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1 – 10 of over 15000Joseph K. Nwankpa and Yazan F. Roumani
This study aims to explore the effects of remote work on employee productivity and innovation and how these effects are moderated by knowledge sharing and digital business…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the effects of remote work on employee productivity and innovation and how these effects are moderated by knowledge sharing and digital business intensity.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on survey data from a random sample of 231 remote workers across the USA. The analysis and empirical validation of the research model used partial least square.
Findings
The results demonstrate a positive association between remote work and employee productivity. In addition, the findings present empirical support for hitherto anecdotal evidence regarding the impact of remote work on innovation. In particular, the study notes that knowledge sharing and digital business intensity amplified the positive relationship between remote work and employee productivity. The results further revealed that the positive link between remote work and innovation was stronger in the presence of knowledge sharing.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the ongoing inquiry into remote work by drawing on the knowledge-based view as an underlying lens to understand the consequence of remote work. Identifying knowledge sharing and digital business intensity as moderators of the linkage between remote work and employee productivity is an important contribution, especially when researchers and practitioners are trying to understand the business value of working remotely. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to identify knowledge sharing as a key mechanism that strengthens innovation outcomes in a remote work environment.
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Knowledge sharing is increasingly important in today’s information age and extant literature considers knowledge hoarding as an undesirable form of knowledge-withholding behavior…
Abstract
Purpose
Knowledge sharing is increasingly important in today’s information age and extant literature considers knowledge hoarding as an undesirable form of knowledge-withholding behavior. As knowledge hoarding is a generic, nonintentional behavior, specific attitudes and organizational processes are unlikely to curb it. Hence, the study postulates that reflection, awareness and group identification are necessary to combat innate tendencies toward knowledge hoarding. To test these hypotheses, this study aims to explore the role of mindfulness and relational systems in reducing employees’ knowledge hoarding by increasing their meaning-making through work.
Design/methodology/approach
The study results are based on a cross-sectional survey of 203 employees in India working for different organizations. Standardized scales were used for capturing data, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for analysis.
Findings
Mindfulness and team cohesion were positively related to an increase in meaning-making through work. Supervisor support improved perceptions of team cohesion. However, contrary to expectations, team cohesion and meaning-making through work were positively, rather than negatively, related to knowledge hoarding.
Research limitations/implications
The cross-sectional nature of the study prevents strong inference of causal relationships. Future studies may use a longitudinal design to test the relationships.
Practical implications
It highlights the role of meditation sessions and supervisory support in improving employees’ perceptions of meaning-making through work. It exhorts managers to systematically assess the impact and societal perceptions regarding knowledge hoarding rather than automatically assume a negative attitude.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the impact of mindfulness, team cohesiveness and meaning-making through work on employees’ knowledge hoarding behaviors. The study results suggest that knowledge hoarding may be perceived positively in certain cultures. It highlights the inconsistencies in the conceptualization and operationalization of knowledge hoarding and suggests the need for better construct delineation and empirical studies related to knowledge hoarding.
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Xi Zhang, Tianxue Xu, Xin Wei, Jiaxin Tang and Patricia Ordonez de Pablos
As a kind of knowledge-intensive team coordinated across physical distance, it is necessary to construct a meta-knowledge driven transactive memory system (TMS) for the knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
As a kind of knowledge-intensive team coordinated across physical distance, it is necessary to construct a meta-knowledge driven transactive memory system (TMS) for the knowledge management of distributed agile team (DAT). This study aims to explore the comprehensive antecedents of TMS establishment in DATs and considers how TMS establishment is affected by herding behavior under the artificial intelligence (AI)-related knowledge work environment that emerges with technology penetration.
Design/methodology/approach
The data derived from 177 students of 52 DATs in a well-known Chinese business school, which were divided into 26 traditional knowledge work groups and 26 AI-related task groups to conduct a random comparative experiment. The ordinary least squares method was used to analyze the conceptual model and ANOVA was used to examine the differences in herding behavior between the control groups (traditional knowledge work DATs) and treatment groups (DATs engaged in AI-related knowledge work).
Findings
The results showed that knowledge diversity, professional knowledge, self-efficacy and social system use had significantly positive effects on the establishment of TMS. Interestingly, the authors also find that herding behavior may promote the process of establishing TMS of the new team, and this effect will be more significant when AI tasks are involved in team knowledge work.
Originality/value
By exploring the comprehensive antecedents of the establishment of TMS, this study provided a theoretical basis for knowledge management of DATs, especially in AI knowledge work teams. From a practical perspective, when the DAT is involved in AI-related knowledge works, managers should appropriately guide the convergence of employees’ behaviors and use the herding effects to accelerate the establishment of TMS, which will improve team knowledge sharing and innovation.
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Baek-Kyoo Joo, Jeong-Ha Yim, Young Sim Jin and Soo Jeoung Han
This study aims to investigate the relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity and the mediating roles of work engagement and knowledge sharing in this…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity and the mediating roles of work engagement and knowledge sharing in this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the results of a survey of 302 knowledge workers from a leading telecommunications company in South Korea, the relationships among the variables empowering leadership, work engagement and knowledge sharing on employee creativity were analyzed using conducted confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. This study conducted bootstrap analyses to test the mediating effects.
Findings
Empowering leadership was positively and significantly associated with work engagement and knowledge sharing. Work engagement was significantly related to knowledge sharing and employee creativity. In turn, knowledge sharing was significantly associated with employee creativity. The direct effect of empowering leadership on employee creativity was nonsignificant, but this study found a significant indirect effect of empowering leadership on employee creativity via the significant mediating roles of work engagement and knowledge sharing.
Originality/value
This study introduced empowering leadership that may work for knowledge workers who create new ideas by analyzing data from the knowledge workers’ perceptions of their leaders in the workplace. The intuitive linkage between work engagement and knowledge sharing was empirically verified in this study. This study’s findings and implications provide direction for knowledge workers and how their managers should support employees’ work environment and activities.
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Jiayi Song, Hao Jiao and Canhao Wang
Innovative behavior is a microfoundation of an organization’s innovation. Knowledge workers are the main creators of innovations. With the boundaries between work and family…
Abstract
Purpose
Innovative behavior is a microfoundation of an organization’s innovation. Knowledge workers are the main creators of innovations. With the boundaries between work and family becoming increasingly ambiguous, the purpose of this study is to explore how the work–family conflict affects knowledge workers’ innovative behavior and when such a conflict arises.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the theoretical model, this study collected data from a time-lagged matched sample of 214 dual-career couples. The data were analyzed with the bias-corrected bootstrapping method.
Findings
The results of this study showed that work-to-family conflict had not only a direct negative effect on knowledge workers’ innovative behavior but also an indirect effect through spouses’ within-family emotional exhaustion and knowledge workers’ family-to-work conflict. If wives’ gender role perceptions are traditional, then the indirect serial mediating effect is weakened, but if such perceptions are egalitarian, then the mentioned effect is aggravated.
Practical implications
In terms of organizational implications, managers could alter their approach by reducing detrimental factors such as work–family conflict to improve knowledge workers’ innovative behavior. Emotional assistance programs for both knowledge workers and their spouses can be used to prevent the detrimental effect of work–family conflict on innovative behavior. As to social implications, placing dual-career couples into a community of likeminded individuals and promoting their agreement on gender role identity will greatly reduce the negative effects of work–family conflict.
Originality/value
Starting from the perspective of the behavior outcome of knowledge management, this study advances the existing knowledge management literature by enriching the antecedents of knowledge workers’ innovative behavior, illuminating a spillover–crossover–spillover effect of work–family conflict on knowledge workers’ innovative behavior and identifying the boundary condition of this transmission process.
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Philip Wotschack, Gergana Vladova, Patricia de Paiva Lareiro and Christof Thim
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how learning solely via an assistance system influences work performance compared with learning with a combination of an assistance…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how learning solely via an assistance system influences work performance compared with learning with a combination of an assistance system and additional training. While the training literature has widely emphasised the positive role of on-the-job training, particularly for groups that are often underrepresented in formalised learning situations, organisational studies have stressed the risks that emerge when holistic process knowledge is lacking and how this negatively affects work performance. This study aims at testing these negative effects within an experimental design.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a laboratory experimental design to investigate how assistance-system-guided learning influences the individuals’ work performance and work satisfaction compared with assistance-system-guided learning combined with theoretical learning of holistic process knowledge. Subjects were divided into two groups and assigned to two different settings. In the first setting, the participants used the assistance systems as an orientation and support tool right at the beginning and learned the production steps exclusively in this way. In the second setting, subjects received an additional 10-min introduction (treatment) at the beginning of the experiment, including detailed information regarding the entire work process.
Findings
This study provides evidence that learners provided with prior process knowledge achieve a better understanding of the work process leading to higher levels of productivity, quality and work satisfaction. At the same time, the authors found evidence for differences among workers’ ability to process and apply this additional information. Subjects with lower productivity levels faced more difficulties processing and applying additional process information.
Research limitations/implications
Methodologically, this study goes beyond existing research on assistance systems by using a laboratory experimental design. Though the external validity of this method is limited by the artificial setting, it is a solid way of studying the impact of different usages of digital assistance systems in terms of training. Further research is required, however, including laboratory experiments with larger case numbers, company-level case studies and analyses of survey data, to further confirm the external validity of the findings of this study for the workplace.
Practical implications
This study provides some first evidence that holistic process knowledge, even in low-skill tasks, has an added value for the production process. This study contributes to firms' training policies by exploring new, digitalised ways of guided on-the-job training and demonstrates possible training benefits for people with lower levels of (initial) abilities and motivation.
Social implications
This study indicates the advantage for companies and societies to invest in additional skills and training and points at the limitations of assistance systems. This paper also contributes to training policies by exploring new, digitalised ways of guided on-the-job training and demonstrates possible training benefits for people with lower levels of (initial) abilities and motivation.
Originality/value
This study extends existing research on digital assistance systems by investigating their role in job-related-training. This paper contributes to labour sociology and organisational research by confirming the importance of holistic process knowledge as opposed to a solely task-oriented digital introduction.
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Melody Barlage, Arjan van den Born and Arjen van Witteloostuijn
More and more workers in Western economies are operating as freelancers in the so-called “gig economy”, moving from one project – or gig – to the next. A lively debate revolves…
Abstract
More and more workers in Western economies are operating as freelancers in the so-called “gig economy”, moving from one project – or gig – to the next. A lively debate revolves around the question as to whether this new employment relationship is actually good for innovation in the 21 st century economy. Proponents argue that in this gig process valuable knowledge is created and transferred from one organization to the next via freelancers through their sequence of temporary gigs or projects. Antagonists reason that freelancers are only hired as one-trick ponies on a transactional basis, where knowledge is neither created nor shared. In this study, we focus on the characteristics of gigs. Which project characteristics lead to increased engagement of freelancers, and hence to knowledge-sharing behavior? Our study suggests that the gig economy can indeed lead to increased knowledge sharing by and engagement of freelance workers, provided that organizations and freelancers structure and shape gigs in such a way that they: (1) not only suit the task requirements at hand and (2) fit with the acquired skills of the freelancer, but that these gigs also (3) leave ample of room for the freelancer’s individual growth and development of new skills. This suggests that innovative organizations will need to shape gigs in such a way that freelancers are not only hired for their expertise, but rather that gigs also provide a learning opportunity for freelancers.
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Angela Shin-yih Chen, Min-dau Bian, Trung Kim Nguyen and Chien-Hua Chang
This study aimed to examine the effects of curiosity on expatriates' innovative work behaviour and job satisfaction in a cross-cultural setting, with the sequential mediating…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to examine the effects of curiosity on expatriates' innovative work behaviour and job satisfaction in a cross-cultural setting, with the sequential mediating effects of cultural intelligence (CQ) and knowledge-sharing behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected by distributing an online survey to 465 Taiwanese expatriates living and working abroad. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses via AMOS v.22.
Findings
The results indicate that curiosity is an antecedent of an individual's CQ and both CQ and knowledge-sharing behaviour are sequential mediators in the relationships between curiosity and innovative work behaviour and between curiosity and job satisfaction.
Originality/value
The study expands the existing body of research to analyse personal traits as meaningful factors that enhance CQ and the mechanisms of CQ and knowledge sharing behaviour in the relationship between curiosity and innovative work behaviour and between curiosity and job satisfaction. It offers novel empirical evidence for the important role of curiosity, CQ and knowledge-sharing behaviour in enhancing an individual's innovative work behaviour and job satisfaction in a cross-cultural setting.
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Margie Foster, Hossein Arvand, Hugh T. Graham and Denise Bedford
This chapter identifies the five new roles that are critical to establishing and sustaining a knowledge preservation and curation practice. For each role, the authors describe…
Abstract
Chapter Summary
This chapter identifies the five new roles that are critical to establishing and sustaining a knowledge preservation and curation practice. For each role, the authors describe fundamental responsibilities and competencies. Two of the roles support knowledge preservation, including business knowledge analyst and specialized knowledge preservationist. Three of the roles support knowledge curation including business interlocutor/translator, knowledge curator, and knowledge asset developer. Each role faces peculiar challenges in a dynamic and chaotic knowledge economy.
Ashmiza Mahamed Ismail and Christine Elizabeth Welch
Why and when people working in organisations hide their knowledge has received considerable academic attention. However, little attention has been paid to knowledge hiding in…
Abstract
Purpose
Why and when people working in organisations hide their knowledge has received considerable academic attention. However, little attention has been paid to knowledge hiding in academia itself, even though universities are known as places where knowledge is shared. This study aims to consider the dilemma faced by academics when undertaking research work: should they share or hide what they are doing?
Design/methodology/approach
Using empirical evidence drawn from 20 academics in a number of UK Business Schools, the authors carried out in-depth interviews to investigate the effects of strategic knowledge hiding (SKH) on research knowledge work. The authors argue that SKH can drive competitive individuals to establish research superiority.
Findings
The findings revealed that most respondents have, for strategic reasons, hidden their tacit and/or explicit knowledge from others during ongoing research processes, but have, at the same time, purposefully sought for knowledge from targeted colleagues.
Originality/value
The findings extend the previous literature by revealing not only the distinctive individual antecedents of SKH but also its positive outcomes. The findings illustrate a pioneering contribution of a systematic model of SKH among university business school academics.
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