Knowing‐doing gaps in ICT: gender and culture

Purpose – A problem for many organisations today is what is referred to as the “knowing‐doing gap” or the difference between possessing the knowledge and the actual application of it. This paper aims to explore the perception that differences exist with regard to soft or tacit knowledge‐knowing and utilisation in the IT workplace, but at the level of gender and ethnic‐culture specifically. Through a statistical examination of electronic survey results from two ICT organisations in Australia, the study explores the validity of such claims.Design/methodology/approach – Continuing from previous grounded theory research, a series of workplace scenarios testing for such knowledge utilisation were created. After trialling the initial scenarios on a pilot population, they were further refined and made part of an online survey questionnaire. Some 119 employees of two Australian ICT organisations rated how they would deal with soft knowledge situations both in principle and in practice. The sample was not selected...

[1]  Merrill Warkentin,et al.  Overcoming Mixed-Gender Requirements Misspecification with the Modified Coherence Method , 2012, AMCIS.

[2]  W. Faulkner.  The technology question in feminism: A view from feminist technology studies , 2001 .

[3]  Philippe Byosiere,et al.  Japanese corporations: gender differences in re‐defining tacit knowledge , 2007 .

[4]  Eileen M. Trauth.  Theorizing Gender and Information Technology Research , 2006 .

[5]  M. Spence.  Job Market Signaling , 1973 .

[6]  D. Ho.  On the Concept of Face , 1976, American Journal of Sociology.

[7]  Anit Somech,et al.  Tacit Knowledge in Academia: Its Effects on Student Learning and Achievement , 1999 .

[8]  Ikujiro Nonaka,et al.  Japanese Organizational Knowledge Creation in Anglo-American Environments , 1998 .

[9]  Peter A. Busch,et al.  An Analysis by Gender of Differences in Responses to Workplace Scenarios in the Australian ICT Sector , 2010 .

[10]  James F. Allen.  Towards a General Theory of Action and Time , 1984, Artif. Intell..

[11]  Deborah Richards,et al.  Unpacking multiculturalism in the ICT workplace: Differences in responses to workplace situations for English and non-English speaking backgrounds , 2009, ECIS.

[12]  Boaz Shulruf,et al.  Development of a New Measurement Tool for Individualism and Collectivism , 2007 .

[13]  Pino G. Audia,et al.  Cultural Metaphors as Frames of Reference for Nations: A Six-Country Study , 2005 .

[14]  H. Triandis,et al.  Individualism and Collectivism: Cross-cultural Perspectives on Self-ingroup Relationships We Wish to Thank Our Research Collaborators for Stimulating Ideas, Data, and Moral Support in Carrying out a Complex Set of Studies. They , 2022 .

[15]  S. Cross,et al.  The What, How, Why, and Where of Self-Construal , 2011, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[16]  Deependra Moitra,et al.  Managed socialization: how smart companies leverage global knowledge , 2007 .

[17]  H. Triandis.  The many dimensions of culture , 2004 .

[18]  Deborah Richards,et al.  Ethnicity-based cultural differences in implicit managerial knowledge usage in three Australian organizations , 2007 .

[19]  E. Hall,et al.  Understanding Cultural Differences: Germans, French and Americans , 1990 .

[20]  Dorothy E. Leidner,et al.  Review: A Review of Culture in Information Systems Research: Toward a Theory of Information Technology Culture Conflict , 2006, MIS Q..

[21]  Joan Acker.  HIERARCHIES, JOBS, BODIES: , 1990 .

[22]  I. Young.  Education in the Context of Structural Injustice: A symposium response , 2006 .

[23]  Alexandre B. Lopes,et al.  The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action , 1999 .

[24]  K. Hutchings,et al.  National Cultural Influences on Knowledge Sharing: A Comparison of China and Russia , 2006 .

[25]  Wendy M. Williams,et al.  Testing common sense. , 1995 .

[26]  Eileen M. Trauth,et al.  Explaining the IT Gender Gap: Australian Stories for the New Millenium , 2003, J. Res. Pract. Inf. Technol..

[27]  Richard E. Boyatzis,et al.  Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development , 1998 .

[28]  I. Nonaka,et al.  How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation , 1995 .

[29]  Kevin C. Desouza,et al.  Elements of innovative cultures , 2007 .

[30]  Daniel Beimborn,et al.  Managing the impact of differences in national culture on social capital in multinational IT project teams - a German perspective , 2011, ECIS.

[31]  D. Harrison,et al.  Time, Teams, and Task Performance: Changing Effects of Surface- and Deep-Level Diversity on Group Functioning , 2002 .

[32]  David A. Thomas,et al.  Cultural Diversity at Work: The Effects of Diversity Perspectives on Work Group Processes and Outcomes , 2001 .

[33]  Ikujiro Nonaka,et al.  Organizational Knowledge Creation , 2006 .

[34]  Betsy Wearing.  Gender : the pain and pleasure of difference , 1996 .

[35]  R. Fisher.  Social Desirability Bias and the Validity of Indirect Questioning , 1993 .

[36]  Donald A. Schön,et al.  Organizational Learning: A Theory Of Action Perspective , 1978 .

[37]  Randall Hansen,et al.  Immigration and Citizenship , 2009 .

[38]  Wei Li,et al.  Cultural influences on knowledge sharing through online communities of practice , 2006, J. Knowl. Manag..

[39]  Dale T. Miller,et al.  Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction? , 1975 .

[40]  Dorothy Leonard-Barton,et al.  Deep Smarts: How to Cultivate and Transfer Enduring Business Wisdom , 2005 .

[41]  Xiaolin Lin,et al.  Gender Differences in IS: A literature Review , 2012, AMCIS.

[42]  Dorothy E. Leidner,et al.  Review: Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems: Conceptual Foundations and Research Issues , 2001, MIS Q..

[43]  John Scott.  Social Network Analysis , 1988 .

[44]  Eileen M. Trauth,et al.  Cross-cultural influences on women in the IT workforce , 2006, SIGMIS CPR '06.

[45]  Dianne Cyr,et al.  Gender and website design across cultures , 2009, ECIS.

[46]  James Brian Quinn,et al.  The Strategy Process , 1988 .

[47]  M. Gordon,et al.  PUBLICATION RECORDS AND TENURE DECISIONS IN THE FIELD OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT , 1996 .

[48]  A. D. Amar,et al.  Motivating knowledge workers to innovate: a model integrating motivation dynamics and antecedents , 2004 .

[49]  John Warren,et al.  Personality, Gender and Careers in Information Technology , 2012, AMCIS.

[50]  Susan E. Cross,et al.  35. Independent, relational and collective-interdependent self-construals , 2009 .

[51]  Wendy L. Cukier,et al.  Gender and visible minority status: Career advancement in the Canadian information and communications technology sector , 2009, ECIS.

[52]  M. Bond,et al.  The Confucius connection: From cultural roots to economic growth , 1988 .

[53]  Ella Kolkowska,et al.  Security subcultures in an organization - exploring value conflicts , 2011, ECIS.

[54]  R. Grant.  Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm,” Strategic Management Journal (17), pp. , 1996 .

[55]  Dianne D. Horgan,et al.  Gender, Mentoring, and Tacit Knowledge. , 1988 .

[56]  Joanna L. Y. Ho,et al.  The Openness of Knowledge Sharing within Organizations: A Comparative Study of the United States and the People's Republic of China , 2000 .

[57]  Henry J. Gardner,et al.  Analyzing Ordinal Scales in Studies of Virtual Environments: Likert or Lump It! , 2007, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[58]  Stanley Wasserman,et al.  Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications , 1994 .

[59]  Lisa Adent Hoecklin.  Managing Cultural Differences: Strategies For Competitive Advantage , 1995 .

[60]  Michael D. Shields,et al.  The importance of national culture in the design of and preference for management controls for , 1999 .

[61]  Helen Peterson.  Gendered Work Ideals in Swedish IT Firms: Valued and Not Valued Workers , 2007 .

[62]  Eileen M. Trauth,et al.  Odd girl out: an individual differences perspective on women in the IT profession , 2002, Inf. Technol. People.

[63]  Kenneth Husted,et al.  Knowledge-Sharing Hostility in Russian Firms , 2003 .

[64]  J. Clark,et al.  What is gender? Feminist theory and the sociology of human reproduction , 1996 .

[65]  J. K. Murnighan,et al.  Demographic Diversity and Faultlines: The Compositional DYnamics of Organizational Groups , 1998 .