| Maintaining product feasibility and managing knowledge flows are difficult if an organization has to perform a complex process while operating in an equivocal environment. My dissertation seeks to answer how knowledge flows impact the organizational performance of an enterprise with discontinuous membership. The position of a discontinuous member is added or deleted based upon the skills needed during a workflow process. Utilizing data from the affordable housing domain, I developed a mixed-method case-study research methodology combining research methodologies from the field of anthropology (archival ethnography), sociology (knowledge network analysis), and computer science and engineering (computational organizational theory---COT). The proof-of-concept COT model demonstrates that inaccurate knowledge flow (i.e., communication to retrieve or allocate information to enable action) in a discontinuous organization affects its organizational performance. A discontinuous member's inaccurate knowledge cognition could cause a functional error at a personal level, which is not obvious at the enterprise's overall performance level. It affirms the existence of a non-hierarchical information-processing system in an enterprise that, this dissertation proposes knowledge as another contingency factor for the design of organizational fit.; The dissertation advances the merging of two fields-knowledge flow dynamics and organization-in the design of organization based on knowledge flow characteristics. Broader implications include the development of theories and applications in the field of knowledge management; establishing foundations for mitigating the knowledge loss phenomenon in dynamic environments; and refining the mixed-method case-study research methodology for theoretical and application in a multi-disciplinary research. My dissertation claims the following contributions. First, it establishes discontinuous membership in enterprises as a contributing factor to knowledge loss in complex product development processes. Second, it merges knowledge flow dynamics and organization theories in proposing additional contingency fit measures---i.e., knowledge, discontinuity, and reach---for the design of organizational fit. Third, it applies established social network analysis methodology to study knowledge flow in an engineering problem. Fourth, the dissertation extends Galbraith's information processing theory to include Wegner's transactive memory theory in the Virtual Design Team COT tool. Finally, it develops a cross-disciplinary research methodology, which uses established tools in other domains to solve an engineering problem. |
