Are Printed Documents Becoming Irrelevant? The Role of Perceived Usefulness of Knowledge Repositories in Selecting From Knowledge Sources

Knowledge sourcing through knowledge repositories, people, and documents in organizational settings are investigated in this paper. This competition among the knowledge sources is modeled via the perceived usefulness and ease of use of a Knowledge Management System (KMS) and extends the work of Gray and Durcikova (2005-2006) by adopting the concept of competition among knowledge sources suggested by Zimmer et al (2007-2008). Results suggest that when a KMS is perceived to be useful, users tend to reduce the usage of printed documents as a source of knowledge. However, when a KMS is perceived to be useful and easy to use, knowledge sourcing from other individuals is not influenced. This suggests that while good quality KMS may be slowly replacing printed documents, they complement sourcing knowledge from colleagues rather than reducing it. Implications for future research and practice are offered