CCT 355: E-Business TechnologiesClass 4: Information/Knowledge Management Systems

Administration• Check your presentation date• Case study questions? • Should be a narrative – not an information/interview dump –

what would your audience (e.g., me) think interesting about what you learned in your conversation?

• Consider this similar to a biographical piece in business/popular press literature – a compelling story about their work challenges – more why and how than simple fact dumps

• Due next week – hard copy in class please • Pam’s lecture on Sheridan IS context – now next week

An overview of KM• Remember data, information, knowledge, wisdom?• KM systems exist between info -> knowledge – repositories

and channels to coordinate information to create knowledge

A multitude of information channels…• Example: you’re new at your job – how do you learn how to

do it well?

1st generation KM• 1st generation – technology centered – focused on data

architecture, access, rights management, etc. • Basically, build a database and release it • Would also include explicit training systems – e.g., computer-

based tutorials, etc. • Problems with this approach?

Information and Organizational Politics• Collective ownership of information complicated • Orlikowski’s Lotus Notes case – consultants resisted sharing in

knowledge database• Carrots v. sticks – can you compel people to share knowledge?

UX Issues• UX = User eXperience • Early KM systems roots in CS/digital libraries – made sense to

information scientists, few others• Difficult UI/UX = frustrations in adoption and use and negative

attitudes to use

Information Overload• KM = too much of a good thing?• Knowing everything is not possible or pragmatic - information

shutdown usually the result of trying• Coping mechanisms?

Information Sharing/Access/Control

• KM systems can and do limit access• Access limitations often make sense, sometimes don’t –

examples?• Establishing proper levels of access and workflow a concern

Towards a 2nd Generation of KM• Constructivist approach – knowledge as embedded in social

and cultural reality, grows from that. • Understanding benefits and consequences of knowledge

sharing• Accounting for incentives for sharing – intrinsic and extrinsic• Promoting multiple channels of learning

Tacit and Explicit Knowledge Sources

• Explicit knowledge – recorded information, can be transferred with relative ease

• Tacit knowledge – “know how” or “know why” – built from experience, cannot be easily captured and transferred

• Examples?• Databases fine for explicit information – but do you facilitate

tacit knowledge sharing?

Nonaka and Takeuchi: SECI

SECI Process• Socialization – beginning of transfer of tacit knowledge• Externalization – conversion to explicit form• Combination – integration/synthesis of other explicit

information pieces into new information reources• Internalization – re-embodiment of new knowledge as

standard practice• Cyclical process moving up from individual to group

knowledge• Social and constructivist foundations – all about interaction

and sharing in context

Nonaka and Takeuchi: “ba”

Ba?• Somewhat of an art – context and its manipulation to create a

positive ecology/environment for information sharing• Originating – where people share stories• Interacting – a more consciously designed structure of social

interaction, transfer of tacit stories to explicit knowledge• Cyber/systemizing – role of IT in integrating explicit knowledge• Exercising – synthetic application and return to information

sharing environment

Information and Time• Information sometimes decays over time• Old information can even frustrate current interpretation• But information about past can be valuable• Examples?

KM in fluid contexts• In high-turnover domains (examples?), information transfer

especially complicated• Often a consistent need to share organizational experience

and realities with new entrants, very difficult at times to capture or share information of departing members

Example: FSAE• Teams make small formula style racecar• 500 teams worldwide (including many in Japan, and a local

competition!)

Local Challenges at Cornell• KM challenges – 2000 reports – how to access?• Database a failure – why? • Google solution – great but impossible at time (now, different

story)• Decided to work on creating/maintaining ba instead –

establishing a culture of learning• *very* high turnover raised challenges – maintaining success

over five years difficult

A Conflict Between Serious Leisure and Organizational Structure?• Serious leisure (Stebbins, 2007) – voluntary activities pursued

by intensely and intrinsically motivated individuals who have a strong connection and self-identity with the activity

• How to bridge from serious leisure context to a knowing organization?

• “We are in danger of becoming the best organized 35th place team in history.” – tensions between creative and intrinsic impulse and the need for organization

• A delicate balance… you need both!

Activity Theory

Activity Theory• Historical foundations – human activity mediated by social and

cultural factors in dialectical fashion• A complex model for information studies (e.g., Nardi, 1996)• AT triangle – (Engestrom, 1987)• Not stable, but fashioned by contradictions – multiple possible

points of conflict and contradiction that need to be resolved to achieve activity

Conflict within components

X

Conflict between components

X

Conflict over time

Year 1

Year 2

X

Conflicts between competing activites

X