Input friendly intranets

Hazel Hall - Napier University

Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000

Hazel Hall

Senior Lecturer in Information Management

School of Computing

Napier University

h.hall@napier.ac.uk

Sharing is important to efforts in Knowledge Management

Employees with straightforward access to common resources

• execute routine tasks quickly• aggregate information innovation in working

practices/product design/service delivery• are less vulnerable to information loss

Tools for information sharing

• browsers• data warehouses• filters• intranets• process handbooks• software agents• yield management software

Intranets as key platforms for information sharing

• common resources for support of personal work, e.g. time sheets, travel bookings

• integration of key business applications and tools• resources and “places”, e.g. shared databases, discussion

space• sharing may extend beyond the organisation, e.g. extranet

“shop window”

Intranet dependencies

• An intranet is an infrastructure.• An intranet’s business value is contingent on resources and

applications made available.• Some resources and applications can be bought, e.g.

conferencing software, access to commercial online services.• Unique internally produced resources must be sought from

individuals and teams.

Research on motivating knowledge sharing and intranets

• priority area for knowledge research (Holsthouse, 1998)• addresses KM research questions about teams

• “input friendliness” depends largely on organisational incentives

• literature reviewed from domains of business studies, information systems, organisational science and sociology

• (limited) case study material

Motivations to act happens when:

• it is easy to do so• the usefulness of acting is obvious

This is not a new research finding!

Easy to act: intranet interfaces

• HCI and systems design standards apply• channels for information flow important: dedicated mailboxes;

speech input; requirement for all staff to become proficient in HTML

• integration of tools into communities to match levels of formality to elicit high quality contributions (Brown and Duguid, 1998)

• levels of “control”

Usefulness of acting is obvious: intranet critical mass

Dilemma

There’s no point in submitting material to the intranet: no one uses it.

Dilemma

There’s no point in submittingmaterial to the intranet: no one uses it.

I don’t use the intranet. There’s nothing of use to me there.

“Output” friendliness

• PR efforts: promotion of services; cross linking; indexing for search services

• sole platform for content and applications• realistic expectations of use, e.g. pointer systems

Finding of Cap Gemini and Cranfield University (1999)

“The critical mass has to appear in three key areas - users (success can only come from people using the intranet), content (there has to be ever-more useful and relevant material available) and utilisation (the extent to which users are connected per day).”

Finding of Cap Gemini and Cranfield University (1999)

“The critical mass has to appear in three key areas - users (success can only come from people using the intranet), content (there has to be ever-more useful and relevant material available) and utilisation (the extent to which users are connected per day)… a minimum of around 40% of potential users need to connect to the intranet for real value generation to begin.”

Motivating knowledge sharing: broader issues

• Providing good interfaces and establishing critical mass are just two issues to consider.

• Creation of other more general enabling conditions is also important.

Enabling condition 1: environments that make knowledge sharing a key responsibility of staff

Knowledge sharing is more likely to be encouraged in staff who:

• know that it’s a job requirement: acquire expertise and disseminate it

• know that it’s a legitimate activity

Enabling condition 1: environments that make knowledge sharing a key responsibility of staff

• encouraged through pro-active training, project debriefings, mentoring, assisting etc.

• case study examples, e.g. Citibank - not until specific responsibilities were assigned to particular individuals were contributions to the online knowledge base elicited

Enabling condition 2: environments that promote communities for knowledge sharing

• Cultures that place high value on personal technical expertise and knowledge creation are less likely to provide conditions conducive to knowledge sharing.

• Community strength comes through strong ties and shared social capital: norms, obligations, trust and identity.

• Identity derives from common purpose and aspirations to which group members are committed.

• carrot of continued vitality of the group• stick of obligation to the group• commitment invigorates the community

trust - sharing (input) - sense of community

Intranet checks

• degrees of input control, e.g. location and branding of input• willingness to accept/reject lurkers

Enabling condition 3: environments that promote experimentation for knowledge sharing

Importance of experimentation in Knowledge Management activity

• “distinctly new knowledge comes from experimenting” (Fahey and Prusak, 1998)

• “non-experimentation” simply reinforces, refines and sharpens what is already known

• employees emboldened in environments that permit experimentation

Enabling condition 3: environments that promote experimentation for knowledge sharing

Intranet checks

• status consciousness in the online environment• facilities for anonymity

Motivation to act: rewards

Knowledge management strategies need to be linked to people by building reward and recognition programmes.

Motivation to act: rewards

Knowledge management strategies need to be linked to people by building reward and recognition programmes.

Develop an appropriate reward system and incentive scheme to get the message across that knowledge and learning are crucial.

Motivation to act: “hard” rewards

Economic incentives

• increased pay• bonuses• stock options

Employees will seek ways to input, but some research shows “short-termism” in this activity.

Motivation to act: “soft” rewards

Access to information and knowledge

• receipt of valuable knowledge in return for giving it, e.g. Toyota network (Dyer and Nobeoka, 2000).

• anticipated return may be far in the future e.g. news groups and mailing lists

Ease of intranet access is important to reap reward.

Career advancement/security/reputation

• partnerships in professional consulting firms• tenure/promotion in academic institutions• future contracts for partner firms

Resource ownership and protection of this needs to be made obvious across the intranet.

Personal satisfaction through:

• acts of altruistic and pro-social behaviour• seeing results of altruistic and pro-social behaviour

Some conclusions

• Input friendliness is not limited to “obvious” issues of interface design.

• “Output” friendliness is important, especially to create critical mass.

• Incentives and reward systems have their part to play, but further research is needed to assess which type of incentives are the most effective.

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