Chun Wei Choo

Innovation and knowledge creation: How are these concepts related?

Innovation and knowledge creation-these two concepts have a strong relationship but this relationship has not been examined systematically. This paper reviews the important theoretical work in both streams of research, highlighting the fundamental similarities and differences. Four major models of innovation are compared, and the distinction between radical and incremental innovation is examined. The nature of organizational knowledge and the process of knowledge creation are presented. We then compare the principal findings of the research on innovation and knowledge creation, and conclude with a new framework that differentiates types of innovation based on a knowledge creation perspective.

Environmental scanning by CEOs in two Canadian industries

The work of managers is information‐intensive. Managers receive a huge amount of information from a wide range of sources and use the information to make day‐to‐day decisions and to formulate longer‐term strategies. Yet much remains to be learned about the information behavior of managers as a distinct user group. This article reports on how top managers acquire and use information about the external business environment. Todays firms have to adapt to turbulent environments in which the competition, market, technology, and social conditions are constantly changing. Environmental scanning is the activity of gaining information about events and relationships in the organizations environment, the knowledge of which would assist management in planning future courses of action. We present the findings of a survey of the environmental scanning behavior of 207 CEOs in two Canadian industries—publishing and telecommunications. The CEOs indicated their perceptions of the level of uncertainty in the external environment, which sources they used to scan the environment, and their perceptions of the accessibility and quality of various sources. The survey found that the amount of scanning increases with perceived environmental uncertainty, and that the CEOs use a mix of internal and external, as well as personal and impersonal sources, to scan the environment. Analysis suggests that between environmental uncertainty, source accessibility, and source quality, source quality is the most important factor in explaining source use in scanning. This runs contrary to earlier user studies, particularly those of engineers and scientists, which concluded that perceived source accessibility was the overwhelming factor in source selection. A number of plausible explanations for this difference are discussed.

How senior managers acquire and use information in environmental scanning

Abstract Environmental scanning is the acquisition and use of information about events and trends in an organizations external environment, the knowledge of which would assist management in planning the organizations future courses of action. This paper reports a study of how 13 chief executives in the Canadian publishing and telecommunications industries scan their environments and use the information in decision making. Each respondent was asked to relate two critical incidents of information use. The incidents were analyzed according to their environmental sectors, the information sources, and their use in decision making. The interview data suggest that the chief executives concentrate their scanning on the competition, customer, regulatory, and technological sectors of the environment. In the majority of cases, the chief executives used environmental information in the Entrepreneur decisional role, initiating new products, projects, or policies. The chief executives acquire or receive environmental information from multiple, complementary sources. Personal sources are important for information on customers and competitors, whereas printed or formal sources are also important for information on technological and regulatory matters.

The individual and social dynamics of knowledge sharing: an exploratory study

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how knowledge sharing behavior is influenced by three sets of dynamics: a rational calculus that weighs the costs and benefits of sharing; a dispositional preference that favors certain patterns of sharing outcomes; and a relational effect based on working relationships.Design/methodology/approach – Concepts from social exchange theory, social value orientation, and leader‐member exchange theory are applied to analyze behavioral intentions to share knowledge. The study population consists of employees of a large pension fund in Canada. Participants answered a survey that used allocation games and situational vignettes to measure social value orientation, propensity to share knowledge, and perception of cost and benefit.Findings – The results suggest that personal preferences about the distribution of sharing outcomes, individual perceptions about costs and benefits, and structural relationship with knowledge recipients, all affect knowledge sharing behavior significant...

Knowledge management support for teachers

Business organizations worldwide are implementing techniques and technologies to better manage their knowledge. Their objective is to improve the quality of the contributions people make to their organizations by helping them to make sense of the context within which the organization exists; to take responsibility, cooperate, and share what they know and learn; and to effectively challenge, negotiate, and learn from others. We consider how the concepts, tools, and techniques of organizational knowledge management can be applied to the professional practices and development of teachers. We describe a framework for knowledge management support for teachers where the sharing of concrete knowledge scaffolds the attainment of more abstract levels of knowledge sharing. We describe the development of a knowledge management support system emphasizing long-term participatory design relationships between technologists and teachers, regional cooperation among teachers in adjacent school divisions, the integration of communication and practice, synchronous and asynchronous interactions, and multiple metaphors for organizing knowledge resources and activities.

Provider-sponsored virtual communities for chronic patients: improving health outcomes through organizational patient-centred knowledge management.

Patients with long‐term chronic disease experience numerous illness patterns and disease trends over time, resulting in different sets of knowledge needs than patients who intermittently seek medical care for acute or short‐term problems. Health‐care organizations can promote knowledge creation and utilization by chronic patients through the introduction of a virtual, private, disease‐specific patient community. This virtual socialization alters the role of chronic disease patients from external consumers of health‐care services to a ‘community of practice’ of internal customers so that, with the tacit support of their health‐care organization, they have a forum supporting the integration of knowledge gained from the experiences of living with chronic disease in their self‐management. Patient‐centred health‐care organizations can employ the virtual community to direct and support the empowerment of chronic patients in their care.

Working with information: information management and culture in a professional services organization

The paper presents a case study of a large Canadian law firm with a distinctive information culture that is vigorously implementing an information management strategy. Our findings suggest that, at least for this organization, information culture trumps information management in its impact on information use outcomes. Thus, the strongly held information values and behaviors in the firm accounted for more than one-third of the variance in information use outcomes. Employees did perceive a high level of information management activity in the firm, although information management played a smaller, perhaps indirect role in explaining information use outcomes. What might organizations do to improve information use? This study suggests that organizations might do well to recognize that, in the hustle and bustle to implement strategies and systems, information values and information culture will always have a defining influence on how people share and use information.

Beyond the ba: managing enabling contexts in knowledge organizations

Purpose – Looking at the practical experience of organizations pursuing knowledge management, it is found that their efforts are primarily focused on creating the conditions and the context that will enable knowledge creation. This need for developing enabling conditions and contexts was identified more than a decade ago when Nonaka and associates introduced the concept of ‘‘ba.’’ This paper aims to map the development of the concept of ‘‘ba’’ in a number of disciplines in order to understand its theoretical evolution and practical application. Design/methodology/approach – A comprehensive search and evaluation of the literature resulted in a database of 135 papers, four dissertations and four books. Using content analysis, citation analysis, and concept mapping, four categories of research findings are identified that in turn suggest four groups of conditions for enabling knowledge creation. Findings – The paper discusses each of these conditions (the social/behavioral, cognitive/epistemic, information systems/management, and strategy/structural), and introduces a framework that relates these conditions to the type of knowledge process and the level of interaction that characterize a knowledge management activity in the organization. Originality/value – It is concluded that managing knowledge in organizations is fundamentally about creating an environment in the organization that is conducive to and encourages knowledge creation, sharing and use. Organizations interested in pursuing knowledge management and innovation may wish to be guided by the enabling conditions presented here that have been discovered over ten years of research. These conditions and the frameworks of which they are part can help managers to analyze, discuss, and introduce specific combinations of enabling factors that are tailored according to the type of knowledge process and level of interaction needed to address a particular knowledge problem or vision.

Information behavior in the context of improving patient safety

Although it is assumed that information about patient safety and adverse events will be used for improvement and organizational learning, we know little about how this actually happens in patient care settings. This study examines how organizational and professional practices and beliefs related to patient safety influence (1) how health care providers and managers make sense of patient safety risks and adverse events, and (2) the flow and use of information for making improvements. The research is based on an ethnographic case study of a medical unit in a large tertiary care hospital in Canada. The study found that front-line staff are task driven, coping with heavy workloads that limit their attention to and recognition of potential information needs and knowledge gaps. However, a surrogate in an informationrelated role—an “information/change agent”—may intervene successfully with staff and engage in preventive maintenance and repair of routines. The article discusses four key functions of the information/change agent (i.e., boundary spanner, information seeker, knowledge translator, and change champion) in the context of situated practice and learning. All four functions are important for facilitating changes to practice, routines, and the work environment to improve patient safety.

A review of theoretical models of health information seeking on the web

Purpose – By selectively reviewing theory‐driven survey studies on internet health information seeking, the paper aims to provide an informal assessment of the theoretical foundations and research methods that have been used to study this information behavior.Design/methodology/approach – After a review of the literature, four theory‐driven quantitative survey studies are analyzed in detail. Each study is examined in terms of: theoretical framework; research variables that form the focus of the study; research design (sampling, data collection and analysis); and findings and results of hypothesis testing and model testing. The authors then discuss the theoretical models and analytical methods adopted, and identify suggestions that could be helpful to future researchers.Findings – Taken as a whole, the studies reviewed point strongly to the need for multidisciplinary frameworks that can capture the complexity of online health information behavior. The studies developed theoretical frameworks by drawing fro...