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AbstractThe introduction of knowledge management (KM) systems has become a key factor that potentially leads to competitive advantage. To take fully advantage of KM systems it is often necessary to make adjustments along a variety of dimensions to the organisations concerned. This paper proposes a KM model built around four factors: strategic; organisational; technical and informational; cultural and human. With special focus on the audit and consultancy profession, this paper identifies the respective influence of individual factors on the use and capitalisation of the knowledge contained in the KM system that is introduced into an organisation. The results show that use of the system is facilitated by technical and information systems (knowledge bases) developed as a significant part of the group's strategy and culture. However, despite organisational actions that focus o knowledge, knowledge capitalisation remains problematic, in large part, due to human and cultural reticence over sharing. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article argues that because the U.S. dissemination system in education is based on a research-driven rather than a user-focused model, the system has frequently seemed unresponsive to organizational improvement needs that have arisen from the field. Development of this bias has been exacerbated by political, organizational, and programmatic thrusts in federal agencies. In contrast, dissemination systems in the Netherlands and Denmark have achieved a different balance of support for locally and centrally initiated improvements. An examination of systems in other countries can provide useful models for adapting the U.S. system to current needs.

The use of social science knowledge by policymakers has fallen short of what many social scientists would prefer. Research that supports this conclusion may be flawed by a methodological bias that overlooks the variety of knowledge sources used by decision makers. A survey of social workers that measures knowledge use from the perspective of the user, rather than the producer, of information identifies three types of knowledge sources, all of which are integrated in the decision-making process. We argue here for a shift in the direction of knowledge utilization research that will recognize similarities between knowledge use and knowledge creation.

This study uses the Knowledge Use System (KUS) that was developed by Barabba and Zaltman in 1991 to delineate decisionmaker variables and characteristics that may thwart utilization of evaluation results. The KUS was originally developed as a tool enabling corporate market reseatch to overcome "obstacles to implementation." The KUS is a process used to point out decisionmaker biases, preconceived notions and other decisionmaker variables. It facilitates discussion and consensus building about important evaluation issues that, if not recognized, might diminish utilization. The results of this study suggest that the KUS is successfully adaptable to higher education contexts. Its use during evaluation appears to improve the quality of the evaluation and the implementation of results.

PurposeInformation technology changes rapidly, and the market trend flow changes even faster. The information systems (IS) department in a technological oriented environment has to ensure that the plans or solutions made by the IS department can align with organizational strategy to avoid resources waste, and adaptability is a crucial issue for an IS department too. This study believes that adaptability and alignment of the IS department are ambidexterity. The concept of knowledge use effectiveness (KUE), based on the human agency theory, proposed a research model mainly founded on intellectual capital, human agency theory, and contextual ambidexterity, and used intellectual capital (including human, structure and relational capital) as a framework to find the antecedents of knowledge usage.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducts an empirical research method and collects 150 valid cases from the IS department employees in Taiwan.FindingsThe results of this study are: (1) KUE in an IS department significantly improves the ambidexterity; (2) intellectual capital has a positive influence on KUE; (3) despite human capital having no influence on iteration, iterational KUE has no influence on adaptability.Originality/valueFor academics, this study has developed KUE through a novel perspective and uses the concept of the human agency to articulate the characteristic of KUE, and thus has combined the intellectual capital, human agency and contextual ambidexterity into a research model. For managers, they should learn that KUE has a positive effect on the IS department ambidexterity, composed of alignment and adaptability. By knowing that, they can understand the concrete elaboration of KUE much better. Therefore, enhancing the process of knowledge usage can be a practical and useful way of improving an IS department performance.

AbstractScholarship on climate information use has focused significantly on engagement with practitioners as a means to enhance knowledge use. In principle, working with practitioners to incorporate their knowledge and priorities into the research process should improve information uptake by enhancing accessibility and improving users' perceptions of how well information meets their decision needs, including knowledge credibility, understandability, and fit. Such interactive approaches, however, can entail high costs for participants, especially in terms of financial, human, and time resources. Given the likely need to scale up engagement as demand for climate information increases, it is important to examine whether and to what extent personal interaction is always a necessary condition for increasing information use. In this article, we report the results from two experimental studies using students as subjects to assess how three types of interaction (in-person meeting, live webinar, and self-guided instruction) affect different aspects of climate information usability. Our findings show that while in-person interaction is effective in enhancing understanding of climate knowledge, in-person interaction may not always be necessary, depending on the kinds of information involved and outcomes desired.

Motivated reasoning theory is a psychological theory that reads that policymakers interpret evidence in ways that fit their preferences rather than assessing it neutrally. The theory is increasingly used to explain policy processes as part of a behavioural approach to public administration, but it has limitations. As psychological research relies on experiments, the question remains what role motivated reasoning plays in real-world policy processes. Based on ethnographic observations collected during the planning phase of a large infrastructure project, this study confirms that motivated reasoning explains how people interpret information. However, it also shows that peoples' context has a great impact on their reasoning. Ultimately, we suggest that a focus on time and real-world context is essential in understanding processes of reasoning, for which methodological diversification is needed. Points for practitioners People are inclined to interpret information in light of existing attitudes, rather than approach it neutrally. They read it in such a way that it confirms their attitudes, or are critical of it when it does not. Conflicts caused by differentiating views can be better understood by looking at the attitudes that inform these views. Discussions that might seem aimless at first might have secondary functions such as building trust amongst participants.

AbstractThe aim of this study was to explore knowledge use and learning among social workers in everyday child investigation work. Research was undertaken in two Swedish children's services departments. The study applied an ethnographic approach. Methods for data collection included interviews, participant observations, reflective dialogues and a documentary analysis of case files. The social workers' knowledge sources were classified into research‐based, practice‐based and ordinary knowledge. The findings show that the social workers preferred practice‐based knowledge, which was primarily conveyed from colleagues and previous experience, and rarely consulted knowledge from sources found outside the practice setting. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the integration of knowledge was made possible through the social workers' engagement in both a verbal and a more cognitive (tacit) reasoning activity, processes that fostered learning at work. The social workers' learning was predominantly adaptive as they learned to handle tasks in a fairly routinized way on the basis of rules or procedures. The findings lend support to the notion that the use of different knowledge forms could potentially trigger learning in everyday social work.