Casting the net: A multimodal network perspective on knowledge sharing

The purpose of this dissertation is to expand existing knowledge management literature by integrating two separate schools of knowledge management research---social network analysis and information systems research. Although some existing research has begun to integrate these fields, a large gap still exists in understanding how networks of people interact with other technology-enabled information management capabilities, such as databases, to share knowledge. My dissertation examines how a network of people interacts with multiple information management capabilities to share knowledge.; I do so by adopting the concept of multimodal networks, defined as the collection of people and technology-enabled information management capabilities used to share knowledge within an organization (Monge et al. 2003). I conduct a multi-method study that explores the nature of and performance implications for the distinct features of such networks.; Using a grounded theory approach, I first develop a theory of knowledge sharing in multimodal networks through a qualitative study of six healthcare teams in a large healthcare delivery organization. The teams share a common task, common performance metrics, and are comprised of roughly the same complement of employees and an identical complement of information systems. Controlling for network composition and task helps isolate the effects of various features of the network configuration of the multimodal network. Using this qualitative data, I develop a theoretical model of seven hypotheses along three dimensions of the knowledge sharing network---the structural dimension, the relational dimension, and the cognitive dimension.; I then conduct a survey of 40 healthcare teams to test the hypotheses generated from my qualitative research. In general, I find good support for my seven hypotheses along each of the three dimensions of the knowledge sharing network. The most consistently significant variable is IS centrality, which simultaneously accounts for both the user-system and interpersonal ties to account for the importance of information systems in the multimodal network. This provides strong support for the importance of the multimodal network perspective to study knowledge sharing. I conclude this research by discussing the contributions, limitations, and future directions for this research.