行政院國家科學委員會專題研究計畫成果報告
教師專業網路社群的跨組織知識分享與創新理論之研究
The Development of Theory Regarding Knowledge Sharing and Creation in
Teachers’ Professional Cyber Community
計畫編號： NSC90-2416-H-110-037 執行期限： 90 年 8 月 1 日至 91 年 7 月 31 日 主持人： 共同主持人： 計畫參與人員： 林福仁 郭峰淵、高敬文 研究生：林盛程、王偉如、羅義鵬 執行機關構及單位名稱： 國立中山大學資訊管理學系 一、中文摘要 隨著九年一貫教育政策的推行，使中小學 教師運用資訊科技來合作設計整合性教材的需 求大為增加。本研究的目的是希望能了解教師 如何運用資訊科技進行知識分享與創新，並藉 此發展出教師專業虛擬社群的知識分享與創新 過程的理論。我們以教師專業虛擬社群思摩特 網為研究對象，並採用紮根理論作為我們的研 究方法，找出教師專業社群中影響知識分享與 創新的因素，以及六種知識分享與創新的過 程，分別以因果條件、行動互動策略和結果來 表 示 。 本 研 究 的 研 究 成 果 已 經 陸 續 發 表 在 PACIS2001、PACIS2002、HICSS2003。 關鍵字：知識管理、紮根理論、知識分享、知 識創新、專業虛擬社群、教師專業社群。 Abstract
The objective of this study is to develop a theoretical understanding of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities. In order to provide contextual richness in environmental, information technology, project, organizational, group, and individual contexts, we apply the grounded theory approach to discover essential factors affecting team-based knowledge sharing and creation across organizational boundaries. Moreover,
causal conditions, action/ interaction strategies, and consequences, and then concludes several theoretical findings.. The research results will support sustained development of professional cyber-communities and lay out a basis for further studying team-based knowledge sharing and creation across organizational boundaries.
Keywords: knowledge management, grounded
theory, knowledge sharing and creation, professional cyber-community, teachers' professional cyber-community.
二、計畫緣由與目的
The elementary educational reform in Taiwan has been moving toward nine-grade joint curricula plan, which integrates learning scope and essential abilities for students from primary to junior-high school education. Within this movement, teachers in primary and junior-high schools are expected to autonomously design teaching materials, flexibly administrate classes and multi-dimensionally evaluate students’ learning effectiveness. Teachers specialized in certain subjects are expected to collaborate for developing integrated lesson plans. Unfortunately, under the small-school-small-class policy, there are a small number of teachers teaching the same subjects within a school. The
NSC90-2416-H-110-037『教師專業網路社群的跨組織知識分享與創新理論之研究』成果報告
organizational barriers.
The sense of community, extending from teachers within a school to those across schools, stimulates the development of teachers’ professional communities.. By virtue of IT, a cyber community with professional community characteristics can be built by utilizing IT to shape the new paradigm of professional practice. A teachers’ professional community web site, called SCTNet (http://sctnet.edu.tw), serves as a cyber space for teachers in compulsory education to share and create professional expertise, to shape the norms and values, and to link teachers with other social stakeholders, such as parents,
governmental and non-governmental
organizations. In SCTNet, teachers can share their professional works in terms of lesson plans, research results, and teaching resources with other community members, and receive comments. Teachers can dialogue on discussion boards focusing on specific subject areas. Teachers with a similar interest can create a special interest group (SIG) to collaborate according to their objectives. Each SIG are mediated by groupware technology and equips with discussion boards, on-line chatting, document repository, e-mail, social network analysis and group member interaction statistics.
Most theoretical findings of groupware are drawn from experiments using students are chosen as subjects [1][5].. We are interested in knowing the practicability of groupware embedded in the professional community of practice. From 334 SIGs established continually so far, we have found that members are more willing to upload and download resources than dialogue and collaborate both on the web and SIGs. We are puzzled why teachers in the current individual, organizational, and social environmental contexts are reluctant to start professional dialogues and collaboration. Furthermore, we anticipate investigating how teachers utilize IT in supporting their knowledge sharing and creation to strengthen their professional capability in teachers’ cyber community. We also identify several types of processes of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities, which are defined by the sequence of causal conditions, action/interaction strategies, and
consequences..
We launched three on-job training projects by enrolling teachers who were interested in applying IT to pedagogy or developing lesson plans collaboratively. Twenty-two special interest groups (A1, A2, …, C10) are established and
examined.
三、結果與討論
Since the grounded action research adopts notation and coding process of grounded theory, we adopt the grounded theory model to represent the research framework as shown in Figure 1.
(1) Contexts: This part identifies essential factors
in various contexts affecting the process of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities. Due to the page limitation, we trade the provision of context richness for interesting constructs.
(2) Process: The process involves action/
interaction strategies, causal conditions, and consequences.
1. Action/interaction strategies. Grounded
theory is an action/interaction-oriented method of theory building [6]. The action/interaction strategies can help to investigate the process of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities.
2. Causal conditions. Action/interaction has
such properties as processual, purposeful and goal oriented. Failed action/interaction is as important to look at as action/interaction taking place. From both outcomes, we may specify reasons indicating causal conditions.
3. Consequences. Outcomes from different
conditions with various action/interaction strategies for team-based knowledge sharing and creation are consequences.
Figure 1 depicts the theoretical model of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities, which the categories and concepts developed from iteration between data and concepts. On top of Figure 1 is the context for knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities. Among these contexts, several factors that become the causal condition (arrow 1) affect the strategies that a team adopts (arrow 2), and thus the consequences are different (arrow 3). The causal conditions consist of two levels:
Figure 1. The model of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities
Table 1. Collaboration strategies
Strategies Concepts Description
Initiating Stimulate the group, and provide new ideas or thought
Information/Opinion seeking Seek information or opinion from the group for individuals to make judgments
Information/Opinion providing Provide information or opinion
Coordination Integrate ideal and practicality, and avoid meandering Orienting Instruct the group correct goals and direction
Evaluation Describe the task accomplished, and evaluate the outcomes Task performing
Recording Recording resolutions and plans
Encouraging Accept members’ options by praising, agreeing, or stimulating Gate-keeping Oversee and establish the group norm, usually demonstrate themselves Following Follow instructions to perform tasks when the group needs
Team maintenance
Clowning Promote free and easy atmosphere by some funny
Table 2. Using IT strategies
Strategies Definition
Emotional expression
Interflows of emotional expressions between members.
House keeping Inform messages needed for better coordination and enable team going on. Acknowledgement Transfer confirmation or answer
message. Information
exchange
Share information, resources or experiences with members.
Idea release Propose ideas or suggestions toward some topics.
Creative revision Integrating knowledge, documents or experiences into new knowledge objects.
Table 3. Knowledge sharing and creation strategies
Strategies Description
Knowledge
contributing Contribute domain knowledge Catalyst providing Provide ideas or information to
stimulate new knowledge flows Knowledge/catalyst
integrating
Combine knowledge/catalyst to generate new knowledge flows Task performing Perform task to trigger new
knowledge flows
Listening Ask or wait for knowledge flows from others E n v ir o n m e n t a l C o n t e x t N a t u r e o f t e a c h e r s P o lic y o f e d u c a tio n a l a u t h o r it ie s I n c e n tiv e s y s te m S u p p o r t in g r e s o u r c e s I T C o n t e x t S I G ( G r o u p m e m o r y ) W e b o r ie n ta t io n L e v e l o f e a s e - o f- u s e P r o j e c t C o n t e x t T a s k t y p e T e a m - u p r u le A u t o n o m y A g e n d a W a r m - u p t im e G e o g r a p h ic a l d is t a n c e S u p p o r t in g s y s t e m O r g a n iz a t i o n a l C o n t e x t O r g a n iz a t io n s iz e P r o f e s s io n a l s h a r in g a n d c o o p e r a t io n c u lt u r e S e n io r m a n a g e m e n t s u p p o r t I T in f r a s tr u c t u r e G r o u p C o n t e x t G r o u p s iz e G r o u p c o m p o s it io n G r o u p s t r u c t u r e C o h e s iv e n e s s L e a d e r s h ip I n d iv id u a l C o n t e x t P r o f e s s io n a l le v e l A tt r ib u t e a ff e c tin g in d iv id u a ls ’ s p e n d in g t im e o n t h is p r o j e c t H a b it o f u s in g I T P u r p o s e o f s u r f in g A c t iv e t o c a ll f o r h e lp P r o p e n s it y to s h a r e H a b it o f c o o p e r a t io n E x p e r ie n c e s o f k n o w le d g e - s h a r in g E x p e r ie n c e o f I T a p p lic a t io n I T c a p a b ilit y C o n s c io u s n e s s o f I T a ff e c t in g t e a c h in g M o t iv a t io n fo r p a r t ic ip a t io n E x p e c t a t io n to w a r d t h e t r a in in g P e r c e p t io n o f t h is t r a in in g P e r c e p t io n o f c o m m u n ic a t io n m e d ia C a u s a l C o n d i t io n I n d iv id u a l L e v e l A c tiv e to a s k fo r h e lp H a b it o f c o o p e r a tio n P r o p e n s it y to s h a r e P e r c e p tio n o f c o m m u n ic a t io n m e d ia G r o u p L e v e l G r o u p r o le s K n o w le d g e c r e a t io n r o le s G r o u p n o r m s C o h e s iv e n e s s L e a d e r s h ip s t y le S t r a t e g i e s C o lla b o r a t i o n S t r a t e g i e s U s i n g IT S t r a t e g i e s K n o w le d g e S h a r i n g a n d C r e a t i o n S t r a t e g i e s C o n s e q u e n c e s I n d iv id u a l L e v e l S e lf - e ff ic a c y P r o f e s s io n a l s o c ia l n e t w o r k e n la r g e m e n t G r o u p L e v e l G o a l a t t a in m e n t P r o d u c t O r g a n iz a t io n a l L e v e l A p p lic a t io n g a p P r o m o t in g c o lla b o r a t iv e c u lt u r e w it h in o rg a n iz a tio n 1 2 3 C o n t e x t s
NSC90-2416-H-110-037『教師專業網路社群的跨組織知識分享與創新理論之研究』成果報告
Table 4. Six types of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities
Action/interaction
strategies Type I Type II Type III Type IV Type V Type VI
Collaboration strategies Initiating Information/ opinion seeking or providing Evaluating Recording Orienting Encouraging Gate-keeping Coordinating Clowning Initiating Information/ opinion seeking or providing Evaluating Recording Orienting Encouraging Coordinating Gate-keeping Initiating Information/ opinion seeking or providing Evaluating Recording Coordinating Work isolatedly Monopolizing Evaluating Coordinating Work isolatedly Many free riders Coordinating Many free riders Monopolizin g Using IT strategies House keeping Acknowledge ment Information exchange Emotional expression Idea release House keeping Acknowledgem ent Information exchange Idea release House keeping Acknowledgem ent Information exchange Idea release Housekeeping Acknowledgem ent Idea release Housekeeping Acknowledgem ent Idea release (few) Less on-line interaction Idea release (few) Knowledge sharing and creation strategies Knowledge Contributing Catalyst Providing
Knowledge/ Catalyst Integrating Task Performing Listening Knowledge Contributing (unidirectional) Catalyst Providing (unidirectional) Task Performing Listening Knowledge Contributing Catalyst Providing Knowledge/ Catalyst Integrating Listening Knowledge Contributing Listening Examples B3, C1 A2, B2, B6, C2, C10 A3, A4, A6, B4, B5, C5, C7, C8 C3 A5, B1, C4, C6 A1, C9
individual level (active to ask for help, habit of cooperation, propensity to share, and perception of communication media), and group level (group roles, knowledge creation roles, group norms, cohesiveness and leadership styles). Analyzing data gathered from three phases, action/interaction strategies can be codified into three categories: collaboration strategies, using IT
strategies, and knowledge sharing and
creation strategies. We classified
collaboration strategies into two categories:
task performing and team maintenance strategies as shown in Table 1. Table 2
lists the definition of using IT strategies. Furthermore, Table 3 shows the knowledge sharing and creation strategies adopted by these teams. The consequences are viewed in individual level (self-efficacy and professional social network enlargement), group level (goal attainment and product quality), and organizational level (application gap).
The team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities can be summarized with the process aspect: Several teachers join together as teams in professional cyber-communities to develop lessons plans of applying IT to pedagogy.
Although coming from different schools, due to the similar processional training process and immersing in the similar workplace culture, they exhibit common behavior in various aspects. Each team member is expected to adjust themselves to abstain the professional autonomy or the habit of self-supporting, and learn to proactively share or interact with teammates in the individual level. From the causal conditions of the group level, they should recognize their functional roles and roles of knowledge-related activities in their team. Besides, during the course of the group interaction, the norm of using IT was established, and then members followed this rule to collaborate. These causal conditions have reciprocal effects on their adoption of action/interaction strategies, and thereby contribute to consequences of knowledge sharing and creation.
Furthermore, the process of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities, including action/ interaction strategies, causal conditions, and consequences, is classified into six types as shown in Table 4. We evaluate teams’ products and assign them into three clusters: inferior, medium, and
superior. These three levels of team
products can be matched with the six types of strategies. Superior teams usually apply Type I and II strategies, medium teams are Type III and IV strategies, and inferior teams adopt Type V and VI strategies.
The additional collaboration strategies of Type I teams are the coordinating and clowning strategies, and additional using IT strategies are emotional expression. The percentage of Type I’s strategies for team maintenance is higher than other types. Moreover, Type II’s additional collaboration strategies comparing with other types are orienting, encouraging, and gate-keeping strategies, and additional knowledge sharing and creation strategy of Type IV are unidirectional sharing and isolated task performing. Type V’s collaboration strategies are isolated works, and have many free riders. Type VI has many free riders and less frequent on-line interaction, and it has a monopolist who spread rumors unfavorable to the on-job training..
四、計畫成果自評
This study is an explorative research that investigates the process of team-based knowledge sharing and creation in professional cyber-communities. We have adopted the grounded theory and provided the context richness from environmental, IT, project, organizational, group, and individual contexts, and discovered its process defined by the sequence of causal conditions, action/ interaction strategies, and consequences. By means of various strategies, including collaboration strategies, using IT strategies, and knowledge sharing and creation strategies, the consequences in terms of teams’ performance have significantly different. This research results have published in proceedings of
PACIS2001[2] 、 PACIS2002[3], and will
soon come up in proceedings of HICSS2003[4].
五、參考文獻
[1] Dennis, A.R., Nunamaker, J.F.JR., and Vogel, D.R. “A Comparison of
Laboratory and Field Research in the Study of Electronic Meeting Systems,” Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol.7, No.3, 1991, pp.107-135.
[2] Fu-ren Lin, Tzu-ping Huang, Sheng-cheng Lin, Rong-fuh Day, “Built It But They Didn’t Come –Investigating Knowledge Sharing and Creation in Teachers’ Professional Cyber Community,” in Proceedings of 5th
PACIS, 2001.
[3] Fu-ren Lin, Tzu-ping Huang, Sheng-cheng Lin, “Team-based Knowledge sharing and Creation in Professional Cyber Communities: A Study from a Teachers' Professional Cyber Community,” in Proceedings of
6th PACIS, 2002.
[4] Sheng-cheng Lin, Fu-ren Lin, Tzu-ping Huang, Ming-Cheng Yeh, “The Reality of Team-based Knowledge Sharing and Creation in Professional Cyber Community,” in Proceedings of 36th
HICSS, 2003.
[5] Lou, H., Luo, W. and Strong, D. “Perceived critical mass effect on groupware acceptance,” European Journal of Information Systems, Vol.9, No.2, 2000, pp.91-103.
[6] Strauss, Anselm and Corbin, Juliet
Basics of Qualitative Research:
Grounded Theory, Procedures, and
Techniques, Sage Publications,
