Are norms enough? The role of collaborative norms in promoting organizational knowledge seeking

Abstract

Knowledge sharing, which is critical for the strategic utilization of knowledge resources for the benefit of an organization, can only take place when both knowledge contribution and knowledge seeking exist. However, most previous research has focused on only one side of this process – knowledge contribution motivations. This is despite the fact that various barriers to knowledge seeking and reuse exist, such as the effort required to seek relevant knowledge and the cost of future obligation. In overcoming such barriers, norms related to collaboration are considered to be important. However, little is known of how these norms operate in conjunction with other antecedents to influence individuals' knowledge seeking behavior. Addressing the knowledge gap, this study explores how collaborative norms in an organization impact knowledge seeking with regard to a common knowledge management system type – the electronic knowledge repository (EKR). For this purpose, we have developed a model and tested it through a survey of EKR users in knowledge-intensive organizations. Our results indicate that collaborative norms positively impact individuals' knowledge seeking behavior through EKRs, both directly and through reducing the negative effect of future obligation on seeking. However, collaborative norms could also undermine the positive impact of perceived usefulness on knowledge seeking behavior. We identify other antecedents of knowledge seeking such as knowledge growth, resource-facilitating conditions, and self-efficacy. Implications for research and knowledge sharing practice are discussed.

Keywords:

• collaborative norms
• knowledge seeking
• electronic knowledge repository
• decomposed theory of planned behavior
• social exchange theory

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gee-Woo Bock

About the authors

Dr. Gee-Woo Bock is an assistant professor at the Department of Information Systems of the National University of Singapore (NUS). Before he joined NUS in 2002, he was with the Strategic Management Department in Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, Korea. He received his B.A. degree (1988) with emphases on Sociology and Business Administration from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, and an M.B.A. degree (1991) with emphases on MIS and Consulting Services from the University of Southern California in LA. He received his Ph.D. (2001) in MIS from the Graduate School of Management of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Seoul, Korea. His research areas are Knowledge Sharing, Virtual Community, Trust in e-Commerce, and Non-Work-Related Computing. He received the Best Case Study Award twice in 1996 and 1999, and the Award for Young Fellow in 2005 at the Annual International Conferences of Korea Management Information System Society. His paper has been accepted or published in MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, and other journals.

Atreyi Kankanhalli

Dr. Atreyi Kankanhalli is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Systems at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She obtained her B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, her M.S. from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, and her Ph.D. from NUS. She has been a visiting scholar at the Haas Business School, University of California Berkeley. Prior to joining NUS, she has considerable experience in industrial R&D. She has consulted for a number of organizations including World Bank. Dr. Kankanhalli's work has been published in journals such as MIS Quarterly, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, and International Journal of Information Management. She serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Knowledge Management, Journal of Global Information Management, and Journal of Information Privacy and Security. Dr. Kankanhalli was awarded the President's Graduate Fellowship, Dean's Graduate Award, and Infocomm Development Authority Gold Medal at NUS. She is also the winner of the ACM-SIGMIS ICIS 2003 Best Doctoral Dissertation award. Her research interests are knowledge management, virtual teams and IS security.

Sanjeev Sharma

Sanjeev Sharma obtained a Bachelors of Computing (Honors) in Information Systems with a minor in Technopreneurship from the National University of Singapore in 2004. Currently, Sanjeev works as a Developer Evangelist with the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group at Microsoft Singapore. He works with software products companies to help them architect and build next-generation applications on emerging Microsoft technologies. Being passionate about winning the hearts and minds of developers, Sanjeev is empowering the local developer community in Singapore through high-touch technical enablement on Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Longhorn Server. Prior to joining Microsoft, Sanjeev founded a startup offering Speech Recognition, Speech Translation, and Speech Synthesis Solutions. The innovative speech solution was rated among the top 12 innovative software applications at a global software design competition in Brazil in 2004 organized by Microsoft.