Usefulness, incentives and knowledge management Govind S. lyer and Suryanarayanan Ravindran £P Govind Serie an Carey Senco of Busine, Prana State Unies, Tempe, Azer, USA Surynaryanen Ravan isan Aes Profesor Unies, Faget, eaana, USA Abatract Purpose - The purpose of mis pape is explore the eect of “ustuess" and incantves”on wo Joi ection stre and ie ieee certs. Designimetnodelogyspproaeh ~ Ung an axparinenal design, Pe uta expr he tects of ‘Stern ncsresjtoms, fh cc oe vests of akncedge managementsysom an nent ‘Sonmbuieandintetio use krowedge the elec ofperona characters pact an abso tolvance of arciguty. and ont endogonaly of conieutan and use along wi potential complomanary of scutes and nconves Findings - Fer ambiguity tlre, an conte mechan hat rewards the conor fot ‘Stared snowed ased by a owedge use and he Anewege use fr te ct oF Fuses MOE ‘eco nana smper ncertve shame hat moray rewards nowedge charg when usatuness eve ‘Sow. Anoguty notarial est equal Dot bes of anne schemes regardless of Uscuness. Ambiguity wera nach aspay Weak complementary evel of rang esparee te coornatedncrssre mn incontves an usstness nae Tis has pont mplcatone or eractce ‘Sebo cenves and ueshess need abe creed na concerted manne norte prance, ‘esearch imtaionsfinplicaions~ Misi anexpormartal stay wire use of student Sues ad thous caveats app Originaltyralve - Te conto of tis paper are ding practtonerimpteaons for ne Storhglise af inowedge, me expt consideration of ambiguty france, and neuen of BO Inoaiedge conn and veo ane conpretersive model Keywords Koonisdpe shang, Knowledge managenen, Coperte sategy Paper type Resoarc paper | Introduction Knowledge management i increasingly Becoming an integral and important element in corporate statagy, Organizations that have successluly encouraged knowledge shang ‘among employees have exhbited improved cxganizatonal performance (Argcte and Ingram, 2000; Eppie et al, 1998). Many organizations have implemented knowledge ‘management systems (KMS) to promote knowledge sharing. The succoss of a KMS is Contingent net ony enkrawledg contribution but also en how wall (oro) such knawecge 'S used or applied for ho bona of the organization] A successulimplsenation of KMS ‘syaives nontrivial toro encourage both knonledge conrbuon (eunply side) ae well as roweage reuse[2] (demana side). Two common promctonal programs are 1. creating incentives for knowedge contbution; and 2. touring the useless of KMS by emphasizing cost savings and other benefits arsing aut cof krawlodge sharing 'By implementing such programs, comparies hope to instutionalize actve, voluntary anc sel-sustaiing knowledge sharing and reuse behavior in the longun. Despite the ‘portance of knowledge contribution and knonledge reuse, extant research has focused Pigg 9 | un oF mem sSec Mo; | VOLS ENA HL © eu RotnnGIEO HETENE ——_poLsKeNaTIODprimary on the ferme{s), Given the relative lack of research focused on the ente kKnonledge management system (encompassing bath supply ané demand), te purpose ot thi esearch eto | xan the etact of incentives and usefulness in promoting knowledge contribution and koowledge reuse "examine whether knowledge contbution and knowledge 1ewe are jointly determines and " cotemine whether the effects of Incentives and usefulness are complementary {supermodlar. Furthormoce extantsearch (as wells anecdotalevidencefrom practice)has ieldedmixed results with respecto the aletofincentives and promotion a uselunass an the success o! ‘KS otons and KMS usa (Markus, 2001). Tell own nto the efctsof exogenous variables lke usetiness and attitude on Suse, rameworks such asthe technology acceptance model oF IS success model have considered the moderating effects of user demographics and personaltats, 2g. age, experince, gender etc. One factor that has not been censideredin Price research an KM that has the tential o explain the aforementioned mixed results isthe fect oa personal atiiouecaledolecance of ambiguity" oningveluas adaptation 1oboth technological (nermation tenclogy or IT and strategic change. Tolerance of ambiguity (Ta) is defined as “as an individual propensity to view ambiguous Situaions as ether teatoning cr desirabo"(Bucner, 1962). The moderating efecto! TA has been investigated a varetyof situations that re pariculay relevant inthe KM covet. For instance, To provdespoteniialexplanaton for why stragy makers tear change Tenyand Urich, 1984, Tod influoncos the kethod of strategic change, especial in fast-changing senvronment(Mulins and Cummings, 1989), and Toa explains why crainpeoplofaltoadapt tochanging environmental crcumstances (Chakravarthy and Lorange, 1981; Galvan, 2008), The Galvan (2004) study is partculary iluminating since It showed thatthe same IT implementation andreskiing strategy that washighlyeffeciveinmotvaing same employees Ccanpose problems torathers. Tats, wnlecorinactor(suchasincentvesand usefulness) Canmosvate some empioyeesto parcipate na Ks, these programs may pose probe for ‘thers. Consequently, asthe authors investigate the tree research issues meriioned etl, the authors alo recognze and contol for tolerance cf ambiguity ‘The methodology chosen to address the research issues consists of deriving testable hypotheses based on social exchange theory. and testing the hypotheses using a traction experiment. It shouldbe note that the focus of he experiments on inten to contribute ad intent to reuse. The authors focus onthe inter (rather than on actual behavior) bocause: according tothe theory of planned behavior TPB (Aizen, 1991), the dominant theory in his fara, intention to perlrm a paricular Behavior the mest immediate and important etorminant of future behavior, and mere importanly by measuring intent rather than ‘observing behavior based on a spectic task, the authors avoid other confounding etects such as lask complexity, system characteristics, ease of use, program ineface elc. 25 lentil explanatone for observed resuls. Aocerdingy, the autre are baller able to bplan the findings ae a consequence of manipulated variables (hue mitigating amites vaiables bas), However, the authors acknowledge and remind the readers ofthe standard caveats regarding he correlation between intont and actual behav. Tha remainder ofthe paper i ecganized as falls: the net section deals he hoary and Ie typetteses, ha vesaat illo pas he osowiny saan, results, aa and discussion follow, a the paper concludes wih summary, imtatons, and avenues for future research I Background, theory and hypotheses Background and thoorotea justification For knowledge management efforts and systems to be successful tis important that incviduale within an organization both contribute knowedge fo the knowledge repositery,“The success of a KMS is contingent not only on knowledge contribution, but also on how well (or often) such knowledge is used or applied for the benefit of the organization. ” ‘and search for and use knowledge that ohers have contributed tothe reposiary. Without ‘adequate re-use, a krowegge repository serves litle purposa. The wo factors thatthe feuthore focus on (a2 etarminants of contsbuton and re-ues) afe incentives and Uselunessial, The autbors chose incentives. and usefulness because incentives ae ‘emnaps the most common mechanism for promoting knowledge shating and the biggest ‘uh for KMS etfors comes from the beef that a KM system contains (or sould contain) Usolulknowledge objects hat have the potential te deliver cost savings and cther benefits io ‘an organizaton, ‘Te impact of Both these factors on promoting knowledge sharing and use Is easily ‘explained by the appicaton of social exchange theory. The authors present abet overvion of social exchange theory and then proceed to Gerve the hypotheses imple in he fempiical model. Social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Fob, 1981) suggests that people Interact socal in orcer to obtain rewards such as enhancement of sats, reputation, approval and respect. In general, workplace social exchange takes place ina business {envionment involving two or more “agents” who produce some outout thats “better” than ‘something thay could produce insolation. Thus, the same principles ean be applied inthe Context of rnonledge werkers in an erganizaton who interact with eachother, bet through ‘he use af a KMS, fo contribute what they know ort Seek and reve knowledge objects that may be help in carrying out assigned take, [Exchange theorists identiy four social exchange contexts ~ negotiated, reciprocal, ‘generalized and productive (Mim, 1094: Naim and Cook, 1995), Reciprocal exchange ‘valves two playere mutual exchanging tems of interest wih each other uring ona or ‘more interactions over a Period of time. Ths form of exchange iwowes bisteral ‘elatonships. Generalized exchange akes place among groups of more than woagents in ‘uct folatonships, the giver and the receiver may not be maicned pais as agent 1 may ‘ravide an input to agent 2 who provides anaher input to agent 3 who gives to agent 1. The knowledge sharing scenarios that typicaly occur in business organizations ate the fecprocal and ganeraizea exchange varieves, which may tke placa, respectvel, during the transfer of tact knowledge (experise) or the sharing followed by retrieval and use of ‘explicit documented krowlge ram a repository. To summarize, sharing knowledge or using shared knawladge will occur when the ‘employees concerned believe that tis wl sulin creating valve forthe ohers in the fim, ‘and when they can expect o retain some of he value for thomselves(Nahapiet ane Gros 1996), Repeated exchanges taking place inthis envroament should result reaionships of trust and mutval cooperation based on reciprocity and concern for epuiaton because ol he colaborative nature of most werk siuatons (Kalleck, 1994), From this perspective, the ‘authors can justify the effect of incentives and usefulness on intentions 16 contibule anc reuse sharec knowedge. Incentves Markus(2001) makes several interesting observations about the use of incentives in promating knowledge reuse. While explicit revard syste (.9. promotions and bonuses) ‘can enable knawledgereute, thay may beineufcint inthe abeonce of ther drving forces Ina stusy of ERP systems involving knowedge shating and use between Wo ‘implementation teams, i was ciscovered here that he provision of anproprate incentives ‘was inefficient to fully overcome the inertia ofthe partcipants, The faluros were atibutes party tothe ack of commitment ofthe leadership to knowledge shaingreuse and party to