Marsch Martínez Micro-Bargaining as Enhancer of Knowledge Management

A Comparison between Mexico and Germany
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-3-86618-575-3
Verlag: Edition Rainer Hampp
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 442 Seiten

Knowledge is a key resource to reach and sustain competitive advantage. Therefore, over the last years, organisations have made several efforts to enhance the creation, storage and leverage of knowledge. Yet, despite vast budgets, several Knowledge Management initiatives have turned out to be fruitless because of the staff's recurrent reluctance to share knowledge. The extent to which such reluctance takes place in organisations is determined to a great amount by two phenomena: (1) organisational culture, which determines whether the staff prefer to share or to hoard knowledge and (2) Darwiportunism, which explains the dynamic of two trends in organisations: competition among organisations and opportunism among their staff. With the aim of finding a way to overcome the reluctance to share knowledge, this research analyses the impact of Micro-Bargaining processes on an organisational environment which fosters Knowledge Management. In order to better analyse the cultural influence, this research adopts a cross-cultural approach and compares the causality of Darwiportunism and Micro-Bargaining on Knowledge Management in two countries: Mexico and Germany.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Marsch Martínez, Atl Rodolfo

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Unternehmensorganisation, Corporate Responsibility Unternehmensethik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Empirische Sozialforschung, Statistik
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Bereichsspezifisches Management Office Management, Büroorganisation
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Betriebswirtschaft: Theorie & Allgemeines
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Bereichsspezifisches Management Personalwesen, Human Resource Management
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Wissensmanagement
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Unternehmensführung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Foreword;6
2;Preface;8
3;Table of Contents;10
4;Index of Figures;14
5;Index of Tables;18
6;1 Introduction;20
6.1;1.1 Problem Description;20
6.2;1.2 Research Objective;31
6.3;1.3 Dissertation Structure;34
7;2 Theoretical Framework;40
7.1;2.1 Knowledge Management;40
7.2;2.2 Darwiportunism;50
7.3;2.3 Micro-Bargaining;63
7.4;2.4 Organizational Culture;80
8;3 Methodological Conception;94
8.1;3.1 Theory of the Methods Used in this Research;94
8.2;3.2 Methodological Conception of this Research;122
9;4 Results of the Telephonic Semi-Structured Interviews;134
9.1;4.1 Composition of Participant Companies;134
9.2;4.2 Findings;135
10;5 Theoretical Overview of the Variables and Development of Hypotheses;142
10.1;5.1 Situation Variables;144
10.2;5.2 Micro-Bargaining Strategy Variables;153
10.3;5.3 Success Variables;195
10.4;5.4 Overview of the Proposed Hypotheses;235
11;6 Empirical Research;238
11.1;6.1 Sample Characteristics;238
11.2;6.2 PLS Analysis;240
11.3;6.3 Descriptive Analysis and Test of Hypotheses;252
11.4;6.4 Overview of the Test of Hypotheses;358
11.5;6.5 Mediator Variables;360
12;7 Discussions and Outlook;369
12.1;7.1 Summary;369
12.2;7.2 Limitations of Research;379
12.3;7.3 Implications for Further Research;380
12.4;7.4 Managerial Implications;381
13;Annexes;384
14;Bibliography;408

Leseproben

5 Theoretical Overview of the Variables and Development of Hypotheses (S. 123-124)

Once the theoretical framework and the methodology used in this research have been explained in chapters 2 and 3 respectively, the focus point of this chapter is the theoretical delimitation of the used variables and the construction of hypotheses. In order to do that, the dimensions of the three components of a Micro-Bargaining process (situation, strategy and success) to be used in this research are delimited and theoretically justified.

In order to analyse how Micro-Bargaining can be used as enhancer of Knowledge Management in different countries, the supporting theories to be selected must take into account three constraints. First, the study should permit a cross-cultural analysis. Second, the Micro-Bargaining strategies should be oriented to requests of knowledge. And third, the success factors must measure cultural characteristics that allow the share of knowledge and, therefore, constitute a culture that is friendly to Knowledge Management.

As detailed in section 2.3, every Micro-Bargaining process is threefold: (1) situation, (2) strategy and (3) success. The situation defines the initial point of the Micro-Bargaining processes. The strategy describes the way the Micro-Bargaining is conducted, specifically the shape and the approach of the request. And the success describes whether the request was successful or unsuccessful and the way in which the relationship between parties is affected.

The situation block is conformed by the components of Darwiportunism and by Hofstedes dimensions. Since Darwiportunism has been observed as one of the main barriers of the share of knowledge among individuals, the components of Darwiportunism (Darwnism and Opportunism) are included in the situation block. Hofstedes dimensions serve to analyse the organizational cultures and allow a cross-cultural study with a strong theoretical support.

As mentioned in section 2.4.8, after the analysis of the most important approaches of cross-cultural analysis, Hofstedes approach was found to be the most appropriate for this research. This decision was taken because of many reasons. (1) Hofstede presents a cultural map that includes both nations contemplated in this research Germany and Mexico. (2) Hofstedes dimensions for cross-cultural analysis is one of the most cited and is perhaps the most widely used. Therefore, thanks to the available literature, it provides a robust basis for any cross-cultural study. And finally, (3) all of the dimensions proposed by Hofstede, excluding power distance, have a counterpart in one or more of the other cross-cultural approaches reviewed.

The Micro-Bargaining strategies are conformed by the five strategies to overcome the reluctance to share knowledge found in the explorative interviews: Contextualization, Involve Organizational Layers, Involve Social Networks, Offer Incentives and Ingratiation. The name “ingratiation” proposed by Kipnis, Schmidt and Wilkinsons was adopted instead of “personal closeness to the source of knowledge”. As mentioned in section 4.1.2, these five strategies are theoretically supported by Kipnis, Schmidt and Wilkinsons influence tactics. The third component of a Micro-Bargaining process, that is “success”, are characteristics that allow the share of knowledge.

Über Autor(innen)

Dr. Atl Rodolfo Marsch Martínez (1976) graduated as computer systems engineer (1997) and as master in administration of information technologies (2000) at Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico. After seven years of professional experience in the fields of information and process management, he moved to Germany to pursue his Ph.D. at the chair of Business Administration - Organisation, Human Resource Management and Information Management (Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christian Scholz) at Saarland University.