The burden of organizational learning surrounding software process innovations (SPIs)—and complex organizational technologies in general—creates a "knowledge barrier" that inhibits diffusion. Paul Attewell has suggested that many organizations will defer adoption until knowledge barriers have been sufficiently lowered; however, this leaves open the question of which organizations should be more likely to innovate, even in face of high knowledge barriers. It is proposed here that organizations will innovate in the presence of knowledge barriers when the burden of organizational learning is effectively lower, either because much of the required know-how already exists within the organization, or because such knowledge can be acquired more easily or more economically. Specifically, it is hypothesized that organizations will have a greater propensity to initiate and sustain the assimilation of SPIs when they have a greater scale of activities over which learning costs can be spread (learning-related scale), more extensive existing knowledge related to the focal innovation (related knowledge), and a greater diversity of technical knowledge and activities (diversity). An empirical study using data on the assimilation of object-oriented programming languages (OOPLs) by 608 IT organizations strongly confirmed the importance of the three hypothesized factors in explaining the assimilation of OOPLs.

Effective organizational beaming requires high absorptive capacity, which has two major elements: prior knowledge base and intensity of effort. Hyundai Motor Company, the most dynamic automobile producer in developing countries, pursued a strategy of independence in developing absorptive capacity. In its process of advancing from one phase to the next through the preparation for and acquisition, assimilation, and improvement of foreign technologies, Hyundai acquired migratory knowledge to expand its prior knowledge base and proactively constructed crises as a strategic means of intensifying its beaming effort. Unlike externally evoked crises, proactively constructed internal crises present a clew performance gap, shift beaming orientation from imitation to innovation, and increase the intensity of effort in organizational learning. Such crisis construction is an evocative and galvanizing device in the personal repertoires of proactive top managers. A similar process of opportunistic learning is also

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Electronic mail and the world-wide web may be particularly helpful to university faculty members as they implement these technologies into their teaching. However, effective implementation depends on a host of social, technical, and historical factors. This study creates and tests a "climate for computer-mediated communication technology implementation " survey. This quantitative climate measure correlates specific department-level policies and practices with implementation success. The implementation climate at a large state university based on 420 faculty members representing 58 different academic departments suggests that a climate for computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology implementation does exist at the department level within the university. In addition, the climate for CMC technology implementation accounts for variance in implementation success over and above more traditional implementation correlates measured in prior MIS research (i.e., individual expectations, task urgency, technical expertise). The research results demonstrate the applicability of MIS research findings to educational settings and quantitatively confirm the existence of a department-level climate for implementation.

Designers have many options for how to encode knowledge, although most are based on declarative representations. This paper explores the use of questions to represent knowledge. Practioner experiences implementing two knowledge resources using a question-based representation are described. In both resources, the use of "questions" was chosen as both a nonthreatening way of engaging users and for its value in initiating thinking processes. Both systems have succeeded in capturing the interest of users and serve as valuable components of the organization's knowledge capture program. This paper describes the systems, the underlying design approach, and results from system evaluation. Since the goal of any knowledge resource is to facilitate the reuse of knowledge, it is important to understand the impact that different knowledge representations could have on system acceptance. This study raises several research issues based on experiences using the unusual representation of "questions." 1.

This paper presents a model of digital network evolution based on early research findings on Intranet implementation in American corporations. This evolution process is described as a three-step, cyclical model: automation, experimentation, and reconfiguration. These steps are rooted in the existing literature on the study of technology and organizations. The suggested co-evolution model builds upon existing theories and models, and goes one step further by suggesting a cyclical pattern of co-evolution and the simultaneous reconfiguration of technology and organization. Intranets and Organizational Change 3 Digital networks and Organizational Change: The Evolutionary Deployment of Corporate Information Infrastructure I. Corporate networks: the magic rod? IT-enabled corporate networks have become a crucial part of American businesses' strategy. No longer considered a "utility", like water or electrical networks, they instead serve to define and articulate the transformation of busine...

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Actor Network Theory is applied to the analysis of three IT-mediated change projects and their contexts. Results show that the interpretative flexibility of the technology gave rise to conflicting translations, causing continuous realignments of competing networks enacted through battles of wills and face-saving strategies. We argue that to understand and foresee the complex interactions between heterogeneous actor groups and drifting technologies, ITmediated change processes need to be viewed through a socio-technical lens. Key words: actor network theory; chains of translation; interpretative flexibility; IT-projects; organizational change; project management 1

The publication of the SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research marks a significant

Repurposive appropriation is a creative everyday act in which a user invents a novel use for information technology (IT) and adopts it. This study is the first to address its prevalence and predictability in the consumer IT context. 2,379 respondents filled in an online questionnaire on creative uses of digital cameras, such as using them as scanners, periscopes, and storage media. The data reveal that such creative uses are adopted by about half of the users, on average, across different demographic backgrounds. Discovery of a creative use on one’s own is slightly more common than is learning it from others. Most users discover the creative uses either completely on their own or wholly through learning from others. Our regression model explains 34 % of the variance in adoption of invented uses, with technology cognizance orientation, gender, exploration orientation, use frequency and use tenure as the strongest predictors. These findings have implications for both design and marketing.