Knowledge management strategies and organizational improvisation: what changed after the emergence of technological turbulence caused by artificial intelligence?

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the moderating effect of technological turbulence caused by artificial intelligence on the relationship between the traditional knowledge management strategies of personalization (tacit knowledge) and codification (explicit knowledge), and organizational improvisation, which refers to the firm's ability to generate ideas and respond to changes in the technological environment in real time. Until now, individuals have played a key and indispensable role in organizational improvisation since they are the owners of tacit knowledge and users of explicit knowledge.Design/methodology/approachThe research model was tested in a sample of firms from sectors in which the adoption of intelligent robots is growing.FindingsBoth personalization and codification have a positive and significant influence on improvisation, the former to a greater extent. Nevertheless, when technological turbulence caused by artificial intelligence occurs, the relationship between personalization and improvisation is weakened, whereas the link between codification and improvisation is strengthened.Originality/valueContrary to the pre-digital literature consensus, explicit knowledge is becoming the new major driver of organizational improvisation, while tacit knowledge sharing is losing strength and relevance. This finding may be a first indication that intelligent robots are the new exponents of improvisation for their ability to respond to changes in the environment in real time because of a combination of explicit knowledge, beyond being a mere support tool for humans.

Unlocking agility: Trapped in the antagonism between co-innovation in digital platforms, business analytics capability and external pressure for AI adoption?

“…We suspect that employees' opportunistic behaviors could diminish the positive impact of CO and BAC on agility. Beyond the fact that our results have demonstrated that external pressures for artificial intelligence adoption do not represent a technical problem for the company, we are fully convinced that employees are resorting to a variety of strategies to protect their personal interests at work when facing the imminent risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence applications (Arias-P erez and Cepeda-Cardona, 2022;Truong and Papagiannidis, 2022).…”

“…On the contrary, this positive moderating effect may indicate that this type of external pressure can be viewed as an opportunity for the company to adopt the best and most advanced digital transformation practices in the industry (Ashrafi et al ., 2019; Bag et al ., 2021). Even the fact that external pressures to adopt artificial intelligence are only positive and significant in the second stage of the mediation (BAC → OA) indicates that when the firm has reached a certain degree of digital maturity, it has enough technical and relational knowledge to easily resolve any incompatibility between its internal digital resource base and any external technological standard (Arias-Pérez and Cepeda-Cardona, 2022). However, the most interesting aspect of this finding is that once the company has reached that stage of maturity, it can understand the complexity of this type of external pressure and even find new ways of maximizing the use of artificial intelligence to improve OA.…”

“…Data analytics is concerned with making sense of data and generating an effective plan of action based on pattern identification and predictive analysis (Al-Khatib, 2022; de Assis Santos and Marques, 2022). Autonomy, on the other hand, focuses on reasoning, decision-making, and the ability to implement them (Arias-Pérez and Cepeda-Cardona, 2022; Wamba-Taguimdje et al ., 2020). Virtual assistants, recommendation agents, chatbots to assist consumers in decision-making, and machine learning solutions for customer segmentation or to predict purchase intent and customer turnover are among the most frequently used AI applications in businesses (Fosso Wamba, 2022; Lu et al ., 2020).…”

The Impact of Empowering Leadership on Employee Improvisation: Roles of Challenge-Hindrance Stress and Psychological Availability

“…First, employee improvisation helps organizations cope with dynamic and complex external environments. 60 This research found that empowering leadership activates employee improvisation, encouraging organizational managers to adopt this leadership style, which is beneficial with respect to improve organizational flexibility and obtaining a competitive advantage. In daily work, leaders are encouraged to provide employees with job autonomy, actively transfer information related to work meaning, and trust employees to achieve high performance.…”

Enhancing financial performance by applying knowledge management and new financial technologies in the banking industry

“…KM provides long-term advantages for organizations and societies and their utilization of human, intellectual and informational capital (Di Vaio et al, 2021). As new financial technologies become an integral part of banking and banks begin to compete beyond financial services in the face of increasing competition from nonbanking institutions, traditional banks lost part of their market share as a result (Arias-Pérez & Cepeda-Cardona, 2022). Moreover, the main issue that banks are facing is encouraging and increasing the compliance of bank customers to apply financial technologies to facilitate and speed up banking activities and increase efficiency by increasing transparency and reducing the perceived risk of customers.…”