| Researchers and practitioners increasingly recognize that knowledge held by employees constitutes a primary source of value to organizations. New technologies and managerial practices have emerged in part to improve employees' access to knowledge that exists within the organization. To understand how these knowledge management practices and technologies are beneficial to organizations, researchers have focused predominantly on knowledge-sharing activities. Most authors support the position that employees should share more knowledge, which when taken in the aggregate would have positive outcomes for the organization.;This dissertation takes a different approach, arguing that it is the individual who receives knowledge who may experience improved performance, rather than the individual who shares it. Thus, the focal behaviour of interest should be the extent to which individuals seek out and access each other's knowledge, termed knowledge sourcing. Knowledge sourcing is a behaviour that can be carried out with or without the support of information technology. A general model of knowledge sourcing, including contextual and attitudinal antecedents and learning and performance outcomes, is proposed and tested using survey data from a global organization.;The results support four main conclusions. First, knowledge sourcing explains a significant proportion of an individual's learning and performance outcomes. Second, the extent to which individuals perceive their work as intellectually demanding predicts their knowledge sourcing behaviours. Moreover, knowledge sourcing imparts learning and performance benefits to individuals who perceive high intellectual work demands, whereas those with lower demands do not experience attributable positive outcomes. Third, learning outcomes mediates most of the effect of knowledge sourcing on performance outcomes. Finally, an individual's learning orientation proved to be an important attitudinal predictor of learning and performance outcomes.;For researchers, this study extends existing knowledge by proposing and testing a new way to understand knowledge management issues in organizations. It validates an instrument to measure each of these constructs, and provides evidence to support the nomological network surrounding these constructs. The knowledge sourcing model offers practitioners new ways to target knowledge management projects by demonstrating the need to identify those groups of individuals who are most likely to benefit from such interventions. |
