Integrative Framework’s Explanation of the Tools’ Adoption

Through analyzing the most significant factors found to make the discussion board a successful tool, one can infer general behavioural intention factors that made the wiki and user profile unsuccessful; however, the specific determinants of their valued outcomes must be inferred from the literature. Examples will be provided using the three tools wherein: the discussion board was found to espouse motivational driving factors resulting in behavioural use; the user profile demonstrated some drivers leading to partial use with varying barriers causing usage to drop; and the wiki experienced the most inhibiting barriers, the consequence of which was almost zero adoption or use.

Discussion Board

Central to the discussion board being perceived as delivering highly valued outcomes with low effort moderated by perceived social influence; critical mass was supported as key for unlocking the interactivity social dynamics at work within the theory of network externalities wherein Katz and Shapiro (1986) suggest that the more people using a technology the higher its value (Kügler et al. 2013). This appeared to be a major moderator of a knowledge worker perceiving the actual heightened valued outcome of a tool or reduced effort barriers as seen in the discussion board which was very interactive compared to little interactivity in the user profiles and none in the wiki. This resulted in behavioural intention explained by expectancy theory wherein a knowledge worker only engaged in a behaviour (e.g. asking a question) if they believed that they would achieve their desired outcome (e.g. getting an answer) (Bandura 1977). However, it was not found that contributions from ‘centralized individuals’ created the critical mass to sustain the discussion board as argued by Wasko and Faraj (2005: 52) in relation to electronic networks of practice. Rather, it appeared to be the rapid up-to-date and relevant feedback from all global functions, roles and divisions harnessing the collective intelligence of the organization providing a breadth of responses while demonstrating individual’s expertise and developing digital reputations (Chatti et al. 2007: 414).

Linked to its interactivity, the discussion board appeared to be the best of the three tools for achieving valued outcomes associated with building and reinforcing social capital by providing: more structural opportunities to connect with weak ties which could be enhanced at all organizational levels (Steinfield et al. 2009); the ability for one to help by sharing their expertise knowledge which is valued by others (Wasko and Faraj 2005); and, help to develop trust through visibly seeing feedback in past interactions wherein knowledge workers felt a duty to help even when they were not formally responsible to answer (Coleman 1990). The discussion board was also found to provide affordances of association where contributors could be linked with a piece of information to build their reputation (Wasko and Faraj 2005) or help link other knowledge workers to questions based on their own associations in terms of bridging connections between strangers (Treem and Leonardi 2012). This allowed knowledge

seekers to benefit from the visibility affordance of social media by recognizing expertise in others with whom there was little to no personal interaction (Shami et al. 2009).

An additional significant factor that effected the discussion board positively but the wiki and user profile negatively was the existence of alternative tools providing

‘overlapping’ purpose / value which were more familiar and that the user had a prior history of using as proposed by Paroutis and Al Saleh (2009). While supporting Thaler’s (1980) endowment effect theory wherein people ascribe a higher value to things they own (e.g. alternative tools like instant messaging for communication which have a history of use); this finding also supports Tétard and Collan’s (2009) lazy user model which posits that an individual will choose the tool which achieves the desired outcome with the least effort. Which in this case is older tools with which users have more experience. While the discussion board was superior in speed and ease of use for knowledge seekers compared to its primary alternative for IT questions (i.e. Helpdesk);

the user profile provided less valuable knowledge compared to SAP HR as most user’s were not active in updating their profiles; and for the wiki, knowledge seekers could alternatively search the ESSP’s static web pages for their required information or ask someone either directly or in the discussion board. This also supports the argument of Wagner and Bolloju (2005) in that the discussion board is the easiest form of conversational technology given its simplicity in asking and answering questions.

User Profile

Contrary to Treem and Leonardi (2012) ascribing the affordance of social profiles as self-presentation tools for strategic posting, this was not substantiated as it was found that only one interviewee was using this tool to demonstrate their own expertise.

Furthermore, not one respondent perceived there to be any interconnection between their user profile and contributions made within the wiki or discussion board. This may be related to the aforementioned perception that the user profile’s lack of interactivity restricts the ability of one to feel that this goal can be achieved through the tool.

Although people sensemaking was proposed by DiMicco et al. (2009) through finding shared cognitive ground and building relationships, this was also not possible due to the

low interactivity witnessed in the user profile as very limited people have completed their profiles compared to the alternative tools which were more up-to-date and had more familiarity such as SAP HR and LinkedIn. The lack of interactivity can also potentially explain the low occurrence of social capital building through maintaining relationships to enhance bonding as only two interviewee’s used it for this purpose, of which one was successful; despite this being argued as a driving objective of social networking within the literature (Steinfield et al. 2009; Ferron et al. 2010). The following Figure 3 is a chain of events which appear to describe the lack of adoption of the user profiles for social networking.

Figure 3. User Profile Chain of Events.

Wiki

Despite Wagner and Bolloju’s (2005) claim that wikis are better knowledge management facilitators compared to discussion boards, this argument was clearly not substantiated in this study’s findings. This is likely explained by the aforementioned issues of history and endowment theory associated with Holtzblatt et al.’s (2010) discovery that wiki adoption is hindered by a reluctance to share specific information (e.g. due to the extra cost of using the tool) and a heavy reliance on alternative tools to achieve the same function (e.g. easier to send an email). This study’s lack of wiki visibility and adoption could also be explained by Kügler et al.’s (2013: 3638) technology adoption determinant of ‘result demonstrability’ wherein “making the usage results observable is of particular importance with social software: since employees- due to the lack of clarity on usage benefits compared to traditional IS – need to be convinced that it is worth investing the time and effort using the ESSP”.

The wiki was also found to lack the following adoption encouragement factors:

incentive structures (e.g. visibility through feedback mechanisms to show others have read and used one’s contributions), documenting clear guidelines (e.g. norms for editing others content which goes beyond terminology), and making the wiki more usable (e.g.

providing training for novices or tech support to fix issues) (Holtzblatt et al. 2010;

Grudin and Poole 2010). The following Figure 4 is a chain of events which appear to describe the lack of wiki adoption either by knowledge seekers or senders in the specific context of this study.

Figure 4. Wiki Chain of Events.

As previously discussed, a major reason why an ESSP’s tools are not more utilized is the existence of alternative tools better suited to the activity of informal cross-border knowledge sharing. This leads to a discussion of the types of knowledge found to be shared with these tools and the tools’ limitations for sharing tacit knowledge.