Z514: Social Aspects of IT
Week 7
The CSCW View of Knowledge
Management (Ackerman, et al., 2013)
 1st generation: the repository model (i.e., knowledge
sharing)
 Social context
 Boundary objects and other knowledge sharing objects
 Common information spaces
 Assemblies
 2nd generation: sharing expertise through communication
 Community of Practice
 Social Capital
Boundary Objects
 Boundary objects, or shared objects that facilitate bridging
across different groups and assist the intersecting of different
communities of practice (Star and Ruhleder 1995), are used
when crossing boundaries to communicate with people who
belong to different groups and have various backgrounds
(Star and Griesemer 1989).
Boundary Objects
 Boundary objects as boundary negotiation artifacts (Lee,
2007)
 1) Self-explanation Artifacts privately used for “learning,
recording, organizing, remembering, and reflecting” (p.319),
e.g., notes, sketches, and journals;
 2) Inclusion Artifacts used for developing “alliances with
sympathetic communities of practice” (p.321);
 3) Compilation Artifacts applied to cultivating shared meaning;
4) Structuring Artifacts employed to “coordinate media and
understand” (p.330), but are frequently used when conflicts are
found between two communities of practice; and
 5) Borrowed Artifacts that are appropriated from one
community to the other.
Where Did KM Come From? (Prusak,
2001)
 Intellectual antecedents
 Economics
 Intellectual capital
 Non-tangible asset (i.e., social capital)
 Sociology
 Studies of communities
 Social learning
 Psychology
 Learning mechanism
 Philosophy
 Epistemology (c.f., Knorr-Cetina)
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5386951&tag=1
The Social Construction of KM
 Who manages/sells/develops KM regimes?
 Consultants
 Software developers
 Managers (human resources)
What Does the Job Market Look Like?
 520 (449 in 2012; 610 in 2011; 313 in 2009; 826 in 2007;
543 in 2005) postings in KM jobs found at
www.monster.com
 C.f., 760 (696 in 2012; 742 in 2011; 272 in 2009; 717 in 2007;
378 in 2005) postings of information architecture; more than
1000 postings of usability; database administration; system
analysis
Travel of KM Discourses
 Business press & IT trade journals
 60,664 articles in factiva mention KM (as of 3/22/07)

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










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In 1988, 3 references, 2 to hypertext ZOG/KMS
In 1989, 13 references, mostly regarding DB
In 1990, 17/18 references, as expert systems & DB
In 1991, 18 references
In 1992, 38 references
In 1993, 36 references
In 1994, 61 references
In 1995, 97 references
in 1996, 339 references
In 1997, 1374 references, strategic management
In 1998, 4415 references
In 1999, 7907 references
In 2000, 9597 references
In 2001, 9907 references
KM Popularity (Search on Factiva)
12000
9597
Number of Articles
10000
7907
8000
9907
8020
6233
6000
5743
5125
4415
4656
4000
2000
1374
3
13
17
18
38
36
61
97 339
0
88 89 90 91 92 93 9 94 9 95 9 96 9 97 9 98 9 99 0 00 0 01 0 02 0 03 0 04 0 05 0 06
19 19 19 19 19 19
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
Year
Reengineering Discourse
# of articles/year
reengineering
6000
ABI
4000
EBSCO
Factiva
2000
0
1970
1980
1990
year
2000
2010
The Social Construction of KM
 KM visions
 Are likely to depend upon the interests of the group(s)
articulating the vision:
For managers?
 For Chief Learning/Knowledge Officer?
 For workers?
 For system developers?

Travel of KM Discourses
 Trade conferences, e.g.,
 Conference on Information and Knowledge Management




(http://www.cs.umbc.edu/cikm/ )
International Conference on KM (http://i-know.tugraz.at/ )
International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, Change in
Organizations (http://ontheorganization.com/conferencearchives/2012-conference )
APQC Knowledge Management Conference
(http://www.apqc.org/2013-knowledge-management-conferencerecap )
CrowdConf (http://www.crowdconf.com/)
Taxonomy of Discourses in
Organizational Science (Deets, 1996)
 See also Figure 1, p. 216
Desensus
Dialogic
Local/
emerging
Interpretive
consensus
Critical
Normative
Elite
Travel of KM Discourses
 Academic journals & conferences
 In IS, dominantly elite/consensus-based, i.e., normative (Schultze
& Leidner, 2002)
Desensus
Dialogic
(2)
Local/
emerging
Interpretive
(19)
consensus
Critical
(1)
Normative
(53)
Elite
Why Should I Share? (Wasko & Faraj,
2005)
Ha= more helpful
Hb= more responses
Individual Motivations
H1a
Reputation
Enjoy Helping
Structural Capital
Centrality
Cognitive Capital
H1b
H2a H2b
H3a H3b
H4a H4b
Self-rated Expertise
H5b
H5a
Tenure in the Field
H6b
Relational Capital
H6a
Commitment
H7a H7b
Reciprocity
Knowledge Contribution
Why Should I Share? (Wasko & Faraj,
2005)
Ha= more helpful
Hb= more responses
Individual Motivations
H1a
Reputation
Enjoy Helping
Structural Capital
Centrality
Cognitive Capital
H1b
H2a H2b
H3a H3b
H4a H4b
Self-rated Expertise
H5b
H5a
Tenure in the Field
H6b
Relational Capital
H6a
Commitment
H7a H7b
Reciprocity
Knowledge Contribution
Critical Perspective on KM
 Examine KM from the view point of participants
 Heterogeneous
 Issues of commitment, rewards, trust
 Analysis is ecological
 knowledge networking is often interpersonal and informal,
raising Qs about repository-oriented “capture” projects
 Enrollment processes (ANT)