Where to Get Information in the Workplace? A Multi-theoretical Network Perspective on Information Retrieval from Team Members and Digital Knowledge Repositories

The goal of this study was to explore the structural and contextual factors that would influence individuals' information retrieval from their colleagues and digital knowledge repositories. First, this study applied and extended three social science theories to examine the structures of team members' information retrieval from both human and nonhuman actors in the organizational knowledge network. The transactive memory models predicted team members' information retrieval based on their perceptions of other actors' knowledge and responsibility in a specific knowledge area. The public goods model supplemented the transactive memory model by taking into consideration the accessibility of information sources. The social contagion model considered the social influences on information seekers' selection of information sources. Second, this study examined how team members' tendency to retrieve information from human versus digital knowledge sources was influenced by the contextual properties of a specific knowledge domain, such as the level of complexity and codifiability.