Maryam Alavi

Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: conceptual foundations and research issues

El presente documento es el informe de investigacion sobre el Estudio de Fortalecimiento de los Procesos de Gestion del Conocimiento en los Grupos de Investigacion de los Departamentos de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Estudio de Caso: Departamento de Ingenieria Electrica y Electronica, tema propuesto para obtener el titulo de Magister en Administracion de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia. El desarrollo del trabajo de investigacion ha sido dirigido por el Ingeniero Andres Pavas, quien es profesor e investigador del Programa sobre Adquisicion y Analisis de Senales PAAS-UN. Este trabajo de investigacion propone un instrumento de medicion para los procesos de gestion de conocimiento (GC) llevados a cabo por grupos de investigacion. El instrumento fue disenado teniendo en cuenta los referentes teoricos en el area de la GC, el modelo de medicion de los grupos de investigacion de Colciencias y los aspectos estrategicos institucionales de la Universidad Nacional. Asimismo, se propone un procedimiento para identificar el nivel de madurez del Departamento y entregar informacion pertinente para plantear acciones que conlleven a mejorar las actividades de investigacion de los grupos por medio de un plan de fortalecimiento. La importancia del estudio radica en desarrollar una aproximacion practica en el area de la GC para el caso de grupos de investigacion presentes en Colombia. Los resultados hallados permiten determinar el nivel de madurez de los grupos de investigacion y del Departamento al que pertenecen. Finalmente se propone un plan de fortalecimiento que permitira el cierre de brechas actuales, mejorar el desempeno de las actividades de investigacion del DIEE y contribuir al cumplimiento del Plan Global de Desarrollo-2021, por medio de la formalizacion de la gestion de su conocimiento.Knowledge is a broad and abstract notion that has defined epistemological debate in western philosophy since the classical Greek era. In the past few years, however, there has been a growing interest in treating knowledge as a significant organizational resource. Consistent with the interest in organizational knowledge and knowledge management (KM), IS researchers have begun promoting a class of information systems, referred to as knowledge management systems (KMS). The objective of KMS is to support creation, transfer, and application of knowledge in organizations. Knowledge and knowledge management are complex and multi-faceted concepts. Thus, effective development and implementation of KMS requires a foundation in several rich literatures.

Computer-mediated collaborative learning: an empirical evaluation

National commissions and scholarly reports on the status of contemporary higher education have frequently been critical of the college experience; the emphasis on transmitting fixed bodies of information and a failure to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills have been cited as serious weaknesses in higher education systems. Colleges and universities have additional reasons to redevelop central pedagogies for students. Individuals need to learn at higher rates of effectiveness and efficiency than ever before because of rapidly growing bodies of relevant information and the escalation of knowledge and skill requirements for most jobs.Recent developments incomputer hardware, software, and communication technologies create exciting new opportunities for the educational use of these technologies. The objective of this study is to go beyond the traditional classroom instructional modesl (e.g., lectures and class discussions) to develop and evaluate computer-supported pedagogical approaches. More specifically, this study investigates whether the use of a group decision support system (GDSS) in a collaborative learning process enhances student learning and evaluation of classroom experiences.The findings of a study involving 127 MBA students indicate that GDSS-supported collaborative learning leads to higher levels of perceived skill development, self-reported learning, and evaluation of classroom experience in comparison with non-GDSS supported collaborative learning. Furthermore, the final test grades of the group of students who were exposed to GDSS-supported collaborative learning were significantly higher than those of the other groups of students who participated in the experiment.

An Empirical Examination of the Influence of Organizational Culture on Knowledge Management Practices

Knowledge management to facilitate the creation, storage, transfer, and application of knowledge in organizations has received wide attention in practice and research in the past several years. Often cited as a significant challenge in knowledge management practices is the issue of organizational culture. Although many studies raise the issue of organizational cultures influence on knowledge management success, few investigate the way in which this influence manifests itself. This paper aims to explore how organizational culture influences knowledge management practices. Using a case study method, we examine the cultural values and knowledge management approaches within a large global information services company and one of its knowledge communities. The findings highlight the influence of culture on the use of knowledge management technologies and the outcomes of such use.

Research Commentary: Technology-Mediated Learning--A Call for Greater Depth and Breadth of Research

Universities and corporate training facilities have been investing in information technologies to improve education and training at an increasing rate during the past decade. Many new companies are emerging to provide tools and services to enable the effective design of IT-based learning solutions. Although research on technology-mediated learning has increased in recent years, it still lags behind developments in practice. This essay suggests potential research avenues in the area of technology-mediated learning. It seeks to motivate greater depth of research into the question of how technology enhances learning. This question requires an explicit consideration of relationships among technology capabilities, instructional strategy, psychological processes, and contextual factors involved in learning. The essay also recommends attention to a greater breadth of research questions, including issues of how technology-mediated learning affects program design and what structures and processes universities can employ to facilitate innovation.

A review of MIS research and disciplinary development

Abstract:The current study focuses on the development of MIS as a field of research and inquiry and examines its intellectual evolution. These issues are addressed through a systematic examination and analysis of 908 MIS articles published between 1968 and 1988 in eight core journals. The articles were analyzed for themes, topics. and research approach. The findings identify popular research topics. the dominant research perspective, and the relationship between MIS research and practice. The popular research topics consist of: IS management, information systems types and characteristics, and development and operation of systems. The dominant research perspective employed in almost all of the empirical articles included in the study can be characterized as a traditional approach reflecting a positivist orientation.

Media and group cohesion: relative influences on social presence, task participation, and group consensus

Organizations deploy advanced communication media such as audio and videoconferencing to enhance and extend group communication interactions. However, established groups (i.e., groups with a history of working together) can view and use the same technology differently from groups without any past experiences of working together. This study examines the relative influences of media condition and group cohesion on social presence, task participation, and group consensus. Results from a controlled laboratory experiment with 45 triads of college students working on a decision-making task showed that media condition (audio conferencing vs. desktop videoconferencing) has significantly smaller influences on social presence and task participation than group cohesion in established groups. The study found that influence of group cohesion over social presence is additive, rather than substitutive, to that of media condition. The study also established that task participation played a more important role than social presence in determining the degree of consensus among group members in computer-mediated communication environments.

Using IT to reengineer business education: an exploratory investigation of collaborative telelearning

This longitudinal field study (three work sessions plus an initial training session), investigates the efficacy of a new technology -- desktop videoconferencing (DVC) -- in support of collaborative telelearning (i.e., collaborative learning among non-proximate team members). Two types of collaborative telelearning environments are considered. One involves local groups (i.e., students on the same campus), and the other involves non-proximate distant groups (i.e., students on two separate campuses). The collaborative telelearning environments are compared to each other and to a traditional face-to-face collaborative learning environment.The study found that the three environments are equally effective in terms of student knowledge acquisition; however, higher critical-thinking skills were found in the distant DVC environment. The subjects in the three learning environments were equally satisfied with their learning process and outcomes. At the conclusion of the longitudinal assessment, the distant students using DVC were more committed and attracted to their groups compared to local students who worked face-to-face or through DVC.

Knowledge integration in virtual teams: the potential role of KMS

Virtual teams are becoming a preferred mechanism for harnessing, integrating, and applying knowledge that is distributed across organizations and in pockets of collaborative networks. In this article we recognize that knowledge application, among the three phases of knowledge management, has received little research attention. Paradoxically, this phase contributes most to value creation. Extending communication theory, we identify four challenges to knowledge integration in virtual team environments: constraints on transactive memory, insufficient mutual understanding, failure in sharing and retaining contextual knowledge, and inflexibility of organizational ties. We then propose knowledge management system (KMS) approaches to meet these challenges. Finally, we identify promising avenues for future research in this area.

An assessment of the prototyping approach to information systems development

A two-phased research project comparing the prototyping approach with the more traditional life cycle approach finds that prototyping facilitates communication between users and designers during the design process. However, the findings also indicate that designers who used prototyping experienced difficulties in managing and controlling the design process.

Revisiting DSS implementation research: a meta-analysis of the literature and suggestions for researchers

Information systems are becoming increasingly critical to the daily operations and success of many firms. This, combined with the rising investments in design and development of these systems, make implementation a high priority research topic. Although information systems implementation has been a topic of interest to researchers over the past two decades, the extent to which the existing body of research reflects substantial and cumulative development is not entirely clear.The objective of this study is to conduct a rigorous and quantitative review of the empirical DSS implementation literature as a basis for providing guidelines for implementation management and conduct of future research. Meta-analysis of 144 findings from3 3 studies indicates that user-situational variables (involvement, training and experience) are more important than psychological factors to DSS implementation success and that user-situational variables can improve the implementation success by as much as 30 percent. Furthermore, the meta-analytic findings regarding the methodological characteristics of studies provide useful insights for the design of future research studies of implementation. The findings also allow us to put into perspective the incremental contribution of additional substantive and empirical studies in this area. Additionally, several specific domains (e.g., construct validation research on user involvement and causal modeling) might profit most form future research efforts.