Input friendly intranets

Input friendly intranets

Hazel Hall - Napier University

Hazel Hall
Senior Lecturer in Information Management
School of Computing
Napier University

h.hall@napier.ac.uk

Knowledge Management in an Age of Networks 1
Redwood 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



Tools for information sharing

• browsers
• data warehouses
• filters
• intranets
• process handbooks
• software agents
• yield management software



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”



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.



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



Motivations to act happens when:

• it is easy to do so
• the usefulness of acting is obvious

This is not a new research finding!



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”



Usefulness of acting is obvious: intranet critical mass

Dilemma

There’s no point
in submitting
material to the
intranet: no one
uses it.




Dilemma

There’s no point
I don’t use the
in submitting
intranet. There’s
material to the
nothing of use to
intranet: no one
me there.
uses it.




“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




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).”




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.”



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.



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



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



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.




• carrot of continued vitality of the group
• stick of obligation to the group
• commitment invigorates the community




trust - sharing (input) - sense of community




Intranet checks

• degrees of input control, e.g. location and branding of input
• willingness to accept/reject lurkers



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


experimentation for knowledge sharing

Intranet checks

• status consciousness in the online environment
• facilities for anonymity



Motivation to act: rewards

Knowledge management
strategies need to be
linked to people by
building reward and
recognition programmes.



Motivation to act: rewards

Develop an appropriate
Knowledge management
reward system and
strategies need to be
incentive scheme to get
linked to people by
the message across that
building reward and
knowledge and learning
recognition programmes.
are crucial.



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.



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.




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.




Personal satisfaction through:

• acts of altruistic and pro-social behaviour
• seeing results of altruistic and pro-social behaviour



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.


Input friendly intranets

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