C H A PT E R 4

Conceptualizing Knowledge

Emergence

4.1    GATEKEEPERS,INFORMATION, STARS,AND

BOUNDARY SPANNERS

A substantial body of research has been developed on the transmission of information within organizations,

particularly R&D organizations.

The seminal work was that of Thomas J. Allen of MIT [Allen and Cohen, 1969, Allen,T.,

1977] who conducted a number of studies relating to information flow in industrial and corporate

R&Dlaboratories.Allen’s most ingenious contribution to the field was to seize upon the phenomenon that in many cases in the context of military R&D and procurement, the same contract is awarded to two different organizations to achieve the same end, typically in the case of a critical component of a larger system. Duplicative development contracts may, in fact, be very worthwhile insurance against the failure of a key component of a system. This duplication provided a wonderfully robust context in which to examine information flows and what distinguished the information flows in the more successful projects from the less successful.

Allen coined the term ‘Gatekeeper’ to describe the information flow stars that he discovered, the heavily connected nodes in the information flow pattern. The reason that he chose that term was that much of the development and project work that he investigated was classified military work, where there seemed to be something of a paradox, how was a team to be successful if it didn’t effectively connect with the world of information outside the organization? But how did it do that in a classified and communication restricted environment?What he discovered was that the information stars, the sociometric stars, were the answer to that paradox; they were the information channels through which external information reached the project team.

Furthermore, the “information stars” were central to information flow both within the organization at large, and within their project or projects. The characteristics that distinguished these stars were:

extensive communication with their field outside of the organization

greater perusal of information sources, journals, etc., information mavens

a high degree of connectedness with other information stars, one can infer that their utility

was not just having more information at their fingertips, but knowing to whom to turn within

the organization for further information

an above average degree of formal education compared to their project teammates

These characteristics of information stars were further corroborated by Mondschein, L. [1990] in a study of R&D activities across several industries.

In the context of KM, this tradition relates very directly to the development of Communities of Practice (CoP). Given the relative non-alignment of organizational structure and information flowand sharing,CoPs can be seen as the setting up of an alternative structure to facilitate information flow and sharing.

4.2 RESEARCHPRODUCTIVITY ANDKNOWLEDGE

The ‘Gatekeepers, Information Stars & Boundary Spanner’ tradition is very consistent with a substantial body of work studying research productivity. Koenig,M. [1992a], for example, in the context of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, studied the relationship between research productivity and the information environment in which that research was conducted.

This measure, however, was refined by weighting the NDAs in regard to:

1) whether or not the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) judged the drug to be an “important

therapeutic advance,” 2) the chemical novelty of the drug, and 3) the filing company’s patent position

in regard to the drug, an indicator of where the bulk of the research was done.

4.3 LACK OF RECOGNITION OFTHESE FINDINGS INTHE

BUSINESS COMMUNITY

As Allen pointed out in his study, there is a surprising lack of recognition of these findings about the importance of information stars in the business community. For example, one major study that reviewed a large corpus of work on R&D innovation, [Goldhar et al., 1976], concluded that there are six characteristics of environments that are conducive to technological innovations. The three most important characteristics are all related to the information environment and information flow – specifically: 1) easy access to information by individuals; 2) free flow of information both into and out of the organizations; 3) rewards for sharing, seeking, and using “new” externally developed information sources.

4.4 COMMUNITY-BASEDMODELS

The idea of Community of Practice [Wenger and Snyder, 1999], which descends logically from the “Gatekeepers, Information Stars, Boundary Spanners” stream of development has been cited frequently as an important knowledge sharing model. The Community of Practice (CoP) is not necessarily department-based nor centered in one organization.ACoP can consist of those in charge of human resources training, for example, in a number of organizations.

The Information Systems literature points to an abundance ofKMstrategies in the category of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). Such systems provide the infrastructure for enabling the interactions needed for a group’s knowledge synergies and interactive activities [Maier, R., 2002] and may include bulletin boards, electronic meeting/conferencing, or online chat. In this model, the notion of space [Ruhleder, K., 2002], physical or otherwise, is important primarily because the meeting place or system provides an environment that allows for interactions to unfold, at the convenience of individual participants, often asynchronously. Further, such CMC interactions allow for the creation of persistent records [Robins, J., 2002] of the interactions.

Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs) were originally conceived of as collaborative tools where groups came together, participated in brainstorming and then, through human facilitation, voted on items and issues important to the organization.These systems allowed for anonymous voting that moved decisions along rapidly by prioritizing topics more easily than trying to do so without the system’s assistance. Participants’ knowledge and experience contributed to the democratic process. Another advantage of Group Decision Support Systems, in general, is the ability for each person to speak (through entering opinions via a keypad, or original ideas via a keyboard) anonymously without fear of being politically incorrect or worrying about speaking in opposition to the manager. Contributions could be confidential with the shy on an even plane with the extroverts.

The GDSS has not migrated easily to theWeb, however, some web-based systems are available and have adapted to an asynchronous situation. The ability for groups to share knowledge and make decisions using decision technology tools is a beneficial way to combine human know-how and experience with database and display systems.

Generic Decision Support Systems (DSS) that act more like expert systems with the added feature of suggesting decision options are well suited to the Web, and they are proliferating as the Web becomes the ubiquitous information and communication platform for information storage and retrieval, and for interaction as well.The range ofWeb-based DSSs vary in quality fromthemundane (e.g., cosmetics or movie choices) to sophisticated tools such as diagnosing illnesses and suggesting appropriate drug therapies.

4.5 REPOSITORYMODEL

The knowledge management repository, a space to store and retrieve knowledge objects has long been a standard in KMprograms. It is a model that emphasizes the creation of quality knowledge content in online repositories with re-use as a goal. Markus, M. [2001] argues that the purpose and content of knowledge records in repositories often differ depending on who needs the documentation: the content producer, similar others, or dissimilar others. She emphasizes that a great deal of effort is required to produce quality content, and, as such, part of the burden of documenting and packaging knowledge objects can be transferred to intermediaries, saving time and energy of the organization’s staff.

4.6 ACTIVITY-BASEDMODELS

While there has been significant work done in terms of Information Systems support for the coordination of work [Winograd,T., 1988], the next logical progression would be to link knowledge production and capture with work processes. proposed rudiments of a KM system influenced by activity-based models that would link work activities with people and content. They also propose a meta-model knowledge structure called Knowledge-In-Context that specifies relationships among processes.