The dynamics of knowledge sharing behaviors and Knowledge Management Systems

This dissertation explores the phenomenon of organizational employees' continuance in using Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). Due to the nature of the information and communication technology (ICT) that comprise KMS, the desired goals of these systems cannot be attained unless they are used continually and appropriately by the organization's employees. Prior research in this area has established that there are two types of KMS use. The first is how employees use the ICT to share their knowledge with others, and the second is how employees use the ICT to seek out and retrieve knowledge developed by others. The goal of this dissertation is to further our understanding of the antecedents and the implications of these two types of KMS use from a behavioral perspective. Based on a review of the literature, we identify the behaviors of the employees that are associated with KMS use. The first essay of this dissertation focuses on the implications of these behaviors. Drawing on past empirical studies, we develop a conceptual model of organizational knowledge work that explicates the role of the employees' knowledge seeking and sharing behaviors. Using agent-based simulations based on this model, we examine the impact of a KMS on the performance of organizations with different knowledge cultures. The results reveal that the employees' propensities to seek knowledge and their knowledge source selection behaviors have a greater influence on the success of KMS than their knowledge sharing behaviors. The second essay focuses on the antecedents of KMS continuance. We develop and experimentally test a research model that identifies the factors that influence both knowledge sharing and seeking behaviors of employees when using a KMS. These factors include the employees' perceived costs of using the system, their self-efficacy regarding knowledge and the frequency of past KMS use. The experimental data reveals that where the continued use of the KMS to share knowledge is influenced by the perceived costs of using the system and the frequency of past use, the continued use of the KMS to retrieve knowledge is influenced primarily by the need for knowledge.