Boundary management in an ICT‐enabled project‐based organising context

This paper explores the boundaries that emerge and exist within an information and communication technology (ICT)‐enabled project‐based organising context and the ways knowledge workers manage these boundaries through the use of technology. This is done through an exploratory qualitative case study of an early instance of the phenomenon in a knowledge‐intensive professional services organisation. Through the experiences of a group of knowledge workers who started to work in project‐based ways that were highly mediated by ICT, this study aims to understand the boundaries that they faced and the practices they undertook to manage these boundaries. In so doing, this study contributes to the existing literature on new forms of work and organisation, particularly on the issue of boundaries where ICT‐enabled project teams are used. In particular, this study extends our current understanding of boundaries through expanding the lens of investigation beyond a predominant focus on work–home boundaries and considers boundaries within the work sphere.     

Working around technologies—invisible professionalism?

This study discusses how professionalism and work ethics influence how health care professionals work around new technologies. When people avoid using technologies, they are not necessarily ceasing to engage in their work activities. The workaround strategies presented here are rather practical expressions of professionals’ active encounter with the complexity of work situations, and can therefore be important signs of professional ethical judgement. Drawing on science and technology studies and the concept of invisible work, the study discusses workaround situations that arise in health care work in Denmark. The aim and contribution of the study is twofold. First, it attempts to revitalise the discussion on technology workaround strategies as responsible professionalism. Second, it will direct attention to and contribute to an understanding of how the normativity embedded in technological development in the health care sector is central to the work of health care professionals.     

Evaluating internal and external knowledge sources in firm innovation and productivity: an industry perspective

Both internal knowledge – investment in internal R&D and information and communication technologies (ICT) as well as external knowledge – knowledge spillovers and active collaboration with partners are rapidly fostering firm productivity and innovation. In this study, we investigate the role of internal and external knowledge in firm productivity and innovation. In addition, we test interactions between investment in R&D and ICT as well as between knowledge spillovers and knowledge collaboration in their association to firm innovation and productivity. We use a recombinant innovation approach and four samples for firms in manufacturing, creative, ICT and science, and professional services industries during 2002–2014 and for pre-and post-crisis periods to perform our analysis. In addition to innovation and productivity, we also examine the role of internal and external knowledge as a conduit to the development of innovation internally and the co-creation of innovation with external partners. Our results lead to managerial and policy implications.     

Expert labour as a differentiated category: power,knowledge and organisation

The idea of ‘expert labour’ as a category uniting many kinds of knowledge‐based work has long been of interest. At the same time, existing models often do not differentiate between the many forms of ‘new’ expertise in the main business and technological groups. These tend to be consolidated in single categories of ‘entrepreneurial’, ‘organisational’ or ‘commercial’ professions. This paper built on Reed's seminal account of the expert division of labour. It used his analytic dimensions of power, knowledge and organisation to develop a new framework comparing clusters of expert labour in professional services, business services and knowledge work. It offered a more detailed classification and a comparative view that throws fresh light on key debates around new professionalism and emergent technologically defined occupations.     

Learning in DEPTH: developing a graphical tool for professional thinking for technology teachers

In this issue of the International Journal of Technology and Design, we report on a series of case studies from the second phase of an international project—Developing Professional Thinking for Technology Teachers (DEPTH2). The first phase of the project was a study conducted with both primary and secondary technology pre-service teacher education students in a number of different countries who were given the same teacher-knowledge graphical framework as a tool to support reflection on their professional knowledge. We discovered that, despite the different country contexts, student teachers of technology could articulate aspects of their developing teacher knowledge using the same framework for teacher professional development. As previously reported in this journal (Banks et al. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 14, 141–157, 2004), the common graphical tool enabled them to set out their subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and ‘school’ knowledge and was useful in helping them become more self-aware. In this second phase of the project we have developed this line of research in two ways. First, we extended the range of participants to include experienced teachers involved in in-service work connected to curriculum development. Second, we looked at the inter-relationship for pre-service teachers between their developing professional knowledge and their own ‘personal subject construct’. In this article, the theoretical framework for the subsequent papers is described and set in the context of recent debates surrounding the nature and importance of teacher knowledge; and the way such professional knowledge can be articulated by teachers.     

Being a woman in an ICT job: an analysis of the gender pay gap and discrimination in Spain

Despite policy initiatives aimed at promoting female access to jobs, the information and communication technology (ICT) professions have traditionally been largely monopolised by men. Segregation, gendered stereotypes and environmental factors have a clear impact on educational and professional choices, as well as on working conditions. The spread of ICT to all economic activities has meant that ICT specialists are now to be found everywhere, not only in the ICT sector where many stereotypes related to technical jobs persist. This work aims to analyse the gender wage gap and discrimination in ICT professions, with the emphasis on how working in an ICT-intensive industry might affect that situation. The study uses the Spanish Earning Structure Survey data for 2014, and applies wage decomposition techniques to the wage distribution. The results show that female ICT professionals face unfavorable working conditions, especially in highly qualified jobs and in ICT-intensive industries.     

Transfer in context: replication and adaptation in knowledge transfer relationships

This paper explores the role of replication and adaptation in knowledge transfer relationships. I develop a model of knowledge transfer in which firms replicate because knowledge is ambiguous and adapt because knowledge depends on context. In the model, firms replicate more when knowledge is discrete and adapt more when they understand the interactions between different areas of knowledge. Replication and adaptation lead to successful knowledge transfer, which leads to improved performance of the receiving unit. The predictions are tested using a survey of cross‐border knowledge transfer relationships among firms in the telecommunications industry. The results are largely consistent with the model and point to potential areas for future research, such as the drivers of replication, the depreciation rate of knowledge, and the role of understanding in organizational knowledge. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of ICTs in the servitisation and degradation of IT professional work

Recently IT work has been subjected to management approaches that apply production methods to service work. Specialised information and communication technologies (ICTs) used by IT professionals have played an important role in this ‘service turn’, but this has not been adequately explored in the literature. Via a qualitative study of IT professionals situated across the servitised IT functions of five UK‐based organisations, this article considers how these ICTs are inscribed with managerial logics that afford control benefits to managers while undermining professional autonomy and job quality. The article makes two main contributions to the literature. Firstly, it sheds light on how ICTs introduced into organisational IT functions support managerial control objectives and impact the job quality of IT professionals. Secondly, it suggests that ICTs may infect the logic of professionalism that takes pride in the quality of the work performance with a dominant managerial logic that places an emphasis on meeting management objectives.     

‘We can only request what's in our protocol’: technology and work autonomy in healthcare

This article explores the tension between standardization and autonomy raised by the implementation of new technology in healthcare organizations. The theoretical frame of this study is grounded in the impact of new technologies on work organization, routinization and autonomy across settings. Empirically it presents evidence from two NHS Trusts in England that implemented a national Electronic Patient Record (EPR). The paper aims to reinvigorate the debate on the tension between standardization and autonomy in professional workplaces such as healthcare. It argues that the implication of technology in professional work conditions processes of task routinization that constrain autonomy, and enables reallocation of discretion between professional groups. We argue that routinization is not restricted to low‐skill work but may travel across contexts and be evidenced in high‐skill work environments. The interplay between routinization and autonomy is also useful in drawing insights concerning the dynamics of change that occur in professional work.     

DEPTH – Developing Professional Thinking for Technology Teachers: An International Study

The tools to help teachers reflect on their professional knowledge are few in number, and often difficult to utilise. This paper reports on a study conducted with both primary and secondary technology initial teacher education students in a number of different countries who were given the same teacher-knowledge graphical framework as a tool to support reflection on their own professional knowledge. We wanted to investigate if, despite the different country contexts, student teachers of technology could take advantage of their experience with graphic visualisation to help them articulate abstract notions such as aspects of their developing teacher knowledge. We discovered that the graphical tool acted as a framework that enabled them to set out their subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and `school' knowledge and was useful in helping them become more self-aware. In this paper, the framework itself is introduced, the way it was presented to the novice teachers is outlined and the relative impact of such `self awareness' on their understandings, enabled by the framework, is then discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Transfer of knowledge in technical vocational education: a narrative study in Swedish upper secondary school

In vocational education, teaching and learning are expected to take place in the different learning arenas; schools and workplaces. In such a dual school system, the question of transfer is vital, i.e. how to use knowledge learned in previous situations in new situations. This article is an empirical contribution to research concerning transfer, by means of results from semi-structured group interviews with teachers and supervisors who educate students in the Energy program and the Industry program in Swedish upper secondary school. The interviews were analysed by analyses of narratives. The results show four themes of transfer in the interviews: (1) transfer of basic knowledge, (2) transfer of principles and skills, (3) transfer of written materials and real life and (4) transfer of experiences. The results also show three factors that are crucial in order to create possibilities for transfer: (1) communication, (2) financial resources and (3) reflection. These factors demand close cooperation between the teachers and supervisors during the students’ vocational education.     

Role of search for domain knowledge and architectural knowledge in alliance partner selection

Research Summary: The literature on technological alliances emphasizes that search for knowledge drives alliance formation. However, in conceptualizing technological knowledge, prior work on alliances has not made a distinction between domain knowledge—knowledge that firms possess in distinct technological domains—and architectural knowledge—knowledge that firms possess about how to combine elements from different technological domains. We argue that firms seek partners that are similar in domain knowledge to deepen their knowledge, and partners that are dissimilar in architectural knowledge to broaden their knowledge. Our results indicate that the likelihood of alliance formation increases when two firms are similar in domain knowledge and dissimilar in architectural knowledge. Further, our results show that these effects are positively moderated by the degree of decomposability of a firm's knowledge base. Managerial Summary: In dynamic environments, companies need to continually deepen and broaden their technological knowledge, and they often look for alliance partners who can provide them that knowledge. For knowledge deepening, companies are more likely to form alliances with those companies that have expertise in similar technological fields. For knowledge broadening, they are more likely to form alliances with those companies that have expertise in the same technological fields, but have different recipes for combining knowledge from those fields. Furthermore, a company with a modular knowledge base is more likely to seek a partner that has expertise in similar technological fields or whose recipes for combining knowledge from different technological fields are different from the recipes it has.     

Interaction between message framing and consumers’ prior subjective knowledge regarding food safety issues

This study analyzed the interaction between message frames and recipients’ prior knowledge. The hypothesis is that less prior consumer knowledge will result in a larger framing effect. That is, if the subjective knowledge of the public is low, then the controversy created by mass media regarding a specific food-related event will be larger. Empirical results show that message frame has an influence on college students’ purchasing intentions. College students showed distinct responses in purchasing intention based on different headlines and different amounts of information within articles. The results further suggest that the framing effect depends not only on message frames, but also on the prior knowledge of the message recipient. Those who have less knowledge have larger variation in their purchase intention when responding to different message frames. This suggests that people with less knowledge are more likely to panic due to mass media reports regarding a food hazard issue. More informed consumers have less dramatic responses to food safety issues compared to less informed people.     

Transfer of market knowledge in a channel relationship: Impacts of attitudinal commitment and satisfaction

This paper attempts to explain how a manufacturer's attitudinal commitment and a distributor's kind and degree of satisfaction have an impact on the transferring of market knowledge from the distributor in a channel relationship. Using data from 225 paired distributors and manufacturers in the Chinese household appliances entity, six of our seven research hypotheses were supported. Results of the study show that a distributor's economic satisfaction directly promotes market knowledge transfer, while a distributor's social satisfaction will enhance market knowledge transfer only when positive economic satisfaction already exists. Furthermore, both the calculative commitment and the loyalty commitment of a manufacturer have inverse U-shaped relationships with a distributor's economic satisfaction, and are negatively and positively related, respectively, to the distributor's social satisfaction. The study thus points out the distinct roles of economic satisfaction and social satisfaction and their interaction in market knowledge transfer, and the insightful impacts of calculative and loyalty commitment on economic and social satisfaction. These findings provide new theoretical thinking about channel relationship management and the business practices of manufacturers.     

External knowledge search,innovative performance and productivity in the Korean ICT sector

In recent years, Korea’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry has grown rapidly. The prosperity of the ICT industry has brought growing recognition that rising productivity and innovative performance have made major contributions to ensuring competitive advantage in international markets. In this context, recent studies stress the importance of external knowledge for improving both innovative performance and productivity. This paper empirically investigates the effects of firms’ external knowledge search behavior on their productivity as well as their innovative performance in the Korean ICT manufacturing sector. Based on firm-level data from the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), this study indicates that incremental innovation and productivity are both related to external knowledge search.     

Gaining from vertical partnerships: knowledge transfer,relationship duration,and supplier performance improvement in the U.S. and Japanese automotive industries

We study sources of operational performance improvement in supplier partnerships. We argue that supplier performance will benefit most where time‐bound relational assets have developed between a buyer and supplier and the firms exploit the resulting communication efficiency by transferring productive knowledge. We examine the effects of two forms of knowledge exchange together with the prior duration of the buyer–supplier relationship. We find similar interaction patterns in two survey samples of Japanese and U.S. automotive suppliers. The effect of ordinary technical exchanges on supplier performance improvement does not vary with relationship duration. The effect of higher‐level technology transfer, however, grows more positive as relationship duration increases. Other results show relevant contrasts consistent with heterogeneous sourcing behavior between the two countries. The findings highlight the role of relational assets and show that it is important to distinguish between simple techniques and higher‐level technological capabilities when studying interfirm relationships. This research extends the literatures on knowledge transfer, buyer–supplier partnerships, and the performance dynamics of interfirm and intrafirm relationships in general. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Digital knowledge generation and the appropriability trade-off

The introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) has changed in depth the organization of the generation of knowledge reducing significantly knowledge absorption cost and improving knowledge interactions. The digital generation of knowledge relies on the systematic access and use of the stock of quasi-public knowledge. ICT enable to reconsider the knowledge appropriability trade-off as it helps to better appreciate the positive role of knowledge spillovers in the recombinant generation of new knowledge, next to the well-known negative effects of the limited appropriability of knowledge on revenues and hence incentives to innovate. This new analytical framework calls for an augmented role of telecommunications policy that should take into account the positive effects of knowledge connectivity on the generation of knowledge.     

Financial development,ICT diffusion and economic growth: Lessons from MENA region

This paper aims to test jointly two economic puzzles: the effect of financial development and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on economic growth. Theories predict a positive effect of financial development and ICT on growth but empirical studies on these relationships produced mixed results. Further, we investigate the interaction between financial development and ICT Diffusion to test whether the impact of financial development on growth is strengthened by better ICT infrastructure. In this paper we assess empirically these relationships in some MENA countries. The empirical study is based on estimation of a dynamic panel model with system GMM estimators. There are three main findings. First, our empirical results join empirical literature that find a negative direct effect of financial development on economic growth. This ambiguous relationship may be linked to many phenomenons but there are not yet clear explanations of this puzzle. Second, the estimates reveal a positive and significant direct effect of ICT proxies on economic growth. This implies that MENA countries need to reinforce their ICT policies and improve using of new Information and Communication Technology. Finally, the interaction between ICT penetration and financial development is found positive and significant in the growth regression. This implies that economies in Mena region can benefit from financial development only once a threshold of ICT development is reached.     

Impact of office layout on communication in a science-driven business

Driving innovation and creativity has relied heavily on new information technologies in the last decade. Human capital has certainly had its importance, but how to coordinate human capital in order to push productivity in research and development without compromising individual initiative is still not well understood. In this paper, we provide results showing that geometry of workspace has indeed an impact on communication patterns and may thus be used as a means to drive both innovation and efficient research. In order to be creative, new knowledge has to be created. Communication facilitates knowledge creation. We try to close the bridge between areas of creation of tacit knowledge and transfer of knowledge highlighted by authors like Nonaka, Takeuchi, Konno, von Krogh and von Hippel with the area of communication patterns pioneered by Allen, Hatch, and Stryker, by considering face‐to‐face (FTF) communication as a first step for socialization, socialization as a means for knowledge creation. In this article, we compare two different office environments within the same site, same activity, same hierarchical level and same company: a traditional cell office area and a new multi‐space office, used by people who used to work in cell offices. We observed FTF communication patterns during 120 h in two areas and measured over 2,000 communication events. We found that people communicate three times more often in a multi‐space area than in a cell‐space area. We also found that the mean duration of communication events decreased from 9 to 3 min when transferring collaborators from a cell‐space to a multi‐space. Finally time spent without communication increased from 5% to 29% when going from cell‐offices to multi‐space areas – leaving more time for people to work and think on their own. And we found that most communication events during work time in the multi‐space took place at the work place and seldom or never in soft sitting areas installed for the purpose of communication.     

ICT interaction with trade,FDI and financial inclusion on inclusive growth in top African nations ranked by ICT development

The significance of ICT (information and communication technology) framework in efforts to attract foreign investment (FDI), sustain commerce, and boost financial inclusion for enhanced inclusive growth has revolutionized the global system recently. Furthermore, earlier researches on the connection between ICT and growth concentrated more on general expansion than on the kind of growth that is evenly distributed and has broader societal implications than merely growing the size of the overall economic pie. This study critically analyzes the connection between ICT diffusion and inclusive growth, considering the interactive impacts of trade openness, FDI, and financial inclusion on inclusive growth in top African nations ranked in terms of ICT development, so as to close the existing literature gap. An improved-GMM (generalized method of moments) technique, founded on panel data-set spanning the years 2000–2020, is used in the study. By employing PCA (principal component analysis) to measure inclusive growth, ICT diffusion, and financial inclusion indices, the study contributes to the body of prior research. The model also accounts for the heterogeneous impact of the interactive term between ICT diffusions and trade openness, FDI, and financial inclusion on inclusive growth. Overall, results indicate that while ICT diffusion, trade openness, FDI, and financial inclusion significantly and positively enhance inclusive growth at both the individual and interaction levels, inflation hinders it. The study suggests that policymakers should establish measures to advance ICT development, encourage trade openness, attract foreign direct investment, and improve financial inclusion because these measures have tendencies to support inclusive growth by opening up a number of opportunities.