Relative importance of knowledge portal functionalities: A contingent approach on knowledge portal design for R&D teams

Abstract

Many research and development (R&D) organizations and teams currently use a specialized knowledge portal (KP) for research collaboration and knowledge management. However, R&D organizations adopt whole portal functionalities without considering their R&D team or the team's task characteristics. The motivation of this study comes from this typical lack of consideration. This study proposes that the degree of importance of specific KP functionalities may be affected by the particular context in which R&D teams handle knowledge. The objectives of this research are to identify functionalities that are relatively important of KPs based on the specific team and the team's task characteristics. This research attempts to provide implications that can be used to design and implement KPs for R&D teams. Based on a field survey with 142 researchers in government-sponsored research organizations in Korea, we found that researchers perceive communication, collaboration, and connection functionalities as being important when their team sizes are large or their team members are distributed. Also, the coordination functionality is more important when the research type relates to commercialization projects than when the team is involved in basic-level research projects. We discuss interpretations of the results and implications on KP design.