Understanding IT professionals’ knowledge sharing intention through KMS: a social exchange perspective

Knowledge sharing is the behavior of disseminating acquired knowledge to other members of an organization, and often presents major challenges, because some employees resist sharing their knowledge with others. In this paper, we investigate the knowledge sharing behavioral intention based on social exchange theory (SET). SET emphasizes non-material exchange, and people share their knowledge by weighing the potential benefits and risks of social relationships. The research presented in this study includes various constructs based on SET and social cognitive theory. This study examines the role of social exchange factors (perceived organizational support, organizational trust and reciprocal relationship expectancy) in explaining IT professionals’ knowledge sharing intentions through KMS. Based on a survey of 251 IT professionals in STSP, this study applies structural equation modeling to verify the research model. The results showed that trust, self-efficacy and reciprocal relationship expectancy are significantly associated with knowledge sharing through KMS.     

Research into employee trust: epistemological foundations and paradigmatic boundaries

This article explores the epistemological roots and paradigmatic boundaries of research into employee trust, a growing field in human resource management. Drawing on Burrell and Morgan's well‐known sociological paradigms and their epistemological foundations, we identify the dominant approaches to employee trust research to examine its strengths and limitations. Our review of the literature on employee trust revealed that the majority of the most cited papers were written from a psychological perspective, characterised by positivistic methodologies, variance theory explanations and quantitative data collection methods. We also found that most of the studies can be located in the functionalist paradigm, and while accepting that functionalism and psychological positivism have their merits, we argue that research in these traditions sometimes constrains our understanding of employee trust in their organisations. We conclude that trust researchers would benefit from a better understanding of the ontological, epistemological and axiological assumptions underlying of HRM research and should embrace greater epistemic reflexivity.     

Entrepreneurial migrants from/in emerging economies: breaking taboos and stereotypes

Entrepreneurial migration from/in emerging economies, as grand societal and humanitarian challenges that we currently face, underscores the need for scholarly research. In our role as social science researchers, this special issue aimed to stimulate scholars from different social science fields to rethink more broadly about the opportunities for making an impact with our research focus on entrepreneurial migration from/in emerging economies. This article provides an overview of the theoretical, empirical, managerial, and policy implications of entrepreneurial migrants from/in emerging economies research. It puts forward key concepts and measures, explores the relations within the current broader literature on migration and entrepreneurship, and identifies several gaps that represent future research questions. We also introduce eight papers in a special section of this issue, which offer answers to critical gaps and questioning some taboos/stereotypes related entrepreneurial migrants. We conclude by outlining an agenda for engaging the academic community to extend research on entrepreneurial migrants from/in emerging economies. It is the perfect time to “make a difference” through our research, teaching, and interaction with multiple socioeconomic agents to constitute impacts that “endorse a real transformation” for supporting the migrants’ community.

     

Religiosity as a source of influence on work engagement: a study of the Malaysian Finance industry

Abstract

The majority of work engagement studies have been conducted using a quantitative approach with limited attention to the institutional and social contexts. Meanwhile, the role of religion in shaping people’s philosophy and behaviour in life and work has been gaining attention from management researchers. Studies have revealed the positive impact of religiosity on a number of human resources and organizational outcomes. However, few studies treat religious belief as a job or personal resource from a HRM perspective. This study fills part of this research gap by focusing on the relevant factors that may affect work engagement in the Malaysian Islamic context. Drawing on data from 41 semi-structured interviews with mid-ranking professionals from the finance sector, this study responds to calls for more focus on contexts and for deeper qualitative investigations into individual dynamics that concern religiosity and work engagement. It provides evidence that religiosity plays an important role in work engagement. Our findings have implications for people management in organizations that have a diverse workforce representing multiple religions.     

高校人文社会科学项目中青年研究者分布和影响的聚类分析

随着青年研究者在人文社会科学研究项目中的申报和立项数不断增加,对他们的研究力分布和影响的分析非常重要。本文在教育部人文社科研究项目申报和立项数据的基础上,运用聚类分析的方法,从地区、高校类型分析了青年研究者的分布和影响,并给出了相关的结论和建议。     

Validating a theoretical model of citizens’ trust in tourism development

This research establishes the theoretical link between the development of tourism and citizens' trust. The research is grounded in political economy of state intervention in tourism and draws from social exchange theory to build the theoretical model. The latter incorporates variables such as trust, power, knowledge, and benefits and costs of tourism, which are central to any exchange process between social actors. The model distinguishes and proposes a theoretical relationship between domain specific political trust and generic political trust. The former refers to citizens' trust in local government in the specific context of tourism development while the latter refers to citizens' general level of trust in local government. The model is tested using data collected from residents of the metropolitan area of Naples, Italy. Results suggest that residents’ trust in local government in the specific context of tourism strongly influences their general level of trust, suggesting a spill-over effect of political trust. We demonstrated empirically that political trust in the context of tourism and the general trust in an institution are theoretically distinct concepts. The constructs we used to conceptualize tourism development has distinct influence on the two dimensions of political trust.     

HRM-performance research: under-theorized and lacking explanatory power

The search for a measurable link between HR practices and organizational performance is currently preoccupying HR professionals, consultants, government and academics. Empirical research on this human resource management-performance (HRM-P) link is, however, marred by a serious problem: it is under-theorized. While some (but by no means all) researchers on the HRM-P link are aware of the problem, none are prepared to face up to the scale of the implications. Without theory, research on the HRM-P link lacks explanatory power. The only ‘solution’ on offer (the assertion that theory will develop via more and/or better empirical work) has been less than successful: empirical research has multiplied with little or no theoretical development. Nor can it. The under-theorization and lack of explanatory power is rooted in the ‘scientific’ perspective that underpins empirical research. The paper draws upon critical realist philosophy to reveal exactly why the ‘scientific’ approach encourages under-theorization and lack of explanatory power and, furthermore, why the ‘solution’ on offer cannot solve the problem. The conclusion notes why the HR community should not avoid philosophical issues.     

以社会需求为导向的艺术设计教育新模式探索

随着经济的发展、科学技术的不断更新,艺术设计人才越来越受到社会的重视,艺术设计教育与社会需求之间的关系日趋重要。从某种意义上讲,能否适应社会需求已经成为检验艺术设计教育成功与否的尺度。艺术设计教育必须从经济、技术、信息等各种社会需求关系中认真思考,明确教学重点与自身位置,推进艺术设计教育教学改革,以培养出适应社会需求与经济发展的有用之才。     

Trust,Social Networks and Enterprise Development: Exploring Evidence from East and West Germany

This paper examines the role of social networks in enterprise development by comparing personal trust (as inherent in social relationships) to collective and institutional trust (derived from the wider cultural, political and legal environment). The findings indicate that there is a shift from personal towards institutional trust as the firm develops and grows, but they also confirm enterprise behaviour being based on a mixture of different trust forms. Moreover, the findings underline the difficulty of studying trust empirically, recommending longitudinal qualitative approaches for further research.     

Interdisciplinary social science: a methodological analysis

Since the 1930's, interdisciplinarity has been advocated in the social sciences for the purpose of achieving more comprehensive explanations of observable social phenomena. However, the realization of this promising perspective has been rather poor. This article argues that two main causes of the failure to create interdisciplinary social science can be distinguished, i.e., methodological and theoretical problems. Methodological problems stem either from taking a reductionist approach towards interdisciplinarity, or by mistaking measurement issues for theoretical topics. Theoretical problems result from the poor state and rate of theory formation within psychology. The implications of these problems are that the validity and reliability of explanations of macro social phenomena, which are provided by disciplines such as sociology and macro economics, are seriously at stake.     

Evaluation in Design-Oriented Research

Design has been recognized for a long time both as art and as science. In the sixties of the previous century design-oriented research began to draw the attention of scientific researchers and methodologists, not only in technical engineering but also in the social sciences. However, a rather limited methodology for design-oriented research has been developed, especially as to the social sciences. In this article we introduce evaluation methodology and research methodology as a systematic input in the process of designing. A designing cycle is formulated with six stages, and for each of these stages operations, guidelines and criteria for evaluation are defined. All this may be used for a considerable improvement of the process and product of designing.     

组织内知识共享的信任模型研究

随着知识经济时代的到来,知识管理已经成为学术界和企业界竞相关注的热点。在知识管理的相关研究中,知识共享和组织内部信任问题是研究的重点课题,但对两者的综合研究还不多见。本文在前人对知识共享和信任机制的研究基础上,整合两个概念,引入组织制度、认知因素、情感因素、信任倾向等影响因素,分析出一个全新的组织内知识共享的综合信任模型,希望能够帮助组织更好地理解信任机制,促进组织内知识共享行为。     

Some Reflections on Being the Subject of Research Into Memory. An Academic Critique of Methodology Applied to a Single Person

The author's memory of events between 1941–60 in World War Two and civilian employment in Burma and Tanganiyika, was tested by three psychologists over three days on the basis of his 3,000 page diary and other written records which had not been read since they were written.The results found discrepancies in both traumatic and non-traumatic events. The methodology involved complex interpersonal relationships related to age, sex, appearance, class, education, ethnicity, and trust in the researchers as well as issues of what to test in such a mass of material and the validity of the base line tests.The methodology brought out the need for researchers to know the social field surrounding memory such as current affairs and routine and the need for an industrial work study approach to research planning.The overall approach used an elitist language code and did not allow for the physical tiredness and social obligations of those involved.     

Coproducing healthcare: individual-level impacts of engaging citizens to develop recommendations for reducing diagnostic error

ABSTRACT

Coproduction has received considerable attention from scholars and practitioners in recent years. While theory and some research suggest that coproduction can have individual-level effects on participating lay actors, few studies have tested such hypothesized effects. This study seeks to add to the evidence base for collective coproduction. Using data from a randomized and controlled research project, it examines whether collective coproduction affects participants’ issue awareness, perceived empowerment, trust in service professionals, and support for coproduction. The results provide empirical evidence that collective coproduction can significantly increase issue awareness, empowerment, and trust. The results for support of coproduction are mixed.     

Human Resource Management Practices and Trust in Public Organizations

Abstract

Trust has been acknowledged as a valuable managerial resource within organizations. Working as a lubricant of organizational functioning, trust reduces opportunistic behaviours while it increases voluntary compliance to organizational norms and rules as well as enhancing individual and organizational performance. Considering the importance of trust, it is worthwhile to explore what factors may help build trust within organizations. This research investigates whether perceptions of several human resource management (HRM) practices are associated with trust in government organizations. According to social exchange theory, HRM practices signal management's commitment to employees which in turn leads to greater trust in the organization. Using data from an employee survey conducted for the Georgia Department of Transportation in 2007, this research tests how employee perceptions of HRM practices are related to trust in three distinct levels of management in a large department of state government: trust in department leadership, trust in one's leadership team, and trust in one's supervisor. Binary logit analyses suggest that perceptions of HRM practices focusing on autonomy, compensation, communication, performance appraisal, and career development are associated with trust in public organizations. According to the result, those practices present variation in their leverage on trust in leadership at different levels.     

Social influence in technology adoption: taking stock and moving forward

Social influence has been shown to profoundly affect human behavior in general and technology adoption in particular. Over time, multiple definitions and measures of social influence have been introduced to the field of technology adoption research, contributing to an increasingly fragmented landscape of constructs that challenges the conceptual integrity of the field. Consequently, this paper sets out to review how social influence has been conceptualized in technology adoption research. In so doing, this paper attempts to inform researchers’ understanding of the construct, reconcile its myriad conceptualizations, constructively challenge extant approaches, and provide impulses for future research. A systematic review of the salient literature uncovers that extant interpretations of social influence are (1) predominantly compliance-based and as such risk overlooking identification- and internalization-based effects; (2) primarily targeted at the individual level and non-social technologies, thereby precluding the impact of socially enriched environments; and (3) heavily reliant on survey-based and US/China-centric samples, which jeopardizes the generalizability and predictive validity of the findings. Building upon these insights, this paper develops an integrated perspective on social influence in technology adoption research that encourages scholars to pursue a multi-theoretical understanding of social influence at the interface of users, social referents, and technology.     

Committed Objectivity in Race-Class-Gender Research

This article argues that objectivity and commitment are different but that they are articulated rather than being separate issues in social research. This article challenges those who believe that objectivity is impossible or undesirable as well as those who believe that commitment is undesirable in social science. This approach is close to the call by Sandra Harding (1991, 1993) that the methods of science should be applied to science itself by raising the women question in science and the science question in women's studies. Here, she develops her earlier analysis of feminist research agenda in science in terms of empiricism, standpoint epistemology and post-modern feminism. In this paper, a slightly different formulation will be advanced to resolve what could be said to be a false dichotomy between objectivity and commitment. Committed objectivity or objective commitment could be used to capture the inextricability of the articulation of the processes of commitment and objectivity. The article concludes that both objectivity and commitment are necessary elements of good research by all researchers irrespective of (or even because of) race-class-gender differences.     

Excel spreadsheet as a tool for social narrative analysis

Qualitative research is an open field where different researchers from several disciplines deal with social meanings and with the issue of understanding. During the last two decades, the use of computers and software has extended to become a relevant part of our daily landscape and also a basic device of social research, even in relation to a qualitative approach. There are many applications of qualitative research software specially designed by a diversity of firms and institutions producing different levels of sophisticated tools that can be used in the social research process. This paper presents a protocol for using an Excel spreadsheet as a tool for analyzing social discourses. We will show how to work with the documents produced in the empirical data collection and the criteria to structure the components of the application and its main representations. Finally, we offer a methodology for developing a personalized application in order to orient social design as a powerful and reflexive tool that contribute to a social thinking immersed in continuous improvement.     

The relationship between trust,HRM practices and firm performance

Numerous researchers have begun to examine organizational trust and its influence on the workforce. However, little empirical research has focused on the conditions that engender organizational trust – those that make managers more willing to accept the vulnerability inherent in certain managerial actions that are part of human resource management. This study evaluates the trust mechanism and the way HRM practices mediate its impact on improving organizational performance. One hundred and four HR managers from the leading companies in the Israeli industrial, service and trade sectors, based on sales and operating revenue, completed questionnaires. Overall, we found that HR managers are more likely to offer training and shape the internal promotion system when trust is high. In addition, we found that firms exhibited higher organizational performance when trust is high. The paper also presents some of the model's implications.     

Contextual content analysis

This article suggests one way to systematically code textual data for research. The approach utilizes computer content analysis to examine patterns of emphasized ideas in text as well as the social context or underlying perspective reflected in the text. A conceptual dictionary is used to organize word meanings. An extensive profile of word meanings is used to characterize and discriminate social contexts. Social contexts are analyzed in relation to four reference dimensions (traditional, practical, emotional and analytic) which are used in the social science literature. The approach is illustrated with five widely varying texts, analyzed with selected comparative data. This approach has been useful in many social science investigations to system-atically score open-ended textual information. Scores can be incorporated into quantitative analysis with other data, used as a guide to qualitative studies, and to help integrate strengths of quantitative and qualitative approaches to research.