Knowledge Management Topics: Trust, Reputation, Information Sharing, & Knowledge Outsourcing

 Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Who wouldn't trust this kitteh?

Even though it's Spring Break, knowledge management waits for no person! I don't know about y'all, but I've been getting bombarded with e-mails about the UK payroll issues. If you haven't been getting the e-mails, the Cliffnotes version is this: On payday two weeks ago, UK states that there was an unfortunate error by their banking partner, PNC which led to many employees not receiving their paycheck on time. This led to me think about how it relates to what we've talked about with knowledge sharing and bounded awareness in knowledge management. So this week I picked articles related to trust and reputation in knowledge management. 

 

Knowledge Management comic strip from here.

The first article I read was Information sharing and trust during major incidents: Findings from the oil industry by Ibrahim and Allen. In light of incidents such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I found this article to be very relevant.  Remember the Hansen, Nohria, & Tierney's article that talked about how consulting companies save and recycle knowledge to be reused by the employees for the benefit of the company's bottom line? The bottom line in this article is about information sharing, albeit in the oil industry and not consulting companies. The fascinating thing about this article is that you would think that trust is something super important before employees feel free to share information. However, Ibrahim and Allen show that sharing information actually builds trust. Which I guess makes sense, as Melinda put it (here) that sharing information is sort of a gesture of 'good faith.' However, the cynic in me also thinks that maybe some people are fond of information sharing because it spreads the guilt around if something happens. Sort of like: "Here, now you all have the same information. If it blows up, it wasn't just me who knew and didn't say anything." Although, personally, I prefer Melinda's way of thinking, maybe it is a little bit of both?

The next article I read was Knowledge outsourcing: an alternative strategy for knowledge management by Lam and Chua. This was a case study about knowledge outsourcing and how it is currently used by an organization, in the hopes of presenting it as an alternative to knowledge management. On a knee jerk reaction, I think this is nuts. If you are going to outsource knowledge for your company, then why not just hire the people that already have the knowledge. However, after I thought about it, it does make sense in certain instances. For example, if it is a small company that does not have many technological needs, then outsourcing that help to a dedicated external tech help company would make sense.  The article presents some interesting points and while I'm open to the idea, I am still not sold that knowledge outsourcing (KO) is a viable alternative to knowledge management. The way I look at it is that in the long run, knowledge management will help a company run smoother. It's like the old adage: "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life!"

The final article I read for this week was The impact of trust and reputation on the transfer of best practices by Lucas. This article did a complete 180 from the Ibrahim and Allen article, by saying that trust is necessary for the "transfer of best practices." Although, I think there is an important distinction between the "transfer of best practices" and "information sharing." To me, information sharing is more general in nature, whereas transfer of best practices means that over time the best of that information sharing has evolved into sound practices and is perhaps useful on a wide scale in the company.  So what Lucas is saying then is that to get these best practices, you need trust and a good reputation (Sorry Joan Jett). Which of course make complete sense and is probably why innovation driven companies like Google work so hard to cultivate trust and create positive working environments for their employees.

 

Dilbert comic strip from here.

References 

Hassan Ibrahim, N., & Allen, D. (2012). Information sharing and trust during major incidents: Findings from the oil industry. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(10), 1916-1928.

Lam, W., & Chua, A. Y. (2009). Knowledge outsourcing: an alternative strategy for knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 13(3), 28-43. 

Lucas, L. M. (2005). The impact of trust and reputation on the transfer of best practices. Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(4), 87-101.