This paper argues that the value of external knowledge sharing increases when work groups are more structurally diverse. A structurally diverse work group is one in which the members, by virtue of their different organizational affiliations, roles, or positions, can expose the group to unique sources of knowledge. It is hypothesized that if members of structurally diverse work groups engage in external knowledge sharing, their performance will improve because of this active exchange of knowledge through unique external sources. A field study of 182 work groups in a Fortune 500 telecommunications firm operationalizes structural diversity as member differences in geographic locations, functional assignments, reporting managers, and business units, as indicated by corporate database records. External knowledge sharing was measured with group member surveys and performance was assessed using senior executive ratings. Ordered logit analyses showed that external knowledge sharing was more strongly associated with performance when work groups were more structurally diverse. Implications for theory and practice around the integration of work groups and social networks are addressed

The outsourced software development process has traditionally relied on a requirements-driven black-box approach for transferring knowledge of customer needs to vendors. When this approach is feasible, the need for the customer and the vendor to deeply understand each others ’ knowledge domain is limited. We describe this as symmetric division of knowledge. However, asymmetric overlaps in knowledge are necessary at the vendor-customer boundary in projects involving conceptual or process newness. In this study, we examine the conditions under which overlaps in knowledge at the vendor-customer boundary are necessary for enhancing the development process in outsourcing relationships. We develop and test a model using data collected in a large-scale field study of 209 software projects in 209 software development organizations belonging to three of the largest global software consortia. The study makes three contributions: (1) we empirically demonstrate that it is more important for a vendor to possess a higher level of business knowledge in conceptually new projects and for the customer to have a higher level of technical knowledge when the project involves process newness, (2) we assess the effectiveness of various integrating mechanisms, and (3) we show that there are potential downsides to blindly increasing vendor-customer overlaps in knowledge beyond those that have traditionally characterized software development.

Abstract. In this paper, we report our work on developing and evaluating a prototype system aimed at addressing the information monitoring and sharing challenges in the law enforcement domain. Our system, called COPLINK Agent, is designed to provide automatic information filtering and monitoring functionalities. This system also supports knowledge sharing by proactively identifying officers who are working on the same or similar cases on a real-time basis. To accommodate the mobile needs of law enforcement officers who are constantly in the field, COPLINK Agent can deliver messages through a variety of communications channels including e-mail, pager, and mobile phones. In order to assess the effectiveness of COPLINK Agent, we conducted a pilot user study at the Tucson Police Department. Overall, COPLINK Agent was shown to be an effective tool for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of criminal investigations in crimes such as gang, theft, and fraud. 1

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We describe the design and evaluation of K-net, a social matching system to help people learn 'who knows what ' in an organization by matching people with skills with those who need them. Transactive memory theory predicts that K-net will improve individuals ' awareness of 'who knows what'. This should lead to improved performance through sharing knowledge across group boundaries. We evaluate K-net in terms of these predictions in an experiment with 41 students in seven groups working on software engineering projects. Accurate recommendations improved awareness of 'who knows what ' versus 'random' recommendations, but did not improve performance. Our results highlight issues related to the evaluation of systems for sharing knowledge across group boundaries.

We examine the drivers of diffusion of information through organizations and the effects on performance. In particular, we ask: What predicts the likelihood of an individual becoming aware of a strategic piece of information, or becoming aware of it sooner? Do different types of information exhibit different diffusion patterns, and do different characteristics of social structure, relationships and individuals in turn affect access to different kinds of information? Does better access to information predict an individual’s ability to complete projects or generate revenue? We hypothesize that the dual effects of content and structure jointly predict the diffusion path of information, and ultimately performance. To test our hypotheses, we characterize the social network of a medium sized executive recruiting firm using accounting data on project co-work relationships and ten months of email traffic observed over two five month periods. We identify two distinct types of information diffusing over this network – ‘event news ’ and ‘discussion topics ’ – by their usage characteristics, and observe several thousand diffusion processes of each type of information from their original first use to their varied recipients over time. We then test the effects of network structure and functional and demographic characteristics of dyadic relationships on the likelihood of receiving each type of information and receiving it more quickly. Our results demonstrate that the diffusion of news, characterized by a spike in communication and rapid, pervasive diffusion through the organization, is influenced by demographic and

Although white collar work is of vast importance to the economy, the Operations Management (OM) literature has focused largely on traditional blue collar work. In an effort to stimulate more OM research into the design, control and management of white collar work systems, this paper provides a systematic review of disparate streams of research relevant to understanding white collar work from an operations perspective. Our review classifies research according to its relevance to white collar work at individual, team and organizational levels. By examining the literature in the context of this framework, we identify gaps in our understanding of white collar work which suggest promising research directions.

Sociotechnical systems theory (STS), a theory that originated in studies of mechanization in British coal mines, holds that work processes consist of two separate dimensions, one social, the other technical. The main tenant of STS is the principle of joint optimization – that is, the dimensions are reciprocally interdependent and must be designed conjointly. Although it has been intuitively appealing to conceptualize work processes along two dimensions, equivocal outcomes in STS research suggests there may be additional dimensions. In the context of IT-intensive reengineering projects, we examine the extent to which the technical dimension, the social dimension, and their reciprocal interdependence explain variance in project performance. Project performance is captured with an objective measure of IT-related project delay (IT-delay) and a subjective measure of client satisfaction. We find that neither the main effects nor the interaction effect significantly explains IT-delay or client satisfaction. Allowing for additional dimensions in our empirical analysis, however, we find that elements of functional-knowledge that were embedded in the initial technical dimension emerge as a separate dimension. Although the main effects of the technical, social and functional-knowledge dimensions do not

We address how organizational practices may leverage the knowledge absorption from users in the context of innovation. We focus on practices that enhance communication and knowledge sharing between management and employees and between departments, and on pecuniary rewards for engaging in knowledge sharing. Such practices leverage knowledge absorption and lead to higher innovative capacity. Thus, we identify some of the organizational dimensions of absorptive capacity that are needed to benefit from the “user innovation model ” and provide quantitative support for the propositions put forward. The paper draws on a survey of 169 Danish private firms. The survey was implemented in 2001 among a sample of the 1000 largest Danish manufacturing and service firms. I.

The paper addresses reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) from foreign subsidiary to parent company. Specifically, it aims at investigating to what extent the effectiveness of such a transfer is influenced by: (i) the organizational mechanisms employed for transferring knowledge; (ii) the subsidiary’s role, its autonomy, and its relationships with the local context. The empirical analysis considers 162 transfers of best practices possessed by foreign subsidiaries and transferred back to their Italian parent companies. Results confirm that the impact of RKT on the parent company’s innovativeness is greater when: (i) person-based mechanisms are employed for transferring knowledge; (ii) subsidiaries are competence-creating; and (iii) knowledge developed by subsidiaries benefits from local external linkages. Key words: External linkages, organizational mechanisms, parent company’s innovativeness, reverse knowledge transfer, subsidiary’s characteristics.