Knowledge management and emotional exhaustion as moderators in the relationship between role conflict and organizational performance: evidence from India

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the importance of knowledge management as a moderator in the relationship between two of the burnout variables, namely, role ambiguity and work overload. In addition, the paper tests a conceptual model where emotional exhaustion is a moderator in the relationship between role ambiguity, work overload and performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a structured survey instrument, this paper gathered data from 692 respondents from the information technology industry in the southern part of India. The first psychometric properties of the instrument were tested and then hierarchical regression was used as a statistical technique for analyzing the data.

Findings

Results show that role conflict is positively related to role ambiguity and work overload, role ambiguity is negatively related to performance, work overload is positively related to performance, knowledge management moderates the relationship between role conflict and role ambiguity and role conflict and work overload. The hierarchical regression results also support that emotional exhaustion moderates the relationship between role ambiguity and performance and work overload and performance.

Research limitations/implications

As the present research is based on self-report measures, the limitations of social desirability bias and common method bias are inherent. However, this study attempts to minimize these limitations by following appropriate statistical techniques and procedures.

Practical implications

This study contributes to both practicing managers and the literature on conflict management. The study suggests that managers use knowledge management practices to mitigate the ill-effects of role conflict and enhance performance. This study also highlights the role of emotional exhaustion in organizations.

Originality/value

This study provides new insights about the importance of knowledge management practices and emotional exhaustion in the relationship between role conflict and performance. To the knowledge, the importance of knowledge management practices is underemphasized in conflict management research. The study also provides insights into the role of one of the burnout variables i.e. emotional exhaustion in its influence on performance. The implications of this relationship for organizational role theory and organizational learning theory and for management practice, are discussed.

It's a match! Simulating compatibility-based learning in a network of networks

In this article, we develop a new way to capture knowledge diffusion and assimilation in innovation networks by means of an agent-based simulation model. The model incorporates three essential characteristics of knowledge that have not been covered entirely by previous diffusion models: the network character of knowledge, compatibility of new knowledge with already existing knowledge, and the fact that transmission of knowledge requires some form of attention. We employ a network-of- networks approach, where agents are located within an innovation network and each agent itself contains another network composed of knowledge units (KUs). Since social learning is a path-dependent process, in our model, KUs are exchanged among agents and integrated into their respective knowledge networks depending on the received KUs' compatibility with the currently focused ones. Thereby, we are also able to endogenize attributes such as absorptive capacity that have been treated as an exogenous parameter in some of the previous diffusion models. We use our model to simulate and analyze various scenarios, including cases for different degrees of knowledge diversity and cognitive distance among agents as well as knowledge exploitation vs. exploration strategies. Here, the model is able to distinguish between two levels of knowledge diversity: heterogeneity within and between agents. Additionally, our simulation results give fresh impetus to debates about the interplay of innovation network structure and knowledge diffusion. In summary, our article proposes a novel way of modeling knowledge diffusion, thereby contributing to an advancement of the economics of innovation and knowledge.

Knowledge Beyond the Individual? Making Sense of a Notion of Collective Knowledge in Organization Theory

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Situated learning theory and agentic orientation: A relational sociology approach

The orthodox literature on situated learning has favoured a conception of agency which is linked to habitual action and as a consequence it emphasizes learning as routinized enactment based on social cohesion. To highlight the contested nature of situated learning we draw on the case study of situated learning during organizational change and we employ a relational sociology perspective. The latter views agency as a process encompassing iterative, projective and practical evaluative dimensions which unfold in relation to the temporal and structural contexts within which situated learning is embedded. The evidence illustrates situated learning as an emergent process shaped by the diverse modes in which actors—operating in a context imbued with ambiguity—connected with a seemingly shared set of principles informing their practice.

Knowledge Management in Organizations

Within the last 10 years we have witnessed the appearance and consolidation of a brand- new discipline, that of knowledge management (KM), which has the organization and organizational environment as its primary focus. This discipline seeks to design systems and strategies to make it possible to systematically take advantage of the knowledge generated by and within an organization. Within the current economic situation characterized by extreme competitiveness and market globalization, the correct application of knowledge management offers an important competitive advantage in the business world, one capable of ensuring a company’s ongoing survival and operation. This article seeks to present a brief analysis of this new discipline and, at the same time, offer a useful conceptual framework as a tool for orientation to the literature of the field. In order to accomplish this, first we shall tackle the historical context of the discipline and describe the two main schools which have dominated the theoretical outlook of knowledge management ever since its inception, as well as their evolution. Secondly we shall compile an outline of the fundamental concepts upon which KM is based, and we shall introduce a detailed working definition of knowledge management. Last of all, we shall consider the methodological and pragmatic aspects involved in developing an effective KM program or system within an organization.