Knowledge is a broad and abstract notion that has defined epistemological debate in western philosophy since the classical Greek era. In the past few years, however, there has been a growing interest in treating knowledge as a significant organizational resource. Consistent with the interest in organizational knowledge and knowledge management (KM), IS researchers have begun promoting a class of information systems, referred to as knowledge management systems (KMS). The objective of KMS is to support creation, transfer, and application of knowledge in organizations. Knowledge and knowledge management are complex and multi-faceted concepts. Thus, effective development and implementation of KMS requires a foundation in several rich literatures.

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Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: conceptual foundations and research issues

Many interventions found to be effective in health services research studies fail to translate into meaningful patient care outcomes across multiple contexts. Health services researchers recognize the need to evaluate not only summative outcomes but also formative outcomes to assess the extent to which implementation is effective in a specific setting, prolongs sustainability, and promotes dissemination into other settings. Many implementation theories have been published to help promote effective implementation. However, they overlap considerably in the constructs included in individual theories, and a comparison of theories reveals that each is missing important constructs included in other theories. In addition, terminology and definitions are not consistent across theories. We describe the Consolidated Framework For Implementation Research (CFIR) that offers an overarching typology to promote implementation theory development and verification about what works where and why across multiple contexts. We used a snowball sampling approach to identify published theories that were evaluated to identify constructs based on strength of conceptual or empirical support for influence on implementation, consistency in definitions, alignment with our own findings, and potential for measurement. We combined constructs across published theories that had different labels but were redundant or overlapping in definition, and we parsed apart constructs that conflated underlying concepts. The CFIR is composed of five major domains: intervention characteristics, outer setting, inner setting, characteristics of the individuals involved, and the process of implementation. Eight constructs were identified related to the intervention (e.g., evidence strength and quality), four constructs were identified related to outer setting (e.g., patient needs and resources), 12 constructs were identified related to inner setting (e.g., culture, leadership engagement), five constructs were identified related to individual characteristics, and eight constructs were identified related to process (e.g., plan, evaluate, and reflect). We present explicit definitions for each construct. The CFIR provides a pragmatic structure for approaching complex, interacting, multi-level, and transient states of constructs in the real world by embracing, consolidating, and unifying key constructs from published implementation theories. It can be used to guide formative evaluations and build the implementation knowledge base across multiple studies and settings.

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Fostering implementation of health services research findings into practice: a consolidated framework for advancing implementation science

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Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and The Failure of Established Firms

A meta-analysis of the relationships between organizational innovation and 13 of its potential determinants resulted in statistically significant associations for specialization, functional differe...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/256406.pdf

Organizational Innovation: A Meta-Analysis Of Effects Of Determinants and Moderators

We describe the development and validation of a new instrument, KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity, designed to assess perceived stimulants and obstacles to creativity in organizational work environments. The KEYS scales have acceptable factor structures, internal consistencies, test-retest reliabilities, and preliminary convergent and discriminant validity. A construct validity study shows that perceived work environments, as assessed by the KEYS scales, discriminate between high-creativity projects and low-creativity projects; certain scales discriminate more strongly and consistently than others. We discuss the utility of this tool for research and practice.

Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity

This paper proposes and empirically tests whether different models are needed to predict the adoption of technical process innovations that contain a high degree of new knowledge radical innovations and a low degree of new knowledge incremental innovations. Results from a sample of 40 footwear manufacturers suggest that extensive knowledge depth measured by the number of technical specialists is important for the adoption of both innovation types. Larger firms are likely to have both more technical specialists and to adopt radical innovations. The study did not find associations between the adoption of either innovation type and decentralized decision making, managerial attitudes toward change, and exposure to external information. By implication, managers trying to encourage technical process innovation adoption need not be as concerned about modifying centralization of decision making, managerial attitudes and exposure to external information as would managers trying to encourage other types of innovation adoption, e.g., innovations in social services where these factors have been found to be important. Instead, investment in human capital in the form of technical specialists appears to be a major facilitator of technical process innovation adoption.

The Adoption of Radical and Incremental Innovations: An Empirical Analysis

Jerald Hage and Robert Dewar This paper compares the predictive power of the concept of elite values with leader values, member values, and the three structural variables of complexity, centralization, and formalization. Elite values proved to be slightly better predictors than either leader values or complexity. When elite values and complexity were combined, there was a considerable increase in the amount of variance explained indicating that these variables are independent. Three contrasting definitions of the elite were considered but one proved a better predictor than the other two.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2391664.pdf

Elite Values Versus Organizational Structure in Predicting Innovation

The helpful comments of Jeanne Brett, Robert B. Duncan, Jane Dutton, Daniel C. Feldman, Douglas T. Hall, Joseph Moag, Lynn W. Phillips, and Lance Sandelands are gratefully acknowledged. This research was supported by grants from the Marketing Science Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Northwestern University Research Committee, and by the Consumer Reporting Agencies in which the study was conducted.

Universalistic and Contingency Predictions of Employee Satisfaction and Conflict.

March 1980, volume 25 This article examines the reliability and validity of six scales developed by Aiken, Hage, and Hall to operationalize technology, centralization, and formalization. The discussion of the definitions of these constructs suggests a need for revision in the content of the indices of job codification and job specificity. Furthermore, these two indices, designed to operationalize formalization, have serious problems of convergent and discriminant validity while the index of task routineness operationalizes a more limited part of the technology construct than originally proposed by Perrow. The indicators of centralization are found to be both reliable and valid.

An examination of the reliability and validity of the Aiken and Hage scales of centralization, formalization, and task routineness

This paper proposes a theoretical synthesis of the concepts of organizational size, technology, complexity, and structural differentiation. It suggests and finds that the most important determinant of differentiation in the division of labor is the scope of an organization's task, a technological dimension, and not organizational size. Neither horizontal nor vertical differentiation is thought to be determined by size while the scope of the task is proposed as a determinant of horizontal differentiation. The findings, however, support only the inference of a moderate causal connection between either size or task scope and either form of differentiation. Throughout the analysis and discussion the contrast between causal inference based on associations of levels and change rates is discussed. When dealing with the organizational processes addressed in this paper, both associations must be examined to adequately portray the complexity of the causal processes inferred.

Robert Dewar

Papers

The Adoption of Radical and Incremental Innovations: An Empirical Analysis

Elite Values Versus Organizational Structure in Predicting Innovation

Universalistic and Contingency Predictions of Employee Satisfaction and Conflict.

An examination of the reliability and validity of the Aiken and Hage scales of centralization, formalization, and task routineness

Size, technology, complexity, and structural differentiation: toward a theoretical synthesis.