Supply of information into, search for information within, and use of information from information technology-based organizational memory systems

Information sharing is both a technological and sociological issue. As Caldwell (2001) noted, once the issue of how people use the technology is solved, organizations can expect to see productivity increases ranging from 7% to 20%. These productivity increases come from stopping the wasted effort of duplicating a solution to an already solved problem, from capturing solutions from a wide variety of people whom you might never have the chance to meet, and from being able to tap into a network of disparate people with novel ideas. In short, from sharing information.; This dissertation examines the issues surrounding the sharing of information between employees using an information technology-based system. We did this by studying an IT-based organizational memory system (ITOMS) that provides the basic functionality of asynchronous communication with storage of such, allowing actors to interact around archived documents and discussion group threads, as well as e-mail messages. We asked the following research questions: (1) What impacts an individual's supply of information into the ITOMS? (2) What impacts the search choices an individual makes when looking for information in an ITOMS? and (3) How do the network relations enabled by an ITOMS impact the value of information used by an individual?; Information supply depends on the balance between the personal costs of supply, such as time, and the personal benefits, such as the ability to influence others. These determinants of information supply are moderated by factors including gender, a person's level within the organization, and a person's own innate propensity to share. During information search actors maximize the size of the network to which they have access, subject to consideration of the extent to which they impose current costs on those who might satisfy a particular search request. As a result, different search profiles emerge for junior level and senior level seekers. To have the most valuable information to use, a user of information must exploit both the weak ties enabled by the ITOMS, and the embedded ties enabled by direct one-on-one interaction with others.