"It's easier to ask someone I know": call center technicians' adoption of knowledge management tools.

This article traces the early implementation phase of a set of knowledge management tools in four customer call support centers within a multinational corporation. Through a case study analysis, this article addresses two fundamental issues. First, the article investigates how the organization keeps a new type of knowledge worker--the relatively unskilled, low-paid customer call support technicians who staff the phones at centers around the United States--current with the latest information on those products they support. Second, data from the case study suggest specific innovation factors that discourage technicians from adopting the knowledge tools.

Keywords: communication in organizations; call centers; diffusion of innovations; knowledge management; organizational learning

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In the organizational communication literature, a number of scholars have recently written about the significance of the effective collection and dissemination of information across knowledge workers (Contractor & Monge, 2002; Flanagin, 2002; Herndon, 1997; Johnson & Chang, 2000; Rogers & Allbritton, 1995; Trethewey & Corman, 2001; Tucker, Meyer, & Westerman, 1996; Zorn, 2002). Such employees, however, are frequently characterized as specialized professionals working in short-term project teams. Less attention has been paid to another essential type of knowledge worker. These are low-paid, relatively unskilled customer support technicians who staff the phones for credit card companies, banks, utilities, and countless help desks across the country. The study of this new type of employee is as vital as studying "traditional" knowledge workers like lawyers, doctors, research and development (R&D) scientists, and management consultants (P. Thompson, Warhurst, & Callaghan, 2001).

In the United States, an estimated 3% of all workers are employed as call center technicians (Decry, Iverson, & Walsh, 2002). These data translate into more than 7,000,000 technicians working in more than 100,000 call centers across the United States (Jones, 1999). Through a case study analysis, this article explores technicians' use of a new set of knowledge management tools at four customer call support centers owned by Techtronics, a multinational corporation that specializes in running customer support call centers for organizations. (1)

A number of companies outsource their call center work to Techtronics. As a result, support for up to three different, often quite disparate, products and services are offered within most of these call centers. Most Techtronics technicians begin their job with little to no formal technology knowledge or experience, thus creating a complex employee-training scenario for the company. Techtronics's director of Knowledge Management notes that "tens of millions of dollars" are spent annually training new technicians and updating the technology skills of existing technicians (personal communication, December 10, 1999). Similar problems are found at other U.S. call centers; the industry average to recruit and train a new technician ranges between $5,000 to $18,000 (Jones, 1999, p. 25). Thus, one difficult communication problem facing Techtronics and a number of other knowledge-intensive organizations is how to keep these low-paid, relatively unskilled customer service technicians up-to-date on the rapidly changing technologies they support for consumers.

The present article is structured as follows. First, I introduce how knowledge management tools function. I then review the literature on the diffusion characteristics of successful technological innovations within organizations. My research site and methods for the current study are then outlined. After detailing results from this case study, the article concludes with implications for knowledge management practitioners. The conclusion also notes how the study merits heuristic value to communication scholars interested in furthering diffusion of innovation theory within organizations.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Knowledge management tools (also referred to as tools) refer broadly to information and communication technologies that gather, index, and structure the "corporate memory" of an organization's employees (Tsoukas & Vladimirou, 2001; Walsh & Ungson, 1991). Davenport, De Long, and Beers (1998), in their review of 31 knowledge management tools at 24 companies, found that Information Technology (IT) professionals collected two categories of knowledge to accomplish this goal: structured internal knowledge and informal internal knowledge. Structured internal knowledge refers to internal corporate documents including the following: production, sales, and marketing information; reports and memos; PowerPoint presentations; and so forth. Specific technologies that support this goal are groupware applications and other document management systems. Informal internal knowledge refers to unstructured internal communication such as e-mail messages, electronic bulletin boards, instant messaging, and chat rooms (McPhee, Corman, & Dooley, 2002; Yates & Orlikowski, 2002). Every time an employee shares a piece of information germane to how that organization functions, a textual record of that exchange is often kept within a knowledge database. Walsham (2002) argues that knowledge management systems offer particular functionality within call centers, and Hollman (2002, p. 13) estimates that by 2007, knowledge management vendors targeting call centers will generate more than $1.5 billion in revenue (Hollman, 2002, p. 13).

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DIFFUSION OF SUCCESSFUL TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN ORGANIZATIONS

In the early 1960s, Everett Rogers (1962) developed a diffusion of innovation theory to better understand why and how individuals (rural farmers, teachers, villagers, etc.) adopt certain innovations into their lives. His theory has been extended to investigate employees' adoption of new technologies in the workplace. Researchers from a number of different disciplines, including Organizational Communication, Computer Information Systems (CIS), Organizational Behavior (OB), and Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) have used Rogers's theory to better understand information and communication technology innovations within organizations (Agarwal & Karahanna, 2000; Bach, 1989; Cale & Eriksen, 1994; Cheney, Block, & Gordon, 1986; Damanpour, 1991; Hoffman & Roman, 1984; Kanter, 1988; Leonard-Barton, 1988; Lewis, 1997; Lewis & Seibold, 1993, 1996).

Recently, Rogers (1995) reviewed thousands of diffusion studies and found, in general, that successful innovations share five common characteristics. First, relative advantage is the extent to which the innovation is superior to existing practices. Second, compatibility refers to the degree to which the innovation fits into existing cultural norms and traditions. Third, complexity is the degree to which the innovation is easy or difficult to use. Fourth, trialability denotes the time the innovator is allowed to spend experimenting with the innovation before he or she is required to use it. Fifth, observability notes the degree to which the innovation is readily apparent to individuals close to the innovator (peers, bosses, etc.).

Within the CIS literature, a number of researchers (Cale & Eriksen, 1994; Davis, 1989; Pare & Elam, 1995; R. L. Thompson, Higgins, & Howell, 1991) have tested similar models. These researchers often label Rogers's five characteristics using different terms. Davis (1989) labeled compatibility as perceived usefulness and complexity as perceived ease of use. Moore and Benbasat (1991), in a validation study, found Davis's constructs very similar to Rogers's model. Moore and Benbasat also suggested two additional characteristics, image and voluntariness, to be added to Rogers's list. Adding to Rogers's own work, Klein and Rails (1995), in their review of the literature, found that top management support for the new innovation and the extent key employee opinion leaders were able to participate in the decision-making process to acquire the new technology were also crucial. Training end users on the new technology, as well as providing end user support for employees once the technology was implemented, were also important for the new innovation to succeed.

Using these technical and cultural innovation factors as my framework, the goal of the present study is to investigate call center technicians' use of knowledge tools. With the notable exception of Tsoukas and Vladimirou's (2001) research, relatively little is known about technicians' subjective experience with this type of software. Furthermore, Kanter (1988) argues that identifying case studies of unsuccessful adoption practices within organizations can also be illustrative. Both of these issues inform my research question: Why did technicians within Techtronics chose not to adopt a set of knowledge tools?

RESEARCH SITE

Techtronics is a multinational corporation headquartered in the United States that specializes in customer call support centers. Corporations typically use Techtronics to field their customer service calls because it is often less expensive to outsource this function than to provide it in-house. Techtronics also has more experience providing effective customer support than the companies that hire it. Techtronics operates a number of call centers throughout the United States and centers abroad to field phone calls in non-English languages. Support for up to three separate products may be housed within a single call center.

Overview of Research Methods