Analysis of the online survey results

Intenzz has 35 people on the payroll. Given that two of them are the owners, who did not participate in the survey and there are always people on holiday or sick leave, the 30 results can be considered complete. Each participant was asked to list three knowledge sharing scenarios, so 90 scenarios should be the total. In fact, only 79 were filled in completely, because some people named three scenarios, but did not answer all the questions for all three scenarios.

The 79 scenarios were organized in the structure shown in Table 7. The participants were named (anonymously) from P01 to P30. The scenarios selected by the participants were called S1, S2, and S3. The wording of the business processes were standardized and the scenario descriptions (entered by the participants in the survey) were assigned to a standard business process ID. Each participant for each scenario had to answer four questions. (See Appendix 7). These four questions are marked as Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Q1 concerns the benefits gained from knowledge sharing, Q2 asks when the benefits will be realized; Q3 is the question when knowledge sharing would be stopped, and finally Q4 is about the narrative of the sharing. The values entered in the Q1-Q4 columns correspond to the answers given. If the participant selected the first option from the multiple options, ―1‖ is entered, if the participant selected the second option, it is marked as ―2‖ and so on. The multiple choices are set up in a way that option 1 corresponds to Communal Sharing, 2 to Authority Ranking, 3 to Equality Matching, and 4 to Market Pricing.

Table 7: the first six rows of the result table of the online survey (Source: own data)

For example, the first row in Table 7 represents the following: One participant (marked as P01) decided that one of the three scenarios she/he wanted to mention in the survey was

―Function group meeting‖. This was her/his first scenario; therefore it is marked as S1. S1 is basically BP02, just with other words. BP02 stands for ―Working in teams‖. For the first question (Q1) the participant selected option 3 (which corresponds to EM), for the second question (Q2) option 1 (which corresponds to CS), for the third question (Q3) option 5 and the participant entered some free text (which was of course also saved (See Appendix 7), for the fourth question (Q4) option 3 (which corresponds to EM).

The conventions and unique identification of objects (processes, persons, questions, answers, etc.) helped to summarize complex relationships in relatively simple tables.

Based on the online survey results and a review by the management of Intenzz, the following business processes have been identified (Table 8):

Table 8: Business processes (Source: own data)

BP03 Preparing a knowledge session for a customer BP04 Sharing lessons learned from a training session BP05 Discussing a topic in email or Instant Messaging BP06 Giving SAP trainings

BP07 Participating in knowledge sharing sessions with other consultants from other companies

BP08 Participating in VNSG focus groups

BP09 Representing the company at the VNSG Congress BP10 Participating in company meetings

BP11 Uploading content to the portal BP12 Teaching a colleague

When the participants selected the fifth option for any question, it shows that none of the above listed options were good enough. In this case they had to enter some text on their own. These instances are very important for the analysis of the results. Each of these texts was analyzed and the author reviewed them from the point of view of Fiske‘s Relational Models Theory (Fiske 1991) and tried to assign them to one of the four models. Table 9 lists all the distinct cases found. There were more occurrences when the fifth option was selected, but Table 10 only lists the distinct ones.

Table 9 shows what judgments were taken in case option 5 of the multiple choice questions was selected. This was necessary because participants were not familiar with the Relational Models Theory (Fiske 1991) and sometimes did not realize that one of the options is relevant for them, or the options were not written in a way that they could recognize them and they decided to choose option 5 and enter some text. If the text entered does clearly correspond to one of the four models, a correction was made. Each time option 5 was selected, it was corrected. The question here was whether it was possible to correct and what the correction should be. In other words, does the free text correspond to one of the four models or not. If yes, to which one? Option 5 was selected many times, but again, for the analysis of the results only distinct cases are interesting. Table 9 lists the so-called distinct correction cases from 1 to 19.

Table 9: Distinct correction cases (Source: own analysis)

Correction Case Person Scenario Bus Process Question Correction

CC01 P01 S1 BP02 Q3 1

CC02 P01 S2 BP05 Q3 1

CC03 P01 S3 BP07 Q1 1

CC04 P02 S1 BP10 Q3 1

CC05 P03 S2 BP01 Q3 2

CC06 P06 S1 BP01 Q1 4

CC07 P06 S2 BP05 Q1 1

CC08 P07 S1 BP05 Q3

CC09 P08 S1 BP01 Q1 4

CC10 P09 S1 BP05 Q3 1

CC11 P09 S1 BP05 Q1 1

CC12 P09 S2 BP12 Q3 1

CC13 P09 S3 BP02 Q3 1

CC14 P10 S2 BP02 Q1 3

CC15 P10 S2 BP02 Q3 3

CC16 P10 S3 BP01 Q1 2

CC17 P10 S3 BP01 Q3 4

CC18 P11 S2 BP01 Q1 2

CC19 P11 S2 BP01 Q3 1

It is noteworthy that each free text entered as option 5 answer could be assigned to one of the four relational models. (See Appendix 5) CC08 is different from all the others, because this correction case describes asocial behavior. Fiske described asocial behavior in the following way: ―People are not interacting for the sake of the relationship as an intrinsic good or as an obligatory standard, but are using the other person purely as a means to some ulterior or nonsocial end.‖ (Fiske 1992, p. 708.) Asocial behavior is outside the Relational Models Theory; therefore we cannot assign a correction to it. This value will not be usable for the calculations.

Per the corrections in Appendix 5, Table 10 shows how many times the four models can be found in each business process.

Table 10: Frequency of the four models per business process (Source: own analysis)

Bus Process CS AR EM MP

BP01 15 28 13 15

BP02 48 15 43 5

BP03 - - - -

BP04 6 3 0 0

BP05 45 15 18 0

BP06 - - - -

BP07 6 0 4 0

BP08 - - - -

BP09 - - - -

BP10 5 0 5 0

BP11 5 5 0 0

BP12 13 8 0 0

Given that some business processes were not mentioned often by the participants, these did not get enough data for a thorough analysis. Consequently, only BP 01, 02, 05, and 12 can be considered. In order to get data for the other processes (grayed out in Table 10) these processes were included in the interviews, which formed the next phase of the project.

Another conclusion we can draw is that the most common knowledge sharing processes within Intenzz are working in internal teams, having email discussions with colleagues and consulting the customer. (Table 11) Considering the profile of Intenzz, this finding is perfectly in line with reality.

Table 11: Common knowledge sharing processes (Source: own analysis)

Business Process CS AR EM MP Total

BP02 Working in teams 48 15 43 5 110

BP05 Discussing a topic in email/IM 45 15 18 0 78

BP01 Consulting the customer 15 28 13 15 70

BP12 Teaching a colleague 13 8 0 0 20

Beyond these purely statistical conclusions, Chapter 4.1.3. and 4.1.4 will zoom into the processes and draw further conclusions about knowledge sharing at Intenzz SAP Consulting Group.