The use of social software for Knowledge Management in

globally distributed settings

Jan Pawlowski & Henri PirkkalainenGlobal Information Systems group

Global Information Systems

Mission StatementCreating and validating new solutions for Information Systems in a global context - this includes the support of individuals and organizations to improve competitiveness, performance, and mutual understanding

TopicsDesigning work and learning processes in globally distributed organizations Design & development methods for global information systems Culture analysis and awareness Support tools for knowledge intensive processes in global organizations ICT4D: ICT for development E-Learning and knowledge management in global organizations

Global Information Systems, University of Jyväskylä The Team

Kati Clements

Denis Kozlov

Jan M. Pawlowski

Philipp HoltkampHenri Pirkkalainen

Twitter feedback channel

#GSKM12

You can provide feedback and ask questions regarding our part and the research topics

through Twitter

Knowledge Management in Global Settings

Social Software – Vocabulary in IS field?

Starting point for global inspection - Barriers

Focus in KM – what has been studied and how?

Towards unexplored research territories

Social Software for KM: Contents

A first question

What is common knowledge?

Sauna: German instructions

Sauna: American instructions

Sauna: Finnish instructions

Related Concepts (modified, North, 1998)

Symbol

Data

Information

Knowledge

Skill

Competence

Competitiveness

+syntax

+meaning

+applying to new settings

+use

+context

+ uniqueness

Definition: Knowledge Management

“Knowledge management is defined as the management function responsible for the regular selection, implementation and evaluation of goal-oriented knowledge strategies that aim at improving an organization’s way of handling knowledge internal and external to the organization in order to improve organizational performance. The implementation of knowledge strategies comprises all person-oriented, organizational and technological instruments suitable to dynamically optimize the organization-wide level of competencies, education and ability to learn of the members of the organization as well as to develop collective intelligence.“ (Maier 2002)

”Planned and ongoing management of activities and processes for leveraging knowledge to enhance competitiveness through better use and creation of individual and collective knowledge resources.” (CEN 2004)

A first question…

Why is Knowledge a Global Success

Factor?

Just a simple product?

Business Process Management in a Networked Business

ProcessingB

Sales

IT Services

Management

R&D

Marketing

Material FlowKnowledge/ Information / Data Flow

Marketing

Marketing

Marketing

Sales

Sales

ProcessingA

R&D

IT Services

Production

Some random questions…

Decision questions– Where to produce?– How to build partnerships (joint ventures, contractors, …)– Which systems to exchange knowledge?

Operational questions– How to process wood?– When will the next shipment arrive?– How to market the product in Japan?– How to explain the concept and advantages of Finnish

saunas?– How to find the main problems of customers?– Which are import and safety regulations?

This means…

Knowledge is a key to global success

Global KM managers need to understand the value chain and knowledge requirements

Global KM managers need to understand knowledge processes and culture

Global KM managers are the main hubs for smooth operations in production and service enterprises

Which kind of IS support is promising or proven successful?

Summary

Knowledge as a critical success factor

Knowledge management to support businesses

Global aspects – Understanding the context– Process design– Systems and tool support– Cultural aspects

Social Software as a promising tool to combine human- and technology-orientation– Which tools for which context?– How to overcome cultural differences?– How to embed tools?

Social Software?

Social Software

“Social Software enables an interactive way of collaboration, managing content and connecting to online networks with other people. It supports the desire of users to be pulled into groups in

order to achieve their personal goals” (Wever, Mechant, Veevaete & Hauttekeete 2007)

Social Software

4 Cs of Social Software

Cook, N. Enterprise 2.0: How Social Software Will Change the Future of Work, UK:Gover, 2008.

Intertwined terminologies!

Social Media

(Zheng et al. 2010)

Groupware

Message systems

Multiuser editors

Group decision support systems (GDSSs)

Computer conferencing systems

Shared information spaces

Workflow management/coordination systems

…Much older approach in the IS research

Ellis, Gibbs & Rein 1991)

Ellis C.A., Gibbs S.J. & Rein C.L. 1991. Groupware: Some issues and experiences. Communications of the ACM 34 (1), 39 – 58.

Collaboration tools

Onyechi & Abeisinghe 2009

Refs to Social Media, Social Software, Groupware, Web 2.0…

Web 2.0

Often explained as the combination of methods and techniques on which Social Media is based on

Still used in IT literacy

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

What do you focus on when addressing Social Software?

Research Trends IConstructive / Design-oriented research– Tools to improve knowledge exchange and distribution

Do we really understand how global KM works: Qualitative Research– Understanding which influence factors and relations emerge in

global settings– For example: Barriers to KM (why and how)

Relating and quantifying: Quantitative Research– Understanding behavior in KM settings– E.g. ISSM, TAM, KM Success Model

• What type of relations, how strong, cause-effect etc.• Applied for example in Social networking studies, also Web 2.0 focus

Barriers?

Discussed from the viewpoint of an individual or group of people

Can relate to social interaction and as an example to factors that hinder or challenge knowledge exchange

Might relate to challenges and risks when adopting or using a specific technology

Challenges set by diverse workers, hierarchies and cultural influences within an organization

In many cases tied to a specific context

Can be presented as a wider concept “cultural distance” …or as a question that is formed from the problem,

“How to reward contribution?”…

Barriers

“Knowledge Islands”

=

Dependent on businessprocess and project

+

Location, time, culture and language

+

Organizationaland hierarchical

Success factors - barriers

Critical Success Factors (CSF)

The relation between a barrier and success factor not always clear

…not always counter balanced in a way that overcoming a barrier means a success

…not all success factors can be derived from barriers

Barriers are a starting point to understand success factors within a specific context

Geographical dispersion of individualsCSF

“set meeting schedules and rules of engagement” “conduct periodic face-to-face meetings”

Success FactorsHolistic, integrated and standardized approach– KM integrated within culture, coordination, and leadership – Consider relationships and interdependencies – Avoid isolated solutions, e. g., different, incompatible communication systems, no

standards, different knowledge processes,– Knowledge processes and ICT platforms for KM should be standardized

throughout the organization and integrated with the existing business processes.

Knowledge-oriented culture– Supportive organizational culture – Open and communicative atmosphere – Supporting a knowledge-oriented culture through e. g., communication of success

stories and best practices, through the acceptance of errors a s well as promoting individual responsibility

Management support – Top management to strategic knowledge goals, allocate sufficient budgets to the

KM initiative– Providing good example for the change of behavior – A knowledge champion can act as a coordinator for management support as well

as key speaker and motivator for the initiative.

Instruments

Context. Organization / Individuals

Relation of concepts

Pirkkalainen & Pawlowski 2012

Barriers Social Software

(Pirkkalainen & Pawlowski 2012)

… 119 barriers from the literature

Barriers

Very much discussed at the moment

Same barriers discussed under different terminology

(Social Software, Social Media etc.)

Related to knowledge sharing, group collaboration etc.

Higher Education, Business and IT, B2B…

At the moment trying to recognize relevant barriers. No clear context-aware understanding of the biggest problems

Social Software

Financial (resources, time)

Social Software

Management/Coordination/supportTechnology fit

Organizational cultureSocial

Relational, knowledge sharing, skills, cognitive, background, preferences

TechnicalAvailability, Interoperability, Functionality, Usability, conceptual, privacy/security, misuse

Quality Legal (IPR, copyright)

Barriers

KM Barriers

(Pirkkalainen & Pawlowski 2012)

KM barriers

The bottleneck usually knowledge sharing

Common ways of categorization (if categorized at all)

Individual, organizational, technological (Riege 2005)

Individual, social (Disterer 2001)

(Individual: Loss of Power, Revelation, Uncertainty, Motivation Social: Language, Conflict avoidance, bureucracy and Hierarchy, Incoherent paradigms)

Individual, social (Bures 2003)

Knowledge sharing barriersBarrier Description

Lack of interpersonal trust

Level of trust in a company, between its sub-units, and its employees seems to have a direct influence on the communication flow and thus the amount of knowledge sharing (Riege, 2005)

Lack of opportunities for sharing (resources, time, networks, infrastructures)

Appropriate infrastructure and resources to facilitate sharing practices within and between functional areas is the basis of a successful KM (Schlegelmilch and Chini, 2003)

How to reward contribution and encourage information sharing

Managers many have to force people to transform their organisation into knowledge-embracing cultures. No matter which reward and recognition system is chosen (Riege, 2005)

Lack of motivation to share

Sharing only if it’s important to their work, if they feel encouraged to share and learn, or if they wish to support a certain colleague (Wheatley, 2000)

Fear of harming his or her image if sharing

Fear that sharing may reduce or jeopardise people’s job’s security or even employee’s corporate position

“Knowledge is power” - Loss of Power through Sharing

By providing knowledge to the colleague, the exclusivity of influence is reduced (Bures, 2003)

Pirkkalainen & Pawlowski 2012

Global barriers

…long traditions!

Global IS barriersBarrier Description

Cultural and language distance

Do the collaborators share the same language, skills as well as cultural norms, corporate culture, interpretations etc. Most occurred barrier in Noll et al, (2010) analysis on collaboration barriers in GSD.

Geographical distance

Distributed collaboration (within a country or cross-border). Third most occurred barrier in Noll et al, (2010) analysis on collaboration barriers in GSD.

Temporal distance Distributed collaboration (Time-zone differences). Second most occurred barrier in Noll et al, (2010) analysis on collaboration barriers in GSD.

Lack of trust Geographic, temporal, and cultural distance have a significant impact on trust among globally distributed team members (Noll et al, 2010)

Infrastructure In distributed collaboration teams and employees must rely on technology to support the communication (Noll et al, 2010)

Pirkkalainen & Pawlowski 2012

Methodology to capture barriersDifferent approaches depending on the discipline and maturity of the field

KM

Observation, ethnographic approachesRelying on the rigor of the researcher

The main authors often experts with long history in the field

ExperiencesDocumented best practices, policies

Also combined approaches applying interviews and surveys within specific organizations

Global factors

Long traditions, identification turned to concrete context specific understanding

Social Software

Depending what is analyzed (adoption, influencing factors for sharing, usability etc.)

Expert interviews, surveys, lab testing etc.

Research trend II - Merging research orientations and disciplines

Social Software in Knowledge Management

Individuals, process/culture, technology

In many cases generalizing the purpose of Social Software/media unnecessarily

E.g. “social media is essentially a social networking site, with subscribing”

Support of Social Software for different levels of KM: Knowledge evolution, knowledge use/reuse, knowledge sharing/transfer

Not to replace but to support?

Are we discussing a specific service

or about the web in general?

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/03/knowledge-management-social-media.html

“it’s the interaction with customers that social media provides”

http://phoneboy.com/2535/knowledge-management-and-social-media

Social Software in Knowledge Management

http://www.jeffhester.net/2011/02/22/social-media-and-knowledge-management/

Social networking as awareness support for Knowledge Management (Groth 2002)

Social Software in Knowledge Management

Social Software in KM

“Web as a platform”

“basis for social media”

The research is linked to Enterprise 2.0

Web 2.0

Enterprise 2.0

Collaboration

Awareness

Documentation

Customer engagement

Interaction with stakeholders

…

Social Software

in KM

Research trends III

Analyzing the cultural, organizational, and individual context

Identifying barriers and potential success factors

Choosing and creating solutions (=interventions / methods)– Aligned with strategies and processes– Addressing barriers– Involving all stakeholders– Not overloading people– Choosing and creating solutions (=interventions / methods)

Utilizing barrier-knowledge in KM processes

Social Software in KM activities and tasks

Not all tools are meant to support all knowledge steps/tasks

Identifying

Collection, modification, collaboration

Annotation

Sharing, awareness

Knowledge Management Tasks creation, building, anticipation or

generation acquisition, appropriation or

adoption identification, capture, articulation or

extraction collection, gathering or accumulation (legally) securing conversion organization, linking and embedding formalization storage refinement or development distribution, diffusion, transfer or

sharing presentation or formatting application, deploying or exploiting review, revision or evolution of

knowledge

Source: (Maier, 2004)

Supporting processesSocial Software

Maier & Remus (2003) Implementing process-oriented knowledge management strategies

Process: Push Knowledge ID Category Process Description

KM process Push Knowledge Pushing knowledge to relevant audiences (within the organization)

Sub-processes/ aspects

• Training of Social networking use• Benefit workshop • Good practice reporting • Wiki entry• Notification

Objective • To activate knowledge flow by sharing relevant information• Identifying necessary channels to ensure awareness

Constraints • Informal / formal networks and communities • Barrier: Lack of conceptual understanding • Barrier: Technology fitness to task• Barrier: Unwillingness to share

Method • Awareness building activities / training •Relation of content and skill management • GP reporting

Systems • Social networking service (internal)• Wiki (closed)

Actors • Employee / staff member / knowledge carrier, IT support, manager

From barriers to decisions

Utilizing barrier-knowledge for different purposes

KM projects

KM activities in general

Choosing/evaluating technologies for KM

Designing and developing technologies

Who takes actions on these? Roles and responsibilities?

KM activities & instrumentsBarrier-knowledge

Maier & Remus (2003) Implementing process-oriented knowledge management strategies

Knowledge management starter

Potential case for recognizing and analyzing barriers

Initiation of KM in an organization, potentiality, awareness, barriers and knowledge gaps

Barrier-knowledge

Support in selection of technologies

Recognizing the barriers crucial for decision process– Differences in usage of Social Software (networking,

collaborative work etc.)

Criteria to evaluate against must be clear (needs)– How do you identify– Preferences, interoperability, security etc.

Reacting vs. proacting– Changing traditions and tools after the damage is done?– Clear conceptual understanding before technologies are

introduced to the organization?

Evaluating technologies

Different tools, different criteria– Required skills, Usability, maintenance, cost, privacy,

extensibility, functionality etc.

Context-dependent

Approaches vary from formal to informal

Applied by an expert, consultant

Applied by IT department, manager,

assigned person/ group

Creating technologies

What are the needs? Could existing tools be utilized? Any software packages (open source) available? How to integrate to existing systems…

How to ensure that users are part of the design process?

Key users, preferences, cultural distance

Wide variety of aspects /influences to be taken in to account. Recognizing barriers crucial for the analysis

Focus points for research

Ranging from smaller to large research activities

Distributed teams (local to global, small vs massive)– What type of challenges they face in their work– How could Social Software support / how should it be

integrated to the working activities / how to ensure adoption / how could it bridge the gap to other communities or collaborators/competitors

• For example analyzing where do the collaborators or relevant stakeholders interact (European projects one perfect example).

– Setting clear Social Software policy that differentiates between internal/external work, customer relations etc.

Thank You

Contact Information

Prof. Dr. Jan M. Pawlowskijan.pawlowski@jyu.fiSkype: jan_m_pawlowskiOffice: Room 514.2Telephone +358 14 260 2596http://users.jyu.fi/~japawlow

Henri Pirkkalainenhenri.j.pirkkalainen@jyu.fiOffice: Room 511.1Telephone +358 400247684