Who's Really Sharing? Effects of Social and Expert Status on Knowledge Exchange Within Groups

Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt (), Tonya Y. Ogden () and Margaret A. Neale ()
Additional contact information
Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt: Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, 455 Sage Hall, Ithaca, New York 14853
Tonya Y. Ogden: Olin School of Business, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130
Margaret A. Neale: Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305

Management Science, 2003, vol. 49, issue 4, 464-477

Abstract: This study investigated the effects of social status and perceived expertise on the emphasis of unique and shared knowledge within functionally heterogeneous groups. While perceived expertise did not increase the individual's emphasis of their own unique knowledge, perceived experts were more likely than nonexperts to emphasize shared knowledge and other member's unique knowledge contributions. Additionally, socially isolated members participated more in discussions and emphasized more of their unique knowledge than did socially connected members. While unique knowledge contributions increased the positive perception of social isolates, similar unique knowledge contributions decreased the positive perception of socially connected members. Finally, socially connected group members gave greater attention to the unique knowledge contributions of the socially isolated member than to the contributions of their socially connected other, but more favorably evaluated members to whom they were more favorably connected than those to whom they were not. We discuss the implications of our findings for managing knowledge exchange within diverse groups.

Keywords: Social Status; Knowledge Exchange; Perceived Expertise (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.49.4.464.14425 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:49:y:2003:i:4:p:464-477

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().