Knowledge management (KM) is the practice of communicating, as defined for this study, "expertise, opinions, insights, and experience" (as opposed to mere facts; "knowledge" has also been described as "facts in context"). Getting people to share knowledge—the "supply side"—has been the focus of research so far. The presumption, according to two business professors, has been that KM is always valuable for everyone on the receiving end.
Using surveys from 313 employees of a mid-sized technology manufacturer, the researchers concluded that only workers with mentally demanding jobs—complex, nonroutine jobs that required high levels of cooperation with coworkers—gained much from seeking company knowledge. The reason, the authors suggest, is that people with routine jobs just don't have as much to learn over the course of time. Fortunately, people with complex jobs were also more likely to seek out knowledge.
That latter point raised a finding that seems to go against common sense at first: people who by personality were more prone to seek out knowledge actually got less out of the effort. That is, when someone who normally resisted learning did seek knowledge, they got more out of what they learned than did someone who sought knowledge all the time. But this makes sense when you dig further. Someone who knows a lot already is not as likely to come across new information that will help them move forward.
This study suggests that, as the authors wrote, "blanket efforts to increase the overall level of knowledge (seeking) may well be wasted on some employees." For example, making knowledge seeking part of everyone's performance goals means people "who are unlikely to benefit" will spend their effort on that when that time and energy could be better focused elsewhere. [Editor's note: Although this study was not directly related to teamwork, other research has shown that teams work better if members seek out each others' experience.]
Source: Gray, P., and D. Meister (04), "Knowledge Sourcing Effectiveness," Management Science 50(6):821.
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© 2009 by Jim Morgan. All rights reserved.