input friendly intranets
DESCRIPTION
Hazel Hall's presentation at Knowledge Management in an Age of Networks, Redwood House, Edinburgh, 27 October 2000. The content of this presentation was developed into a journal article accessible from http://www.knowledgeboard.com/lib/3259, and a conference paper available from http://www.slideshare.net/HazelHall/devising-intranet-incentives-rewards-and-conditions-for-knowledge-exchange. The material presented here draws on early work for Hazel Hall's PhD, the full details of which are available from http://hazelhall.org/publications/phd-the-knowledge-trap-an-intranet-implementation-in-a-corporate-environment/TRANSCRIPT
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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
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Tools for information sharing
• browsers• data warehouses• filters• intranets• process handbooks• software agents• yield management software
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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”
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Motivations to act happens when:
• it is easy to do so• the usefulness of acting is obvious
This is not a new research finding!
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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”
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Usefulness of acting is obvious: intranet critical mass
Dilemma
There’s no point in submitting material to the intranet: no one uses it.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Usefulness of acting is obvious: intranet critical mass
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.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Usefulness of acting is obvious: intranet critical mass
“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
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Usefulness of acting is obvious: intranet critical mass
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).”
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Usefulness of acting is obvious: intranet critical mass
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.”
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Enabling condition 2: environments that promote communities for knowledge sharing
• carrot of continued vitality of the group• stick of obligation to the group• commitment invigorates the community
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Enabling condition 2: environments that promote communities for knowledge sharing
trust - sharing (input) - sense of community
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Enabling condition 2: environments that promote communities for knowledge sharing
Intranet checks
• degrees of input control, e.g. location and branding of input• willingness to accept/reject lurkers
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Enabling condition 3: environments that promote experimentation for knowledge sharing
Intranet checks
• status consciousness in the online environment• facilities for anonymity
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Motivation to act: rewards
Knowledge management strategies need to be linked to people by building reward and recognition programmes.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Motivation to act: “soft” rewards
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.
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
Motivation to act: “soft” rewards
Personal satisfaction through:
• acts of altruistic and pro-social behaviour• seeing results of altruistic and pro-social behaviour
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Input friendly intranets
Hazel Hall - Napier University
Knowledge Management in an Age of NetworksRedwood House, Edinburgh - 27th October 2000
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.