Dissertation Information for Stewart M. MohrNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Fully Complete Title: The role of communication in knowledge management and knowledge exchange in organizations Abstract: The research described in this dissertation studied how knowledge is exchanged and created in teams, what practices are used to accomplish the sharing, and the nature and acquisition processes of individual team members' knowledge. The context of the research was organizational teams engaged in information technology outsourcing, with the study subjects being teams and individuals engaged in the outsourcing work. The study was an exploratory one, with no testing hypothesis postulated beforehand. The intent was to observe the communicative practices used by teams and to describe and characterize the team-based practices as they are employed to share and create knowledge. Communication theory was used in conjunction with that of knowledge management and task teams as a framework for developing an understanding of knowledge sharing in task-directed teams in the accomplishment of organizationally-directed objectives. Multiple methods were used for collecting data, with the primary being interviews with team members and leaders. Data were analyzed through descriptive content analysis. The research followed in scope and method other studies in the fields of knowledge management, communication, and task-directed teams (Desouza, 2003; Heaton & Taylor, 2002; Heaton, Bergeron, Bertran-Gastaldy, & Mercier, 2005), and sought to extend that research. The study was done to develop a deeper understanding of the actual communication practices used by teams and team members engaged in situated, task-directed activities. This study's import lies in the theoretical aspects that may be used by scholars to expand or deepen the work of existing theoretical studies and in the practical findings that may be used by organizations. Findings from the research included the characteristic of the sharing and creation of knowledge in task-directed teams as an active process, responding to dynamic business and technical environments, and that the knowledge is held substantially tacitly. Many communication practices were used to share and create knowledge, with non-mediated, person-to-person dialogue playing an important role, and with information and communication technologies playing important enabling, not central, roles. Knowledge was shared and created through communication processes, and while individually held, the communication constituted the socially held knowledge of the team, represented in the teams' processes, procedures, and non-documented norms. Lastly, outsourcing is a rapidly evolving business model used by organizations to manage their processes and costs, and in the cases of the teams studied in this research, the management of knowledge exchange in the start-up and on-going team operations played a significant role in their success. |
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