Posted by Virginia Kleist on June 20, 1997 at 23:04:15:

In Reply to: How to Harvest your Employees' Knowledge? posted by Yogesh Malhotra on June 20, 1997 at 09:41:55:

Constant, et al. (1994) introduce the idea of ownership to the definition of information. Constant, Kiesler and Sproull separate information into tangible information and expertise information. They define tangible information as the result of some production function, and believe that it belongs to the organization or firm in which it is produced. Tangible information includes such items as data, files, software or code, for example. Expertise information, however, is learned, is more cerebral, and includes expert knowledge maps of complexities such as how to fix something, for instance. Expertise information belongs to the person who possesses the skill, and is transportable with the person if he/she leaves the firm. Some information is difficult to share because it is difficult to codify so that others may understand it (Nonaka, 1994), and expensive to share (Choudhury and Sampler, 1997), but the most interesting aspect of this is that people really don't want to share their expertise information because this is what differentiates them as employees. Perhaps it is this resistance to give up one's expertise knowledge which limits the "harvesting of employee knowledge".

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Follow Ups:

• Three specific areas I've seen employees resist knowledge sharing Michael Kran 01:36:06 6/21/97 (1)
  • Re: Three specific areas I've seen employees resist knowledge sharing Kevin Flavin 10:48:40 7/31/97 (0)

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