Social Identity and Knowledge Transfer

社会认同和知识转移

• 批准号: 0241949
• 负责人: Linda Argote
• 金额: $ 20.13万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-04-01 至 2006-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0241949&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Social; Identity; Knowledge; Transfer

Knowledge transfer in organizations has become increasingly important because firms are more often organized in a distributed fashion to take advantage of differences in expertise, labor costs, and access to markets that exist around the world. The increased use of joint ventures and strategic alliances, the increased frequency of mergers and acquisitions, and the greater prevalence of the multiunit organizational form also point to the importance of knowledge transfer. Evidence indicates that organizations that are adept at transferring knowledge across their units are more productive and more likely to survive than their counterparts that are less effective at knowledge transfer. The research examines a critical predictor of knowledge transfer across groups: whether the groups share a social identity. We hypothesize that sharing a social identity affects the likelihood of knowledge transfer across groups and their subsequent performance. Group members who share a social identity generally view their own group, its members, its products, and its processes more positively than those of other groups. In a laboratory study, we found that groups that shared a superordinate social identity with a new member who rotated in from another group were very likely to adopt innovations proposed by the rotating member when the innovations improved their performance and to reject innovations when they did not improve performance. By contrast, groups that did not share a superordinate social identity with a rotating member were likely to reject the new member's innovations, even when they would have improved group performance. The current research replicates and builds on our initial results to gain a greater understanding of the processes through which and the conditions under which social identity affects knowledge transfer and performance. The first study aims to determine the minimal conditions necessary to create the perception of a shared superordinate social identity among interacting group members and to affect knowledge transfer. The second and third studies aim to assess how characteristics of groups and characteristics of the knowledge being transferred interact with social identity to affect knowledge transfer. This research has implications for theories of knowledge transfer as well as theories about shared social identity. Because knowledge transfer can have a significant impact on group and organizational performance, the research has practical implications for improving organizational and work group effectiveness.

组织中的知识转移已经变得越来越重要，因为公司更经常以分布式方式组织，以利用世界各地存在的专业知识、劳动力成本和市场准入方面的差异。越来越多地采用合资企业和战略联盟，越来越频繁地进行兼并和收购，以及越来越普遍地采用多单位组织形式，这些都表明了知识转移的重要性。有证据表明，善于跨单位转移知识的组织比知识转移效率较低的组织更有生产力，更有可能生存下来。该研究考察了跨群体知识转移的一个关键预测指标：群体是否拥有共同的社会身份。我们假设共享社会身份会影响群体间知识转移的可能性及其随后的表现。拥有相同社会身份的群体成员通常比其他群体更积极地看待自己的群体、群体成员、群体产品和群体过程。在一项实验室研究中，我们发现，与从另一个群体轮转进来的新成员共享上级社会身份的群体，很有可能采用轮转成员提出的创新，如果创新能提高他们的绩效，他们就会拒绝创新，如果创新不能提高他们的绩效。相比之下，与轮换成员没有共同社会身份的小组可能会拒绝新成员的创新，即使他们会提高小组的表现。当前的研究复制并建立在我们最初的结果之上，以更好地理解社会身份影响知识转移和绩效的过程和条件。第一项研究旨在确定在相互作用的群体成员之间创造共同的上级社会身份感知并影响知识转移所需的最小条件。第二和第三项研究旨在评估群体特征和被转移知识特征如何与社会认同相互作用影响知识转移。本研究对知识转移理论和共同社会认同理论具有启示意义。由于知识转移对团队和组织绩效有显著的影响，本研究对提高组织和工作组的有效性具有现实意义。