Peter Gray

Knowledge Sourcing Effectiveness

Much of the knowledge management (KM) literature focuses on ways to increase the volume of knowledge available to employees, ensure its quality, and improve its accessibility. Such supply-side arguments are limited to the extent that they do not address the demand for knowledge within organizations. This paper takes a novel approach to understanding how access to others knowledge produces benefits by studying the extent to which individuals intentionally access each others expertise, experience, insights, and opinions, which we termknowledge sourcing. A general model of knowledge sourcing, including contextual and dispositional antecedents and learning outcomes, is proposed and validated using survey data from a global organization. Knowledge sourcing explains a significant proportion of individuals learning outcomes, but the strength of this effect is moderated both by the strength of individuals learning orientations and the degree to which they find their jobs to be intellectually demanding. For researchers, this study extends existing knowledge by proposing, testing, and validating a new way to understand an important KM issue in organizations. Practitioners can use these findings to evaluate existing KM efforts and better target future KM interventions towards those individuals most likely to benefit.

Reliability, mindfulness, and information systems

In a world where information technology is both important and imperfect, organizations and individuals are faced with the ongoing challenge of determining how to use complex, fragile systems in dynamic contexts to achieve reliable outcomes. While reliability is a central concern of information systems practitioners at many levels, there has been limited consideration in information systems scholarship of how firms and individuals create, manage, and use technology to attain reliability. We propose that examining how individuals and organizations use information systems to reliably perform work will increase both the richness and relevance of IS research. Drawing from studies of individual and organizational cognition, we examine the concept of mindfulness as a theoretical foundation for explaining efforts to achieve individual and organizational reliability in the face of complex technologies and surprising environments. We then consider a variety of implications of mindfulness theories of reliability in the form of alternative interpretations of existing knowledge and new directions for inquiry in the areas of IS operations, design, and management.

The Role of Knowledge Repositories in Technical Support Environments: Speed Versus Learning in User Performance

Knowledge repositories are commonly used by technical support analysts in call center environments as a way of capturing and reusing solutions to common problems, and are generally expected to improve service quality, reduce costs, and enhance analyst learning. This study investigates why technical support analysts seek out and access knowledge from these repositories, as opposed to more traditional sources of such knowledge--colleagues and manuals. Focusing on the demand for--rather than supply of--knowledge in organizations, our research elaborates the role played by analysts learning orientation, perceived work demands, and risk aversion in predicting their knowledge sourcing behavior. Our results include several counterintuitive findings that suggest there is not very much learning going on via technical support knowledge repositories. Analysts seem to be focused on finding recipes for solving customers problems rather than building a better understanding of the products they support. Implications for research and practice highlight the need for more effective technologies to speed searches, the utility of a formal and visible mechanism for validating knowledge, and the inherent tension between efficiency and learning in these environments.

Knowledge sourcing methods

Many knowledge management (KM) initiatives in organizations seek to improve how employees draw on each others expertise, experience, advice, and opinions, which we call knowledge sourcing behavior. Employees can source knowledge recorded in document form, through dyadic conversations, or in-group settings. We proposed and tested a theory to support the idea that employees use of different classes of knowledge sourcing methods produced different kinds of performance outcomes. Our findings suggested that (1) different classes of knowledge sourcing methods are not as interchangeable as the KM literature might suggest, (2) technology-based methods are neither inherently superior nor inferior to traditional methods and (3) that group knowledge sourcing supports a wider range of performance outcomes than other methods. Together, these results highlight the importance of aligning KM efforts with their intended outcome. Before launching a project designed to enhance knowledge sourcing, managers should decide which performance outcome they wish to affect and select a KM tool that is aligned with the desired effect.

Introduction: fragmentation and integration in knowledge management research

Knowledge management (KM) research lacks a common conceptual core; it is cross‐disciplinary, addresses a wide variety of phenomena, and has difficulty distinguishing itself from many related areas of research. The result is a fragmented field that is itself artificially split from the related literature on organizational learning. KM may be progressing through a predictable life‐cycle that could end in collapse of the KM concept unless researchers can develop more integrative core theories of learning‐ and knowledge‐related phenomena in organizations. The diverse body of organizational learning and knowledge management research provides an impressive foundation for the synthesis of such broader theories of learning and knowledge that are creative, new, and integrative.

Oxazine Dyes. I. Celestine Blue B with Iron as a Nuclear Stain

It is suggested that celestine blue B can stain as a colloidal dispersion, the nuclear specificity of which is controlled by the pH. The staining solution is prepared by adding 0.5 ml of concentrated H2SO4 to 1 gm of celestine blue B and dissolving the resultant granular mass in 100 ml of 2.5% ferric alum containing 14 ml of glycerol. Sections of amphibian, avian, and mammalian tissue placed for 1 min in this solution and then rinsed in water show as sharp nuclear staining as that usually produced by hematoxylin. A wide variety of fixatives is permissible. Overstaining is not possible within reasonable limits of exposure and no differentiation nor bluing is required. Both the staining solution and stained slides are stable.

Oxazine Dyes. 2. Celestine Blue B, Gallocyanin and Gallamin Blue with Mordants Other Than Ferric Alum

Experiments with 3 oxazine dyes with 19 mordants failed to produce a more satisfactory staining solution than that recorded by Gray et al. (1956). The most practical solution developed is prepared by adding 0.4 ml concentrated HNO3 to 1gm celestine blue B and dissolving the resulting mass in 100 ml 5% cupric nitrate containing 14 ml glycerol. This solution is less acid (pH 1.4) than the celestine blue B-ferric alum solution (pH 0.8) previously recommended. It gives as intense and sharp a stain but is slightly less stable. Formulae are given for four other combinations of possible practical application.

Oxazine dyes. IV. Simultaneous nuclear and double-contrast cytoplasmic staining from a single solution.

A dye mixture, consisting of a celestine blue B dispersion (prepared according to Gray et al. 1956), orange G, and acid fuchsin in one solution, simultaneously stains nuclear elements and gives double contrast staining of cytoplasmic elements. Orange G, 0.16 gm, and acid fuchsin, 0.04 gm, dissolved in 100 ml of celestine blue B dispersion and adjusted to pH 0.8 gives, when applied for 1.5 min, results comparable or superior to other “triple contrast” stains on a wide variety of tissues. No differentiation other than that which occurs during dehydration is necessary.

Oxazine Dyes. 3. Simultaneous Nuclear and Cytoplasmic Staining from Single Solutions

Of 84 dyes tested, 26 were found to give a stable solution with celestine blue B dispersions which simultaneously stained nuclei and cytoplasm. The cytoplasmic dye is dissolved in celestine blue B dispersion prepared by the method of Cray et al. (1956). Croceine scarlet (C.I. 286), in the proportion of 0.38 gm to 114 ml of celestine blue B dispersion, gives results strikingly similar to hematoxylin-eosin when used for 2 min on a wide variety of tissues. No differentiation, other than that which occurs during dehydration, is necessary.