조직특성과 구성원 개인특성 변수가 지식집중도에 미치는 영향에 관한 다층분석

Multi-level Analysis on the Effects of Organizational and Individual Characteristics to Knowledge Intensiveness : Structure and Culture

산업사회에서 지식중심사회로의 전환은 지식의 중요성에 대한 사회구성원들의 개별적인 인식의 확대를 초래하였으며, 그와 동시에 조직과 조직 내 작업수행과정에서 지식의 중요성이 증가함에 따라서 지식기반조직에 대한 관심이 본격화되었다. 본 연구는 지식기반조직의 경영체계를 보다 명확히 하기 위해서 조직 내 작업의 지식집중성 척도인 지식집중도를 토대로 조직구조, 문화 등의 유형을 실증분석하였다. 분석결과, 첫째, 표본조직들 사이에서 작업의 지식집중도 구성요인인 고객연계성, 협력성, 결과모호성 그리고 지식모호성 수준의 평균 모두가 통계적으로 유의한 차이가 존재하는 것으로 나타났다. 이들 중 고객연계성과 협력성은 표본조직들의 구성원 개인특성 중 성별 또는 교육수준과의 회귀관계의 기울기에 체계적인 변동이 존재하는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 지식집중도 구성요인 중 작업의 고객연계성과 협력성 수준은 변화·유연성을 강조하는 조직문화 유형을 갖는 조직이 그렇지 않은 조직에 비해서 통계적으로 유의하게 높게 나타났으며, 조직구조와는 통계적인 유의성을 보이지 않았다. 이러한 결과는, 첫째, 지식집중도가 높은 작업수행은 조직형태보다는 변화·유연성을 강조하는 조직문화에 의해 뒷받침될 수 있다는 점을 시사한다. 둘째, 지식기반조직에서 문화를 강조하고 있는 많은 선행연구들에서의 주장들을 준거로 할 때 본 연구는 이동진(2008, 2009a)의 지식집중도의 법칙론적 타당화(nomological validation)의 일환으로 볼 수 있으며, 따라서 지식집중도가 보다 간명한 척도가 되기 위해서는 작업의 고객연계성과 협력성에 보다 초점을 둘 필요가 있다는 점을 시사한다. 따라서 향후연구에서는 본 연구의 실증결과와 연계하여 보다 간명하며 타당한 지식집중도 개발을 위한 노력이 지속적으로 전개되어야 할 것이며, 이와 동시에 척도의 타당화의 일환으로 지식집중도를 이용하여 변화·유연성을 강조하는 조직문화와 적합을 이루는 태도를 가지는 구성원들의 선발, 유기적 상호작용과 협력에 기초하며 집단학습을 강조하는 개발 및 보상체계 등과 같은 HR체계특성을 가설화하고 검정하는 등의 지식기반조직의 경영체계에 관한 실증연구가 포괄적이며 다층적으로 이루어져야 할 것이다.

As the industrial society has moved to the post industrial society, and then to the knowledge society, intangible assets such as knowledge began to receive greater attention. Consequently, researches on knowledge management between and within organizations have flourished. This paper aims to explicate a management system of knowledge-based organization. Organizations as diverse as law and accounting firms, management consultancy companies, engineering consultancy companies, advertising agencies, research and development units, pharmaceuticals, and high tech companies are considered as typical knowledge intensive organizations. These knowledge-intensive organizations produce products and/or services, and often generate new and unique knowledge. Lee(2008, 2009a)’s empirically developed knowledge intensiveness of work in organizations is used to measure knowledge intensity in this paper. Knowledge intensiveness is a scale for knowledge intensity of work in organizations. We regard knowledge-based organizations as units performing knowledge intensive work. Three main characteristics of the knowledge intensive work are described in this paper. First, tasks in knowledge-based organization require expertise. Second, the core part of works are performed by experts with adequate skills. Last, as expertises include both formalized and informal knowledge, knowledge intensive works necessitate dialogues, consensuses, persuasions and negotiations which emphasize the importance of human and social relationship. Thus, knowledge intensive works also involve manipulating and orchestrating individuals’ thoughts and languages. We also classify components of knowledge ambiguity. Ambiguity of knowledge, ambiguity of its role in what is constructed as knowledge work and the ambiguity of the result of work outcome are classified based on ‘input→throughput→output’ order of knowledge intensive work. This classification of concepts in knowledge intensive work are focused on level of work units. Thus, in order to fit between level of theory, level of measurement, and level of analysis, we measure knowledge intensiveness of works based on performers, and perform statistical analysis at work level. Empirical results are discussed. The HLM procedure is a two stage strategy: First, the analysis shows that there was statistically significant variation in the mean of knowledge intensiveness, and in the slopes of client connectivity and collaboration at work across 48 organizations when regressed on gender and education in each organization. Second, the following step in the HLM analysis shows that the impact of culture on the levels of client connectivity and collaboration at work was stronger in organizations with flexible culture. Besides culture, industry impact on the levels of client connectivity and knowledge ambiguity at work, was weaker when organizations reported to traditional manufacture industry. These results have a few implication. First, client connectivity and collaboration of throughput in knowledge intensive work need to be scrutinized. Furthermore, acquiring both internal and statistical validity in other empirical settings is necessary for more parsimonious research and valid scale of knowledge intensity. Second, strong organizational culture must be supported by HRM systems such as employee selection system, development and compensation system which in turn drives an elevated knowledge intensiveness in organization. Multi-level analysis of relationship among knowledge intensiveness, employee attitudes toward uncertainty(ambiguity) at individual(work)level, and HR systems such as employee selection system, development and compensation system at organizational level could be one of the next research agenda.