Motivations to Resolve Communication Dilemmas in Database-Mediated Collaboration

Abstract

Form Approved REPORT DOCUMENTATION I ne 1501111 reportng ouroen T'or 1119 conecoon or' imomlmkon is smaarao to average i hour per response, inciumng me rn for FR reigwing structions, ýercrvrng 9osmong oats, sources, owtenng and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of informion. SPONSORINGIMONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSORIMONITOR'S ACRONYM(S) SPONSOR/MONITOR'S REPORT NUMBER(S)12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTESThis is the work of the United States Government and therefore is not copyrighted. This work may be copied and disseminated without restriction. Many SSC San Diego public release documents are available in electronic format at: http:llwww.spawar.navy.millstilpublications/pubs/index.html 14. ABSTRACT In organizational settings, a communication dilemma exists whenever the interests of a collective (i.e., team, organization, interorganizational alliance) demand that people share privately held information, but their individual interests instead motivate them to withhold it. This article develops and tests an expectancy model that predicts specific conditions under which collective benefits can be made to converge with private ones, thus resolving communication dilemmas and motivating voluntary contributions to a collectively shared database. In the model, motivation is a multiplicative function of individual-level attitudes and beliefs: (a) organizational commitment; (b) organizational instrumentality, an instrumentality that links successful collective information sharing to broader organizational gain; (c) connective efficacy, an expectation that information contributed to the database will reach other members of the collective; and (d) information self-efficacy, the self-perceived value of a contributor's information to other database users. The model was tested by a survey administered to members of an intact work team using a discretionary database. The multiplicative model was significant and explained sizeable amounts of variance in the motivation to contribute discretionary information. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. The model can be readily extended to predict information sharing by means of other communication media.

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