Knowledge Management in Information Technology: The Jamaican Help Desk & Technical Support Arena

1. Knowledge Management in Information Technology: The Jamaican Help Desk & Technical Support Arena Dr. George Stewart University of the West Indies

2. Presentation Overview • Knowledge & Knowledge types • Knowledge Management (KM) & KMS • Why is Knowledge & KM Important? • Knowledge Mobility, Retention & Sharing • KM in Help Desk/Technical Support • Research Model, Data Analysis & Results • Implications for the Findings • Questions & Answers

3. What is Knowledge? • Knowledge has been defined philosophically as justified true belief (Huber, 1991; Nonaka, 1994) • Knowledge is created in the mind of an individual (Grant, 1996; Nonaka, 1994) • Knowledge can be viewed from a number of perspectives, namely as (i) an object, (ii) a state of mind, (iii) a process, (iv) a condition of having access to information, or (v) a capability (Alavi & Leidner, 2001) • Knowledge has been principally defined in terms of (a) a hierarchical structure of data, information and knowledge, and (b) the process of knowing (Shin, et al., 2001)

4. Knowledge Types Adapted from Alavi & Leidner (2001)

5. Knowledge Conversion Processes Adopted from Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)

6. Knowledge Management Adopted from Shin et al. (2001)

7. Knowledge Management Adopted from Shin et al. (2001) Knowledge Contribution

8. Knowledge Management Systems • KMS are a class of information systems specifically designed to facilitate the management of an organization’s knowledge (Alavi & Leidner, 2001) • What is stored in KMS, knowledge or information? “what companies actually manage under the banner of knowledge management is a mix of knowledge, information and unrefined data”(Grover & Davenport, 2001, p.7)

9. Is KM a new management fad? Reactive Mode Recognition of knowledge as a valuable resource • Attrition: • Imminent • Retirement • Resignation • Sudden • Tragic loss • Termination Initiation of the knowledge retention effort (usually embedded in the work processes) Initiation of the knowledge retention effort Recognition of knowledge as a valuable resource • Possibilities: • Minimize the impact of attrition • Minimize impact of strategic decisions, e.g. downsizing • Training and development Proactive Mode

10. Why is Knowledge & KM Important? “Your most valuable assets walk out of your office every evening. What if they don’t come back the next morning?”

11. Why is Knowledge & KM Important? The knowledge that creates value is embedded in the goods, services and/or their production processes.

12. Why is Knowledge & KM Important? The knowledge that creates value is embedded in the goods, services and/or their production processes.

13. Knowledge Mobility Firms need to retain the knowledge that make their value creation processes work, they have to manage their organizational knowledge just like they have to manage other resources • High levels of staff turn-over & employee mobility leads to knowledge mobility (Randel & Ranft, 2007; Pearce & Randel, 2004) • High staff turn-over is “the disease of Intellectual Capital” (Melcrum, 2003)

14. Knowledge Retention • Firms needed to develop strategies for organizational knowledge retention (e.g. Hansen et al., 1999) • In some cases the use of non-human knowledge repositories (e.g. a KMS) is an option • The knowledge repositories would be the permanent property of the firm

15. Knowledge Retention • Employees would contribute their job knowledge to these repositories • It is very challenging to develop an objective compensation scheme for knowledge contribution (Bartol & Srivastava, 2002), • Many organizations don’t directly offer compensation for knowledge contribution • And hence the concern for “What” motivates contribution to the knowledge repositories of these organizations

16. Knowledge Sharing Modes Knowledge sharing has been conceptualized as a two-actor model of a source and a recipient (e.g. Ko, et al., 2005; Lin, et al., 2005) Knowledge Contribution is defined as “an employee’s non-perfunctory contribution of both tacit and explicit knowledge to an electronic repository of their employing organization ” Adopted from Stewart (2008)

17. KM in Help Desk/Technical Support • The Help Desk and Technical Support domains have been used as empirical environments for investigating knowledge management and knowledge repositories (e.g. Bobrow & Whalen, 2002; Das, 2003; El Sawy & Bowles, 1997; Gray & Durcikova, 2005) • The use of knowledge repositories in Help Desk and Technical Support environments have become relatively common place (Gans, et al., 2003)

18. Research Questions • Does Commitment to the Organization influence the Intention to Contribute Knowledge, and actual Knowledge Contribution to an electronic repository? • Does Organizational Climate influence the Intention to Contribute Knowledge, and actual Knowledge Contribution to an electronic repository? • Does Top Management Support influence the Intention to Contribute Knowledge, and actual Knowledge Contribution to an electronic repository? • Does Social Inclusion influence the Intention to Contribute Knowledge, and actual Knowledge Contribution to an electronic repository? • Does Knowledge Self-efficacy influence the Intention to Contribute Knowledge, and actual Knowledge Contribution to an electronic repository? • Does the Perceived Ease of Use of the repository influence the Intention to Contribute Knowledge, and actual Knowledge Contribution to an electronic repository?

19. Research Model Individuals can only be encouraged and facilitated to share their knowledge (Gibbert & Krause, 2002), i.e. they can’t be forced to share their knowledge

20. Demographics 20 of 37 Jamaican firms participated 72 of 119 respondents - 60% response rate

21. Data Analysis using PLS Support found: *** p=0.001 ** p=0.01 * p=0.05 H5a*** H8b** H2*** H3** H11* H10*** H13* H12* H7a**

22. Summary of Hypotheses & Results

23. Contribution to Theory • Six new relationships suggested for addition to the nomological network of Knowledge Management: • Perceived Ease of Use impacting Knowledge Contribution moderated by Knowledge Sharing Cost • Extrinsic Motivation impacting the Intention to Contribute Knowledge moderated by Top Management Support • Organizational Climate impacting the Intention to Contribute Knowledge moderated by Top Management Support • Organizational Commitment impacting the Intention to Contribute Knowledge • Social Inclusion impacting Organizational Commitment • Knowledge Self-efficacy impacting Knowledge Contribution

24. Contribution to Practice The findings suggest that management can improve the possibility of a successful KMS implementation by: • Involving likely contributors in the selection process of the KMS to address ease of use issues early • Implementing a carefully developed compensation scheme for contributions to the KMS, to offset “contribution costs” • Creating an organizational climate that is characterized by fairness and just actions • Encouraging (inclusive) social interactions within and outside of working hours, as it builds commitment to the organization and by extension the willingness to share for the benefit of the organization • Creating training opportunities for likely contributors, as it builds their confidence in what they know, and their willingness to share

25. Future Research • Use demographic variables as control/moderator variables in future analyses (Amabile et al., 1994; Venkatesh et al., 2003) • Investigate the research model in other cultures and societies, as these differing contexts have been suggested as influential factors to knowledge contribution (Bock et al., 2005) • Investigate barriers such as time and space, cognitive barriers to communication, structural barriers – authority and status hierarchies that have been suggested to impede knowledge contribution (Bock et al., 2005)

26. Thanks for Listening ….. ….. Questions?