowledge. In the community of practice context, such an effect lowers the communities’ ability to act as a source for sustainable competitive advantage for the knowledge-intensive organization. Traditionally, to avoid participants from bearing such transaction costs, organizations rely on control mechanisms to inhibit such behaviors; however, such mechanisms would destabilize interactions and impede the development of trust (Reed 2001) within the community, albeit to a lesser extent. Instead, other mechanisms can allow participants to suspend judgement over their interactions. For example, the institutionalization of a shared identity acts as a deterrent 103 from opportunistic behavior as personal investment is required on the part of the belligerent member to obtain advantage from the relationships within the community (von Krogh 2002), thereby increasing the costs of such behaviors significantly. The CoPs in NCS counter such behaviors through vested interests and autonomy. By involving representatives from every unit and various hierarchical levels in the organization of the CoP in a sliding and rotation manner, a variety of community members are involved in planning, developing and organizing the community’s growth over time. This creates a vested interest in the community, as the core CoPs and their immediate peers, supervisors and social networks are frequently involved in making the CoP a strategic endeavor. This mechanism relies not only on the trust the members of the core group places on their immediate counterparts, but also on the trustworthiness of their counterparts as well. As this behavior spreads through networks of relationships, the costs associated with opportunistic behaviour are increased significantly. Furthermore, both organizers and participants in the community are given autonomy in negotiating terms within relationships and determining how they should proceed. If relationships are not perceived to be fruitful, or have lived out their use, trust enters a declining stage on its own volition. Role of IS/IT: Technologies can provide support in the suspension of judgement by providing access to information regarding levels of involvement and participation within a community. For example, on discussion boards, the quality and quantity of postings would indicate the trustworthiness of individuals in sharing knowledge. This information would also be available publicly for community members to see. Similarly, in the context of NCS’s CoPs, emails sent back and forth on the distribution list are publicly available for community members to comment upon, as well as provide feedback to the value of contributions made, allowing members to engage interactively in validating knowledge directly and effortlessly. Such technological mechanisms promote the autonomy of 104 judgement suspension, while decreasing the opportunities for self-interest behavior, without incurring transaction costs on community members. Furthermore, IS can be used to track the development and acceptance of new knowledge (von Krogh 2002). Systems can also be extended to include members from other communities with shared interests to leverage of, use and validate knowledge as well. Where rejection and criticism of knowledge may result in resistance or retaliating behavior, information systems technologies can provide members with anonymity in electronic communications (von Krogh 2002). 5.3 Summary Table 1 summarizes how trust affects the organization in terms of the creation and management of CoPs, as well as the supporting role of IS/IT in the community structure, by looking at the interactions of CoP members, shedding light on how communities can be structured, as well as how trust can encourage the mobilization of knowledge activities and resources between members. 105 Characteristics of Trust Effect on the Community of Practice Structure Appropriate trust levels should be transferred to ensure effective knowledge Transferability o o other indirect information Generative capacity o sharing with the CoP through: occurs through accessibility to rd common 3 parties and Implications on the Organization of the CoP & the Use of IS/IT o work-related agendas, The relationships within the community o strong, shared organizational culture and norms, o become more dense o participation and support of senior and top management, o experience closure in ties o leniency on restrictions and controls to ensure efficiency or effectiveness, affects the interactions between o individuals. face-to-face or otherwise. Trust lowers the uncertainty in interactions and Fosters stability in relationships and their relationships, leading to delayed reciprocity of interactions patterns which affects the exchanging resources sustainability of the CoP. Trust in relationships leads to confidence in expertise and thus role and knowledge specialization. availability of sustained interaction of community participants, Regular, planned interactions, follow-ups, as well as ad-hoc increases in communication frequency will increase perceptions of the usefulness and long-term value of the community. Increasing visibility of participants permits flexibility in relationship forming. Non-redundancy increases efficiency but not Non-redundancy can be controlled by exposure to differing varieties of necessarily effectiveness knowledge through the use of planned agendas. 106 Characteristics of Trust (continued) Trust acts as a mediator by encouraging community behavior and discouraging opportunistic behavior Effect on the Community of Practice Structure Provide easy access to member’s information and cues about knowledge Trust lowers transaction costs of contributing availability, restrict participation to members only as trust levels rise, knowledge maintain historical records, and provide virtual space for easy interactions when face-to-face meetings are not possible. Over time and stable interaction patterns, Identity-based trust is developed from relationbased trust community members become more committed to community behavior and open access to more resources and personalized knowledge. Trust suspends judgement in relationships Implications on the Organization of the CoP & the Use of IS/IT There may arise a need for common virtual spaces for the sharing of richer knowledge sources across time and space, especially as face-to-face meetings become difficult. Such communication should exist between individuals as well as between the individual and community. Costs of monitoring relationships and Enable further autonomy by providing access to CoP members’ information, safeguarding knowledge decreases as such as quality and quantity of previous contributions, thus decreasing community members have vested interests opportunities for self-riding behavior without increasing transaction cost and autonomy in managing relationships usually associated with unproductive controls. Table 2 Summary of Findings 107 6. CONCLUSION 6.1 Summary of Findings Due to their social nature and bottom-up management approach, communities of practice in organizations are examples of new self-organizing organizational structures that could better be developed and utilized based on trust as an organizing principle to meet the demands of turbulent, uncertain, knowledge-intensive business environments. In forming these CoPs, sustainable competitive advantage stems from creating and maintaining structures which nurture stable, enduring interactions patterns between community members. The study of the communities at NCS revealed insights into the latent effects of trust in the communities’ relationships. By promoting the development of trust within the community, interdependence between individuals is strengthened, increasing the evolutionary stability of the community, and its ability to meet uncertainty, ambiguity and risk in the knowledge-intensive work environment. The density of relationships can be achieved and increased by promoting transferability of appropriate trust levels through intense interactions with common third parties. As the generative capacity of these interactions builds momentum, the multiplexity of relationships is developed and interdependence and support among community members increases. The transfer of the appropriate levels of trust can achieved through the use of agenda, supported by members’ common organizational culture, values and norms, the participation of senior management and recognition by top management. However, management’s involvement should not include restrictive controls over the development of the CoP, but instead allow the communities to stabilize on its own volition. Generative capacity can further be enhanced by the provision of supporting communication structures and activities outside the CoPs agenda. The perception of long-term and stable interactions with community members fosters trust levels that encourage the sharing of knowledge without expecting immediate returns. Such perceptions must be supported and followed through by CoP organizers, through the use of 108 agendas, frequent meetings, communications, feedback and the ease availability of CoP information. Redundancy plays an important role in ensuring that role discrimination does not unevenly distribute knowledge, power and status within the community. While organizations strive to efficiently structure their CoPs, sustainability relies highly on the trust members place on the effectiveness of the CoP and the benefits they receive from participation as knowledge providers and receivers. By catering agendas toward differing expertise and engaging in buyin behaviors by rotating organizing committees, CoPs can be structured to operate more effectively, thereby enhancing sustainability. CoP members can be mobilized to contribute their resources with other members into meaningful and long lasting information by using trust, and supported by organizational information systems and technology. By disclosing information about the members of the CoPs, not only does density and multiplexity of relationships accelerate, the underlying trust does as well, prompting CoP members to disclose more meaningful knowledge quicker, while accepting knowledge from others without high monitoring and transaction costs. Promoting identity-based trust between members facilitates the accessibility to more resource-exchange between members, allowing members to increase their levels of contribution to the CoP. Such trust levels can be encouraged over time as the CoP develops its own identity, shared norms, language and behavioral expectations. IS/IT contribute an important aspect by allowing such contributions to occur across time and space. By promoting vested interests and autonomy in the CoP, community members are able to increase their resource sharing within the arms of trust as opportunistic behaviors are dissipated. Furthermore, engaging members to determine their own level of participation increases the flexibility and meaningfulness of relationships and the resources made available between members. 109 6.2 Contribution and Implications Much literature has been devoted to the effective deployment of knowledge management initiatives in commercial organizations. The importance of leadership, change management, organizational culture, the use of IS/IT, structure and responsibilities, and monitoring and measuring success are some of the critical success factors to the effective management of knowledge. When considering the underlying activity of knowledge sharing in any organization’s KM initiatives, creating the atmosphere for knowledge sharing involves more than merely bringing employees together. In the community of practice, particularly, an environment of trust must exist to foster the effective sharing of organizational, explicit and most importantly, tacit knowledge. The effect of this environment would permit employees to be willing to take risks in sharing personal experiences, both in their successes as well as failures in their work. Furthermore, it encourages knowledge receivers to accept this knowledge with good intention and due respect for exchange, utility and value-creation, and discourages behaviors of self-interest. With respect to KM initiatives, this latent effect of trust can allow organizations to extract value from its employees’ experiences and know-how - the source of strategic advantage that evade it most frequently. This study provides answers to questions with regard to knowledge sharing in CoPs from a trust perspective. Theoretical: The primary knowledge activity of sharing has not widely been considered from the trust perspective in literature. While trust has been cited as an important factor in organizational literature for business relationships to succeed, it has not been expounded upon in KM literature in an in-depth manner sufficient to understand its role in knowledge sharing, particularly in CoPs. With a greater understanding of the interplay of trust in the context of knowledge sharing between organizational members in NCS, questions then surfaced with regard to how trust affects the creation of such CoPs, as well as their management, utility and sustainability as organizational structures. Organizational studies provide insights into these aspects. The 110 recent renewed interest in trust literature has sprouted fragmented approaches to using trust in the organizational context. Many of these studies consider only certain types and levels of trust, while authors have called for more integrated perspectives to fully capture the richness of trust’s effects on organization control and behavior. By adopting McEvily’s et. al. (2003) framework of using trust as an organizing principle, this study has revealed how trust can be used to structure and mobilize CoPs as sustainable, strategic knowledge resources for the organization, as in the case of NCS. As a result, this study also adds to the much needed and called for empirical support to further trust literature in organizational studies. Furthermore, the consideration of information technologies here has revealed the vital enabling role they play in nurturing trust and their associated resulting behaviors, such as cooperation. Managerial: With regard to the practical organizational context, the study at NCS has surfaced a missing crucial element in many organizations’ approaches to knowledge management. Companies are beginning to realize the importance of technology in enabling, but not driving, knowledge activities, as NCS has. While technical approaches do possess advantages in storing and disseminating certain types of knowledge, truly strategic tacit knowledge that lies in the know-how and experiences of knowledge workers must be tapped for strategic competitiveness. The community of practice represents a newly recognized organizational form that previously existed non-canonically. As organizations recognize its importance as a wellspring of knowledge, the factors necessary for its success are immediately placed into consideration. One such factor is trust. The use of trust in understanding the interactions in the CoPs in NCS have allowed us to determine how the CoPs can best be managed – in the case of NCS, a bottom-up approach coupled with support from higher levels of management have created a self-organizing structure that enriches the work experience of its participants. Furthermore, the study highlighted activities and management principles the organization used to leverage on trust to develop lasting, rich relationships between community members. Coupled with the role of a 111 functional KMS, technology enables such enduring relationships to provide the organization’s members with strategic competitiveness. 6.3 Future Research The study conducted provides insights on the further employment of trust in knowledge management, the development of trust in organizational studies and the effect of information technology on trust. More research attention needs to focus on the effects of trust in larger social systems rather than on its current focus on interpersonal and dyadic levels for it to effectively be employed in KM. As organization structures evolve to deal with dynamic environments, new understandings of the inherent pressures faced by new organizational forms are necessary. Trust reduces the need for control mechanisms, allowing the organization to act and react more dynamically to its environment. Thus, as trust plays more significant roles in organizational competency, new organizational forms are likely to behave significantly different from incumbent forms. As a result, an understanding of how organizations as social systems can utilize trust is necessary. Furthermore, in the context of knowledge management, such research can provide insights to new structures based on trust. While they can significantly reduce transaction costs in knowledge exchange, neither trust nor technology can eliminate it from the CoP. Conventional coordination strategies and organizing principles adopted by firms can furthermore result in increased friction and transaction costs in networked structures based on trust (Mandelli 2004). As a result, research on evolving structures based on trust in firms may provide insights into newer organizational forms that can potentially enhance knowledge activities. As organizations exist across distributed geographic locations, communities of practice, too, do not exist solely in a physical form, but also virtually connected through networked technologies such as the Internet. Without intensive, face-to-face interactions available to physical CoPs, the establishment of trust in structuring and mobilizing such organizational CoPs relies heavily on technology. Arguably, the determining factors involved in structuring and mobilizing virtual and distributed CoPs based on trust through technology will yield 112 insights into the organization of global firms as well as potentially enhance the use of technology in situated CoPs. Strategic CoPs exist, too, outside the organizational context and across organizations. As firms look to seek out competitive advantage from knowledge activities in their value webs, such CoPs can be structured and nurtured as a source of competitive advantage. However, research needs to explore the interaction patterns of participants in such communities, the strategic use of technology in establishing and developing trust in their relationships, as well as how to the employment of trust in structuring such CoPs can lead to easy integration and application of newly-created knowledge into the organization. Trust, however, is regarded as one-side of a coin. Further research on the changing role of control mechanisms in CoPs and new organizational structures for knowledge management should disclose what control mechanisms can successfully be deployed in organizations to enable and support trust as an organizing principle for KM activities, as well as at what levels can these controls should be used before becoming detrimental to the potentials of trust in coordinating and organizing knowledge activities. 6.4 Concluding Remarks Initial approaches to the systematic and intentional management of knowledge were largely technical in nature. Subsequently, the importance of social and cultural aspects was included as a critical factor to the success of KM initiatives within organizations. We are now in the third wave of knowledge management as a strategic organizational action, where knowledge from work practices and knowing has lead to the adoption of communities of practice as a strategic organizational resource of competitive advantage. The primary contribution of this thesis is to apply the concepts of trust to understand the formation, management and utilization of these CoPs in knowledge-intensive organizations. Because of the relational and social aspects of knowledge sharing in communities of practice, trust plays an important role in determining how best to structure and mobilize its knowledge. The conceptual framework adopted from McEvily et. al. (2003a) provides the opportunity to further trust-related 113 organizational studies by providing empirical support and demonstration to the model. At the same time, the study provides deeper insights into the management of knowledge from a holistic socio-technical approach through the examination of how trust affects CoP members and the role of IS/IT in encouraging trust as an organizing principle. 114 REFERENCES Alavi, M. and Leidner, D. 2001. Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems: Conceptual Foundations and Research Issues. 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Sage Publications, Inc: Newbury Park, CA. 119 [...]... explain the effects of trust between individuals in the CoPs, and its implications on structuring and mobilizing the CoPs by using trust as an organizing principle These findings provide (i) an in- depth understand of trust interactions within communities of practice, (ii) insights into how communities of practice can be created, managed and used for sustainable competitive advantage in uncertain environments,... exploitation of information developed into an organizational priority, leading to an information and decision-making school of thought that focused on the design of information systems and information-processing models to manage information flow in constantly changing business environments Technology played a key role in enabling organizations to fundamentally shift from data-processing entities into information-based... organization, Chapter 5 analyzes how trust interacts within the communities of practice, providing implications on the structuring and mobilizing of the communities by using trust as an organizing principle Together with the support of information technology, concepts in trust can be utilized to create, manage and effectively use these communities as sustainable organizational resources for strategic advantage... why trust affects the engagement of individuals and, consequently, the formation of enduring, knowledge-exchanging 3 relationships, in the practice- oriented context of the CoP By understanding the dynamics and interaction of trust among the participants in a CoP, an appreciation of the complexities involved in deploying such an initiative for effective knowledge management can be developed, and insights... an example of such networked structures in knowledge management initiatives in organizations However, the interplay of trust within CoPs and its participants has not been understood nor examined, that is, the effects of trust have not been investigated in the context of CoPs and KM Such an examination of the dynamics of trust within relationships in a CoP would therefore shed light on how trust can... within the communities, and the development of trust between participants as they engaged in shared activities Chapter 4 extensively describes the organization’s journey in knowledge management, the structure, management and role of its communities- of- 5 practice efforts, and the ambiguous, autonomous and complex nature of the systems integration industry By examining the communities of practice in. .. concepts, interpretations, ideas, observations and judgements” (Alavi & Leidner 2001, p.109) Nonaka (1994) regards the quest for knowledge as “a dynamic human process of justifying personal beliefs as part of an aspiration for the ‘truth’” This process of judging and evaluating information occurs in the minds of individuals, but is reflected in their actions and interactions In light of new information, individuals... distinct types of ba – originating, interacting, cyber and exercising - one for each of the SECI processes The individual’s knowledge is therefore subjected to the social construction of the collective and in a context greater than his or her own The importance of a context plays a significant role in this perspective, taking the ownership of knowledge away from the individual and embedding it into...completing organizational tasks As a result, interdependence between individuals has increased significantly Such interdependence relies on trust – trust in the abilities, competencies and willingness of others to provide value to one another, and increase performance by decreasing the uncertainties inherent in a turbulent operating environment (Iivonen 2004) The ability of trust to significantly... socio -practice approach to knowledge management after initial attempts at traditional technical approaches were ineffective in providing the adequate 4 support for KM activities An intricate understanding of the uncertainty, risk and ambiguity in the knowledge-intensive work of its employees provided an ideal opportunity to study the effects of trust in enhancing a CoP’s ability to reduce operating uncertainties ... of an aspiration for the ‘truth’” This process of judging and evaluating information occurs in the minds of individuals, but is reflected in their actions and interactions In light of new information,... Chapter analyzes how trust interacts within the communities of practice, providing implications on the structuring and mobilizing of the communities by using trust as an organizing principle Together... understand of trust interactions within communities of practice, (ii) insights into how communities of practice can be created, managed and used for sustainable competitive advantage in uncertain environments,