Study 2
Study 1
Focus on Sharing
Explicit Knowledge
• A total of 62 business
students (24 from one class
at a large American
university, 27 from one class
at a large Chinese university,
and 11 from one class at a
large Peru university)
• Students were assigned
into 19 virtual teams (3-4
students in each team). They
were asked to complete four
assignments within a month.
The first two days were used
for team members to talk to
teammates through various
communications tools to
enhance acquaintance. They
were then instructed to
complete one assignment in
each of the following four
weeks. Each assignment
involved writing a 2-3 page
short paper. The paper
topics included: (1) How
does information technology
make companies more
competitive? (2) How has
social networking evolved in
our countries? (3) How has
the economic crisis
influenced the world? (4)
How have terrorism/terror
threats influenced Tourism
worldwide?
November 3, 2010
Assist Students Share Explicit and Tacit
Knowledge in Global Virtual Teams
Yajiong Xue, Brenda Killingsworth, Huigang Liang
MIS Dept, College of Business
Explicit vs. Tacit Knowledge
Explicit knowledge:
• Codified knowledge articulated in words, figures, and numbers
• Objective, and relatively easy to share in the form of specifications,
standard operating procedures, and data
Tacit knowledge:
• Knowledge that has not been codified and is relatively difficult to
codify
• Subjective and based on individual experiences
Virtual Teams
Groups of individuals who work across time, space, and
organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of
communication technology
Our Approach
The demand for improving students’ teamwork and leadership skills in
global virtual teams is growing as organizations continue seeking
talents, regardless of region. To better help ECU students prepare for
this increasing demand, we designed two different studies in our
teaching using both synchronous and asynchronous technologies. In
study 1, we facilitated students’ sharing of explicit knowledge by
completing short-answer questions. In study 2, we requested students
to share mainly tacit knowledge by working on case studies.
Technologies
• Synchronous communication tools: Video conferencing, Centra,
Voicethread, Skype, Online Chart, etc.
• Asynchronous communication tools: Online Discussion Forum,
Email, etc.
Focus on Sharing
Tacit Knowledge
• A total of 53 business
students (29 from one class
at a large Chinese university
and 24 from one class at a
large American university)
participated in this study.
• The students were
assigned into 11 virtual
teams (4-7 students in each
team). They were given
approximately 3 weeks to
work on two assignments.
Team members got
acquainted with each other
in the first week, and then
completed two case
assignments in the next two
weeks. The case
assignments requested the
students to identify the
critical success factors of
Dell and Amazon.
Authors’ Affiliation
Department of Management
Information Systems,
College of Business
http://www.ecu.edu/csbus/decisionsciences.cfm