5.3 A NSWERING RESEARCH QUESTION : DEFINITION OF INTERNAL SUB PROCESSES
5.3.2 Building of the awareness of a need
Little interest was granted to the need in the past studies on the awareness process. Moreover, they often considered a previously acquired awareness of a need as granted (Majchrzak et al 2004). The close study of our data made us strongly disagree with that statement: as we will show in this section, the awareness of a need can be and is actually built at the same time than the other components involved in the awareness process. Moreover, almost no scholar concentrated on the way it was built and what was built. Therefore, we will try to explore theses aspects in the following paragraphs.
The awareness of a need is close to the awareness of a transferable knowledge in the way it is developed. It begins with the potential reuser discovering that he has a need (existence of the need). This is often due to the appearance of some troubles, the sudden awareness of an issue or because of a knowledge gap not spotted before. For instance, in Critical Incident 1, Mr.
Pihéry discovered he had a need when technicians of the production department were
Then, the potential reuser deepens his awareness of that need by establishing the nature of the knowledge he would have to transfer to solve the need. In Critical Incident 1, Mr. Pihéry understood that the main cause of his problem was the paper quality. Indeed, it had changed after the acquisition of the paper knives system. So he determined that he would have to get a new system that could work with any kind of paper to overcome his problem.
In other words, building the awareness of a need means gathering some information about that need in order to answer any relevant question concerning it: what is that need? Why is there a need? What does the reuser have to look for in order to answer it? And so on... A potential reuser who is able to do so can affirm he possesses an acceptable awareness of the need.
Our data allowed us to detect two different ways for a potential reuser to build his awareness of a need. On the one hand, in some occurrences, the awareness of the need is developed as a consequence of a specific event. Thus, the potential reuser discovers he has a need when some problem related to his work occurs (like in Critical Incident 1), when a specific project is launched to answer a given problematic (like in Critical Incident 11) or when he suddenly discovers some knowledge he did not know the existence of but could be useful to him (like in Critical Incident 15). Then, the potential reuser develops his awareness of a need through the establishment of specifications. These specifications describe the explicit characteristics of a solution that would answer the need. They help him find some transferable knowledge that solves his problem and closely check if that knowledge suits the need. For instance, in Critical Incident 11, Mr Jourdin sent a book of specifications to several suppliers he previously selected. He then waited to see the solutions they could offer him. He collected and studied them. He finally designed a decision matrix based on technical and financial specifications and chose the best solution according to that matrix.
On the other hand, awareness of a need can be built continuously. This happens when the potential reuser is following casual needs of the company like saving resources or gaining quality. The potential reuser is then driven by the policy of his company. By capturing these organizational needs, he updates his personal needs now and then. That is what occurred in Critical Incident 10. Even if the transferable knowledge was found outside the context of a clearly defined project, Mr. Jourdin decided to apply it at LA VOIX DU NORD. Indeed, it was offering a saving of money and a gain of quality, which is always appreciable for the company.
To conclude, when not working on a specific project, potential reusers often try to define what would be the dream answer to their casual needs: they determine the criteria and automatisms that would make some transferable knowledge be close to the perfect answer to their demands. However this can be done during specific projects too. The books of specifications that are distributed to potential furnishers materialize those dream answers as well. For instance, in Critical Incident 3, LA VOIX DU NORD sent to rotary press producers their book of specifications, knowing that some of these specifications were almost impossible to reach.
To sum up, for a potential reuser, building the awareness of a need is similar to the need definition sometimes mentioned in the literature. It is about the potential reuser discovering his needs and gathering knowledge about them. Thus, he is not likely to transfer some knowledge if he has not built a serious awareness of the related need. From a data perspective, we noted that 25% of the collected events belonged to that category. We can infer that this category participates actively to the whole awareness process and cannot be neglected, even if it cannot be proven statistically due to insufficient data.
Establishment of the need’s characteristics Good awareness of a need No awareness of a need
Awareness of the need’s existence
Figure 5.2 : Awareness of a need
Until now, we identified two categories of events related to the awareness process. Their definitions were similar to the results of some previous studies on knowledge sharing. Indeed, building the awareness of a transferable knowledge and building the awareness of a need share some similarities with Le Van’s (2006) awareness of a knowledge existence and awareness of a need. Szulanski (1994) or Rogers (1995) also advocated the importance for a potential reuser to know both his needs and the knowledge surrounding him if he ever wanted to transfer something useful. To summarize, these two categories describe the events through which the potential reuser gathers all the necessary knowledge to prepare a relevant and efficient transfer.
But is the awareness process only about knowledge gathering? We defined above in this research four categories. So, aside from the two “classical” categories that are based on the accumulation of knowledge (about the need and the transferable knowledge), what are the two other ones for?
The two other categories are related to the establishment of “opinions” by the potential reuser, based on the knowledge gathered. Indeed, a potential reuser can know a lot about his needs and the transferable knowledge surrounding him. Yet, if his needs are not important to him and if he thinks that some transferable knowledge is not useful to him, what’s the point in transferring it? We cannot forget that a transfer is an arduous and costly affair: a potential
reuser cannot reasonably transfer all the knowledge he encounters. Hence, he has to make choices.
Unfortunately, these aspects of the awareness process were let aside by most of the studies on the topic, often being briefly evoked and taken for granted. This last statement was far from being obvious, as our data proved that they were essential to evolution of the process.
So, the presentation of the two remaining categories in the following paragraphs will explain why a potential reuser decides to answer that need rather than another one by transferring that knowledge rather than another one. To sum up, these two last categories will explain why a potential reuser decides to go further in the awareness process. Then, it will help us understand the will of a potential reuser to collect more metaknowledge about some transferable knowledge or deepen the awareness of his needs.