Organizations are implementing electronic repository systems to facilitate knowledge reuse but with varying degrees of success. There is a lack of understanding of how individual and technical factors interact in determining knowledge reuse and the performance benefits that could be derived from electronic knowledge repositories. We proposed a model to explain the impact of user motivation and the user's perception of the value of the available knowledge repository on knowledge reuse and the individual's performance benefits through using the system. Through a field survey, we found that perceived knowledge repository capability and intrinsic motivation positively affected knowledge reuse, which in turn impacted the benefits derived from using the system. We also found that perceived knowledge repository capability moderated the relationship between extrinsic reward and knowledge reuse.
Knowledge has become an important organizational resource [22]. Consequently, organizations are engaging in knowledge management (KM) efforts to manage their knowledge resources effectively in order to enhance their competitiveness [3]. The activities or processes in KM include knowledge creation, capture, distribution, and application or reuse [2].
Knowledge reuse has been considered as a major justification for KM, i.e., offering productivity gains by not having to reinvent solutions [1]. Examples of knowledge reuse include transfer of best practices from one part of an organization to another and the reuse of employee knowledge captured prior to their departure from the firm [20].
It is important to investigate the use of IS to support knowledge reuse, because IT investment is expensive and the effectiveness of IT in facilitating KM remains unclear [11] and [33]. The class of IS and technologies that are implemented to support KM processes including knowledge reuse are the knowledge management systems (KMS). They can have various forms, such as electronic repositories, yellow pages, and forums to support communities of practice. Of these, repositories are commonly used to share codifiable knowledge in organizations. Previously created knowledge is entered into the repository so that it can be retrieved and reused without the cost of its reinvention.
While understanding why employees attain differential knowledge reuse and performance benefits through a repository is of practical concern, little research has been performed to address this issue. However, for KMS to yield organizational benefits they need to be successfully used by individual employees [5]. Therefore, the impact of KMS within an organization needs to be investigated at the individual level. However, most of this individual-level research has focused on examining the antecedents of knowledge seeking through repositories (e.g., [6] and [14]). A few studies have tackled related problems, e.g., Boh [8] studied how help from the provider can facilitate knowledge reuse from a KMS, while Majchrzak et al. [20] investigated how person-to-person knowledge reuse takes place in radical innovation. We intended to extend this work by considering the outcomes of knowledge seeking from KMS. Thus, our study was intended to explain individual-level impact of the use of a KMS (specifically, a knowledge repository) in supporting knowledge reuse and thereby enhancing employees’ work.
Prior studies have also explored various kinds of enablers of KM, including user motivation (e.g., [13] and [31]) and technology capability, but with mixed results. Therefore, based on a socio-technical perspective, we decided to determine how perceived technology capability and users’ motivations interact to influence knowledge reuse and work benefits when using a repository. Specifically, we investigated the impact of two types of user motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic, on knowledge reuse. This is because these two fundamental types of motivation operate in different ways and are stimulated differentially.
The context of our study is customer service in knowledge intensive industries, specifically the banking industry. The banking sector is knowledge intensive due to the complexity of products and services. Customer support is often more critical there, because customers find it difficult to understand the nature of their services. Quick and responsive customer service may require successful knowledge reuse; the customer service officer needs to understand previously created knowledge and adapt it to meet a specific customer's needs. Furthermore, with improvements in information and communication technologies, expectations from customer support have reached unprecedented levels; customers expect 24-h service and instant solutions to their problems. Therefore, a customer service center was an appropriate setting for our study.
Our study contributes to the KM literature in five ways. First, it developed and tested a theoretical model for knowledge reuse. Second, we investigated individual-level KMS outcomes, including knowledge reuse and the benefits for employees’ tasks through utilization of a knowledge repository. Third, we employed a socio-technical perspective to investigate the interaction between technology factors and individual motivations in KM. While our objective was to view the use of work systems as the result of interactions between people and technologies, there has been a lack of investigation of their interaction effects. Fourth, our finding about the interaction between perceived knowledge repository capability and individual's extrinsic motivation can add to previous knowledge about the effects of extrinsic rewards in KM. Last, we distinguished between the impact of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on knowledge reuse because they can be differentially stimulated. We proposed two distinct roles of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic reward in leading the employee to reuse knowledge and confirmed our theoretical arguments through the main and post hoc analyses.
