Experts at Being Seen as Experts: Knowledge Management Technology as a Stage for Strategic Self-Presentation
Speaker
Paul Leonardi
Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Industrial Engineering, and Management Sciences, Northwestern University
When
-
Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)
Video
Video link
Description
This article treats knowledge management technologies as stages upon which strategic self-presentations of expertise can be played out. Through a longitudinal study of the work of IT technicians we show that knowledge management technologies, which are implemented with the goal of storing information about people’s work behaviors and sharing that information with others in the organization, can be used as a venue for the social construction of expertise. Specifically, users read information entered by a colleague to determine that person’s knowledge base. Users then compare that person’s knowledge to the knowledge of others (who also have entered information into the system) to determine who is an expert and to assign jobs to experts. When people begin to feel that they are considered experts in areas in which they do not want to be seen as experts, they attempt to shift the dynamics of expertise attribution by engaging in strategic self-presentation behaviors and entering information into the technology that is either inaccurate or incomplete. These findings demonstrate how use of knowledge management technologies makes strategic self-presentations easy to achieve and how strategic self-presentation by a few actors can quickly snowball into similar uses by actors from across the organization. In casting doubt on the idea that knowledge management technologies can be used as straightforward containers for employees’ expertise, we contribute to theory on strategic self-presentation and knowledge management in organizations.
Speaker's Bio
Paul Leonardi (Ph.D. Stanford University) is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, and (by courtesy) Management and Organizations at Northwestern University where he holds the Breed Junior Chair in Design.
Dr. Leonardi’s teaching and research focus on issues pertaining to the design and implementation of new technologies, global product development, and the management of engineering work. In each of these areas he explores how information technologies and organizations can be simultaneously designed to enhance one another. His work on these topics cuts across the fields of Organization Studies, Communication Studies, and Technology Studies and has been published in leading journals in these fields, such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Communication Theory, Human Communication Research, MIS Quarterly, Organization Science, Science, Technology & Human Values, and Social Studies of Science.
Trained as an ethnographer, Dr. Leonardi spends time observing people in the course of their normal work. These detailed observations generate insights that help managers to design technologies and organizations that better meet the needs of their workforce. His recent field studies have included: (1) IT technicians adopting knowledge management tools; (2) the development, implementation, and use of computer simulation technologies for crashworthiness analysis; and (3) new technological and organizational innovations for offshoring automotive engineering work.
His research on these topics has been funded by the National Science Foundation and has received awards from the Academy of Management, the American Sociological Association, the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association, and the Association for Information Systems.
Speaker's Website
http://comm.soc.northwestern.edu/leonardi/
Host
Jodi Forlizzi