Designers have many options for how to encode knowledge, although most are based on declarative representations. This paper explores the use of questions to represent knowledge. Practioner experiences implementing two knowledge resources using a question-based representation are described. In both resources, the use of "questions" was chosen as both a nonthreatening way of engaging users and for its value in initiating thinking processes. Both systems have succeeded in capturing the interest of users and serve as valuable components of the organization's knowledge capture program. This paper describes the systems, the underlying design approach, and results from system evaluation. Since the goal of any knowledge resource is to facilitate the reuse of knowledge, it is important to understand the impact that different knowledge representations could have on system acceptance. This study raises several research issues based on experiences using the unusual representation of "questions." 1.

Familiarity is the knowledge that members of a team have about the unique aspects of their work, which has been found to have a positive effect on team performance. There are different types of familiarity, including task familiarity – gained from past experience performing similar tasks – and team familiarity – acquired by working with each other. While there is evidence suggesting the beneficial effects of familiarity, most of the empirical research on familiarity has focused on labor crews and short-term experimental teams. More importantly, to the best of our knowledge, prior studies have not investigated the conditions under which familiarity can be more beneficial for performance. The uncertainties, complexities and tightly coupled interdependencies inherent in software development make it a task ideally suited to benefit from familiarity, but this effect is likely to vary for various task and team conditions. In this study we analyze archival data collected from software production sources to investigate the effect of task and team familiarity on performance in collaborative software development and the interaction effects of task – e.g., project size and complexity – and team context factors – e.g., geographic dispersion and team size – on this effect. Our results indicate that both task and team familiarity help reduce software development. We also find that task familiarity improves software

The concept of collaborative work is gaining rapid acceptance in almost all disciplines of numerous organizations in the world like financial institutions, educational institutions, and business organizations (Ancona, 1990; Bettenhausen, 1991; Gallucci, 1985). Switzer and Shriner (2000) were of the view that students are the most obvious party who benefit from collaborative group work among students, faculty members, and the community. According to them there are four overlapping types of benefits for students. These are: 1) immediate educational benefits, 2) immediate social benefits, 3) critical thinking benefits, and 4) long-term career benefits. Research suggests that Face to Face (FTF) interaction in collaborative learning does not solve the communication problems in Arabic culture due to religious and cultural factors. It is necessary to think of an alternative that would respect the general scope of collaborative work (in terms of its multisided but interactive effect) but favour women's involvement in sharing and communicating information with their male fellows. This can be fulfilled through the use of Computer mediated communication (CMC). This study will build on previous IT & collaborative learning related researches.

This paper presents a field study of decision-making processes in management teams in two organizations. It reviews existing literature on managerial knowledge structures and decision-making, and identifies methodological and conceptual limitations with these approaches. The authors then develop interpretive case studies of two management teams, which focus on the articulated and social methods used to make decisions. They found that both organizations used rules of thumb or heuristic reasoning in their decision-making, that these rules of thumb functioned as headlines of deeper organizational narratives, and that these narratives were grounded in emotional as well as purely rational considerations. We suggest that the term “guiding principle ” usefully integrates our three findings into a descriptive concept that may be further explored in future research of both a descriptive and prescriptive nature.

Many factors affect organizations ’ success in achieving competitive advantage. Some of those factors are tangible assets such as production technologies or economies of scale, and others factors are intangible assets such as knowledge. Nevertheless, for knowledge to be advantageous for the organization, it needs to be shared. Understanding the conditions under which individuals would be more likely to share their knowledge with other individuals becomes important. The purpose of this research work was twofold. The first purpose was to explore how breadth of skills, task experience, and group experience affect knowledge transfer within an organization and among organizations. The second objective was to explore how certain environmental attributes facilitate or hinder knowledge transfer among different organizations. A simulation model based on constructural theory (Carley, 1990, 1991) was implemented. The results showed a significant effect of organizational structure on the amount of total knowledge transferred with and without turnover, with the fully-connected structure as the most beneficial for knowledge transferred, while the hierarchical structure was the most restrictive. Skill characteristics (generalist or specialist) had a significant effect