Virtualness and Knowledge in Teams: Managing the Love Triangle of Organizations, Individuals, and Information Technology

Information technology can facilitate the dissemination of knowledge across the organization-even to the point of making virtual teams a viable alternative to face-to-face work. However, unless managed, the combination of information technology and virtual work may serve to change the distribution of different types of knowledge across individuals, teams, and the organization. Implications include the possibility that information technology plays the role of a jealous mistress when it comes to the development and ownership of valuable knowledge in organizations; that is, information technology may destabilize the relationship between organizations and their employees when it comes to the transfer of knowledge. The paper advances theory and informs practice by illustrating the dynamics of knowledge development and transfer in more and less virtual teams.

[1]  L. Tidwell,et al.  Computer-Mediated Communication Effects on Disclosure, Impressions, and Interpersonal Evaluations: Getting to Know One Another a Bit at a Time , 2002 .

[2]  M. Schulz.  THE UNCERTAIN RELEVANCE OF NEWNESS: ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE FLOWS , 2001 .

[3]  R. Boutellier,et al.  Management of Dispersed Product Development Teams: The Role of Information Technologies , 1998 .

[4]  Ulrike Schultze,et al.  A Confessional Account of an Ethnography About Knowledge Work , 2000, MIS Q..

[5]  D. Wegner.  Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind , 1987 .

[6]  Linda Argote,et al.  Training People to Work in Groups , 2002 .

[7]  John Seely Brown,et al.  The social life of information - Chapter three: Home alone , 2000 .

[8]  R. Grant.  The Resource-Based Theory of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Strategy Formulation , 1991 .

[9]  L. Argote.  Organizational Learning: Creating, Retaining and Transferring Knowledge , 1999 .

[10]  Gerardine DeSanctis,et al.  Teams and technology Interactions over time , 2000 .

[11]  Ronald S. Burt,et al.  Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. , 1994 .

[12]  D. Leonard,et al.  The Role of Tacit Knowledge in Group Innovation , 1998 .

[13]  J. Castillo.  A Note on the Concept of Tacit Knowledge , 2002 .

[14]  Kevin Crowston,et al.  Discontinuities and continuities: a new way to understand virtual work , 2002, Inf. Technol. People.

[15]  Deborah G. . Ancona,et al.  Demography and Design: Predictors of New Product Team Performance , 1992 .

[16]  J. Sawyer.  Effects of risk and ambiguity on judgments of contingency relations and behavioral resource allocation decisions , 1990 .

[17]  Terri L. Griffith.  Technology Features as Triggers for Sensemaking , 1999 .

[18]  P. Reagan-Cirincione.  Improving the Accuracy of Group Judgment: A Process Intervention Combining Group Facilitation, Social Judgment Analysis, and Information Technology , 1994 .

[19]  Henry H. Rueter,et al.  Extracting expertise from experts: Methods for knowledge acquisition , 1987 .

[20]  John Seely Brown,et al.  Book Reviews : The Social Life of Information By John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. 320 pages , 2000 .

[21]  J. Sawyer,et al.  Hypothesis sampling, construction, or adjustment: How are inferences about nonlinear monotonic contingencies developed? , 1991 .

[22]  G. Northcraft,et al.  You have printed the following article : Why Differences Make a Difference : A Field Study of Diversity , Conflict , and Performance in Workgroups , 2007 .

[23]  M. Polanyi.  Chapter 7 – The Tacit Dimension , 1997 .

[24]  Dianne C. Berry,et al.  The problem of implicit knowledge , 1987 .

[25]  I. Nonaka.  A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation , 1994 .

[26]  Paul S. Goodman,et al.  Computer-Aided Systems and Communities: Mechanisms for Organizational Learning in Distributed Environments , 1998, MIS Q..

[27]  Elizabeth A. Smith.  The role of tacit and explicit knowledge in the workplace , 2001, J. Knowl. Manag..

[28]  I. Nonaka,et al.  The Knowledge Creating Company , 2008 .

[29]  Gabriel Szulanski.  Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm , 1996 .

[30]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing , 2002, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[31]  Stephen W. Smoliar,et al.  On making expert systems more like experts , 1987 .

[32]  G. Krogh,et al.  Future Research into Knowledge Management , 1998 .

[33]  Lorne Olfman,et al.  Organizational Memory , 1998, Proceedings of the Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[34]  John R. Carlson,et al.  Channel Expansion Theory and the Experiential Nature of Media Richness Perceptions , 1999 .

[35]  L. Argote.  Group and organizational learning curves: Individual, system and environmental components , 1993 .

[36]  Peter A. Corning,et al.  Winning With Synergy: How America Can Regain the Competitive Edge , 1986 .

[37]  L. Festinger.  Social pressures in informal groups : a study of human factors in housing / by Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter and Kurt Back , 1950 .

[38]  T. M. Amabile.  Social psychology of creativity: A consensual assessment technique. , 1982 .

[39]  Jennifer L. Berdahl,et al.  Groups, Technology, and Time , 2002 .

[40]  Terri L. Griffith,et al.  Distinguishing Between the Forest and the Trees: Media, Features, and Methodology in Electronic Communication Research , 1994 .

[41]  J. Brown,et al.  Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation , 1991 .

[42]  Warren E. Watson,et al.  Member competence, group interaction, and group decision making: A longitudinal study. , 1991 .

[43]  Shawn L. Berman,et al.  Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Competitive Advantage in the National Basketball Association , 2002 .

[44]  Kyle Lewis.  Measuring transactive memory systems in the field: scale development and validation. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[45]  Mary Susan Weldon,et al.  Collective memory: collaborative and individual processes in remembering. , 1997, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[46]  R. Moreland,et al.  Group Versus Individual Training and Group Performance: The Mediating Role of Transactive Memory , 1995 .

[47]  G. Huber.  Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures , 1991 .

[48]  R. Moreland,et al.  Exploring the Performance Benefits of Group Training: Transactive Memory or Improved Communication? , 2000 .

[49]  B. Kogut,et al.  Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology , 1992 .

[50]  J. Teachman.  Analysis of Population Diversity , 1980 .

[51]  Harold J. Leavitt,et al.  The Old Days, Hot Groups, and Managers' Lib. , 1996 .

[52]  Paul V. Martorana,et al.  What Do Groups Learn from Their Worldliest Members? Direct and Indirect Influence in Dynamic Teams , 2000 .

[53]  Ritu Agarwal,et al.  Organizational Mechanisms for Enhancing User Innovation in Information Technology , 1999, MIS Q..

[54]  Warren E. Watson,et al.  Group Interaction Behaviors that Affect Group Performance on an I ntellective Task , 1988 .

[55]  J. Colquitt,et al.  KNOWLEDGE WORKER TEAM EFFECTIVENESS: THE ROLE OF AUTONOMY, INTERDEPENDENCE, TEAM DEVELOPMENT, AND CONTEXTUAL SUPPORT VARIABLES , 1997 .

[56]  Ronald E. Rice,et al.  Computer-Mediated Inter-Organizational Knowledge-Sharing: Insights from a Virtual Team Innovating Using a Collaborative Tool , 2000, Inf. Resour. Manag. J..

[57]  D. Wegner.  A Computer Network Model of Human Transactive Memory , 1995 .

[58]  J. Pfeffer,et al.  The smart-talk trap. , 1999, Harvard business review.

[59]  John M. Levine,et al.  Culture and socialization in work groups , 1991, Perspectives on socially shared cognition.

[60]  Gerardine DeSanctis,et al.  Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive Structuration Theory , 1994 .

[61]  Gina J. Medsker,et al.  RELATIONS BETWEEN WORK GROUP CHARACTERISTICS AND EFFECTIVENESS: IMPLICATIONS FOR DESIGNING EFFECTIVE WORK GROUPS , 1993 .

[62]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[63]  John E. Sawyer,et al.  Measuring Facts of Media Richness , 2001, J. Comput. Inf. Syst..

[64]  Peter R. Monge,et al.  Introduction to the Special Issue: Communication Processes for Virtual Organizations , 1999 .

[65]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Transfer on Trial: Intelligence, Cognition and Instruction , 1993 .

[66]  Jennifer Hedlund,et al.  Practical Intelligence, g, and Work Psychology , 2002 .

[67]  J. Spender.  Making knowledge the basis of a dynamic theory of the firm , 1996 .

[68]  Keri E. Pearlson,et al.  Two Cheers for the Virtual Office , 1998 .

[69]  野中 郁次郎,et al.  Knowledge emergence : social, technical, and evolutionary dimensions of knowledge creation , 2001 .

[70]  J. Ruiz Moreno.  [Organizational learning]. , 2001, Revista de enfermeria.

[71]  N. Schmitt,et al.  Situational Judgment and Job Performance , 2002 .

[72]  J. Liebeskind,et al.  Knowledge, Strategy, and the Theory of the Firm , 1996 .

[73]  S. Barley.  Technology as an occasion for structuring: evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments. , 1986, Administrative science quarterly.

[74]  Robert J. Sternberg,et al.  Mechanisms of transfer. , 1996 .

[75]  E. Hippel.  Sticky Information and the Locus of Problem Solving: Implications for Innovation , 1994 .

[76]  Shoshana Zuboff,et al.  In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power , 1989 .

[77]  Frances J. Milliken,et al.  Executives’ Perceptual Filters: What They Notice and How They Make Sense , 1988 .

[78]  Terri L. Griffith,et al.  Information processing in traditional, hybrid, and virtual teams: From nascent knowledge to transactive memory , 1999 .

[79]  J. Liebeskind,et al.  Keeping Organizational Secrets: Protective Institutional Mechanisms and their Costs , 1997 .

[80]  B. Kogut,et al.  Knowledge and the Speed of the Transfer and Imitation of Organizational Capabilities: An Empirical Test , 1995 .

[81]  A. Hollingshead.  Retrieval processes in transactive memory systems , 1998 .

[82]  A. Hollingshead.  Cognitive interdependence and convergent expectations in transactive memory. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[83]  Mark S. Granovetter.  The Strength of Weak Ties , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.