Search results

This study aims to take a public goods approach to understand relationships between collecting and contributing knowledge to an online knowledge sharing portal (KSP), mental model processing and outcomes at the individual and collective levels.

This study reports on a survey (N = 602) among tax professionals, examining the perceived individual and collective benefits and costs associated with collecting and contributing knowledge. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

Collecting and contributing knowledge led to considerable mental model processing of the knowledge. That in turn significantly influenced (primarily) individual and (some) collective costs and benefits. Results varied by the kinds of knowledge sharing. Whether directly from knowledge sharing, or mediated through mental modeling, the perceived costs and benefits may be internalized as an individual good rather than being interpreted at the collective level as a public good.

The study is situated in the early stages of a wiki-type online KSP. A focus on the learning potential of the system could serve to draw in new users and contributors, heightening perceptions of the public goods dimension of a KSP.

A focus on the learning potential of the system could serve to draw in new users, and thus the number of subsequent contributors, heightening perceptions of the collective, public goods dimension of a KSP.

This study explores how knowledge sharing and mental model processing are directly and indirectly associated with individual and collective costs and benefits. As online knowledge sharing is both an individual and public good, costs and benefits must be considered from both perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how paradox emerges during a planned change initiative to improve and dramatically transform inter‐agency information sharing. Based on interviews with key decision makers, the authors interrogate the relationships among institutional contradictions, emergent dualities, the communicative management of related organizational stakeholder paradoxes, and the consequences of enacted solutions.

Interviews with government leaders serve as the data source. These decision makers are from justice agencies participating in planning an information‐sharing program to better protect citizens and their agencies' workforce.

The data suggests that Seo and Creed's institutional contradiction “isomorphism conflicting with divergent interests” gave rise to three interdependent dualities: stakeholder self‐interest/collective good, stakeholder inclusion/exclusion, and emergent stakeholder consensus/leader driven decision making. These dualities were implicated in the enactment of paradox and its management. No matter what strategy the managers used, the consequences themselves were paradoxical, rooted in the same dualities that were originally present.

The authors sought to trace the outcomes of how leaders managed the poles of dualities, and found evidence of unintended consequences that were intriguing in their own right and were linked to stakeholder considerations. The paper underscores the importance of communication in the representation of paradoxes and how they were managed, and the unintended consequences of the solutions.

Leaders' articulations of paradox can be tapped for improving change efforts.

Whereas, institutional contradictions have been examined in reference to emerging paradox, and while paradoxical solutions have been studied widely, little research has investigated how institutional contradictions become simultaneously embedded in the process and the outcomes of organizational change.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework on how to deal with stressors emerging from the COVID-19 outbreak. The theoretical framework aims to explain pandemic-related stressors and potential ways to prevent them, considering a wide range of interacting factors at individual, team and organizational levels to ensure their employees’ health.

The authors drew on an integrative literature review to identify pandemic-related stressors influenceable by the organization and gathered solution approaches to counteract them. Popular psychological stress theories served as a theoretical base for the framework.

The authors based the framework on an integration of the transactional stress theory (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984) and the job demands resources model (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004), focusing on their respective theoretical strengths. The final framework offers a solid orientation for scholars regarding the introduction of holistic and strategic measures in coping with pandemic-related stressors. A section describing possibilities for practitioners’ use of the framework has been integrated.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to offer a framework on how to handle COVID-19-related stressors in the workplace by implementing teamwide and companywide measures.

Discusses how, in Part 1 the research group was at a “pioneering crisis” stage with considerable role and task ambiguity. An organizational development process was initiated aiming for greater systemization: a matrix structure was introduced and a groupware tool, the plan‐document (PD1), was implemented, as part of the group’s strategy to develop into a learning organization. States that the plan‐document was designed to enable information sharing and co‐ordination throughout the group, ranging over the short‐ and long‐terms. Usage was, however, low and PD1 was not widely adopted, although usage varied according to timescales and the personal relevance of objectives. A second plan‐document (PD2) was designed, aimed at being more “personal” and accessible, attuned to the new matrix structure and including reporting as well as planning functions. Looks at the introduction of PD2 and evaluates its contribution to the transition of the research group into both a systematized and a learning organization. Posits that groupware can go some way towards helping organizations meet the challenges of an uncertain environment through supporting open access between groups and individuals and fostering the group cohesiveness and interdependence.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to review the post‐1996 literature of information science and other disciplines for the application of social network theory and social network analysis to research that provides an understanding of information environments.

The literature review involved a content analysis of 373 articles retrieved from five electronic journal databases offering broad disciplinary coverage, and a selection of nine peer‐reviewed electronic access journals in information science. Each database was limited to academic or peer reviewed journals and searched using two query phrases: social network theory (SNT) and social network analysis (SNA).

The paper demonstrates the growth of interest by information science and other disciplines in research that applies social network theory and utilizes social network analysis, indicating what research approaches and major focus trends differentiate the disciplines.

The search phrases overlook articles using social networks as the only key phrase for indexing. However, the intention was to examine the application of a theoretical concept and specific methodology, so the terms used were appropriate for this purpose.

The paper identifies opportunities to apply social network theory and social network analysis to the study of the exchange of information resources.

The paper demonstrates that information science could advance valuable contributions to an understanding of information behavior using social network theory and social network analysis as a vehicle to connect with a significant body of existing research in other disciplines.

The objective of this study is to investigate the knowledge‐sharing behavior of undergraduate students in Singapore and to cover areas such as the purpose of sharing knowledge, communication channels preferred for sharing, and factors that inhibit or motivate knowledge sharing among students.

A questionnaire was used for collecting data and 180 students from three public universities in Singapore participated in the study.

It was found that, generally, students displayed a positive attitude towards knowledge sharing and were appreciative of its importance in peer learning. However, it was interesting to note that the respondents were less inclined to share knowledge for academic activities that were graded. The study also revealed that competition among students to outperform their fellow students and lack of depth in peer relationship were the two main factors that inhibited knowledge sharing.

The paper argues that fresh approaches to learning are desirable to make it less competitive, which is likely to encourage active knowledge sharing among students.

A majority of the studies on knowledge sharing have been conducted in an organizational context. Only limited work has been done on the knowledge‐sharing behavior of students. As a majority of the university students are expected to join the workforce after graduation, it is desirable their knowledge‐sharing behavior should be thoroughly investigated.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how four enterprise social media (ESM) affordances (visibility, association, editability and persistence) affect social network ties (instrumental and expressive), which, in turn, influence the in-role and innovative job performance of employees.

A survey of 251 ESM users in the workplace in China was conducted.

All four affordances are positively associated with instrumental ties, yet only the association and editability affordances are positively related to expressive ties. Although instrumental and expressive ties are positively related to in-role and innovative job performance, instrumental ties exert stronger effects on in-role job performance, whereas expressive ties show stronger effects on innovative job performance.

First, additional relevant affordances should be included in an expanded model. Second, future research could examine how patterns of affordances use (unrelated, or hierarchically or sequentially related) affect organizational network ties. Third, there are likely (many) other exogenous factors affecting the model’s relationships. Fourth, the data collected are self-reported.

This study advances the theoretical understanding of the role of ESM affordances in the workplace, especially through their influences on network ties. The findings can guide organizations on how to emphasize ESM affordances to foster instrumental and expressive ties to improve the job performance of employees.

First, it provides novel views on affordance theory in ESM contexts by empirically testing four central affordances, thereby further providing preliminary evidence for prior theoretical propositions by confirming that social media affordances might be associated with or influence relational ties. Second, the study integrates an affordance lens and a social network perspective to investigate employees’ perceived performance behavior. Including social network ties can offer a more detailed understanding of the underlying processes of how ESM affordances can and do affect job performance. Third, it supports the validity of distinguishing instrumental and expressive ties in ESM contexts, thus offering a possible explanation for the inconsistencies in prior research on the impact of social networks on employee outcomes. Finally, it also shows how two kinds of organizational performance (in-role and innovative) are somewhat differentially influenced by affordances and network ties.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual framework for studying value creation derived from an ethical perspective, in a business marketing context. Design/methodology/approach – First, a conceptual and comparative analysis is made of the ethics and value concepts in two research traditions: the stakeholder approach and the business network approach. Second, a conceptual framework is developed that contains tools for conducting research on value co‐creation in business networks from an ethical perspective. An exemplifying case study from the paper industry is included. Findings – Four key concepts are proposed for further research into ethics and value creation in business networks that enable the study of ethical embeddedness: ethical network identity, ethical role, ethical position, and ethical atmosphere. The analysis also presents fundamental differences between the stakeholder and the business network approaches when dealing with ethics and value. Research limitations/implications – The developed conceptual framework should be applied in more extended empirical settings to evaluate its usefulness. Practical implications – The paper provides an ethical perspective for understanding value in industrial markets using a network approach. Originality/value – The study presents a novel approach to incorporating ethics and value creation to an industrial marketing context. Ethical issues are traditionally studied using stakeholder, agency or institutional perspectives and such research in business‐to‐business contexts is almost non‐existent. The business network approach contains very few studies from an ethical point of view. The paper covers this gap and offers a starting‐point for further inquiry into this field.