John E. Sawyer

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at University of Delaware

Research on knowledge transfer in organizations has been hampered by the lack of tools yielding valid scores for studying critical constructs in concert. The authors developed survey measures of absorptive capacity (the ability to transform new knowledge into usable knowledge) and experienced community of practice (the extent to which a person is e...

We examined team performance as it was affected by organizationally supported face-to-face and technology-mediated knowledge practices. Guided by an information processing perspective, we demonstrate from a field study of over 250 teams within a global Fortune 100 technology company that team member participation in face-to-face and technology-medi...

We provide a demonstration of a time series panel analysis applied under typical field research conditions characterized by (a) a small number of groups (b) all of which experience an intervention (thus there is no traditional control group), and (c) perform noncomparable tasks. The time series techniques allow a direct test of Naylor, Pritchard, a...

Systems savvy, a new construct derived from foundations of practical intelligence, is the capacity to see the interdependence of technological and social/organizational systems and to construct synergies between them. Understanding systems savvy is valuable for managing the changes that go along with rapidly evolving technical and social/organizati...

We examine the notion of a Phantom BATNA – a negotiation alternative that may or may not materialize – and its impact on a current negotiation. Across three studies, we investigate the impact of such alternatives on negotiation, and compare them to when negotiators have a certain BATNA, when they have no BATNA, or when they are provided no informat...

Self-management is increasingly required by people in jobs with flexible schedules and locations, freelance arrangements, and other forms of organizational job design. Successful self-management requires a sense of engagement with one’s work. We build from the substitutes for leadership literature to develop a model of work design focused on how co...

We seek a simple model of job characteristics and leadership for workers in a digitalized work place, where self-management is increasingly required as more work is done through enterprise digital and social media rather than face-to-face interaction. We look to work location, supervisor communication, feedback from the work itself, technology supp...

We seek a simple model of job characteristics and leadership for workers in a digitalized work place, where self-management is increasingly required as more work is done through enterprise digital and social media rather than face-to-face interaction. We look to work location, supervisor communication, feedback from the work itself, technology supp...

Systems of people, technology, and organization practice continue to intertwine and grow in their importance for understanding organizational outcomes. We offer systems savvy, an individual’s ability to see the affordances of available organizational and technological systems and put them into play, as a new construct to help build theory and under...

Knowledge-driven companies are facing financial and competitive pressures that make them increasingly difficult to allocate the kinds of financial resources to research as they have in the past. For this reason, corporate scientists, research managers and business managers must understand both the financial and knowledge returns associated with the...

We demonstrate from a multilevel field study of 39 research teams within a global Fortune 100 science/technology company that teams containing breadth of both research and business unit experience are more effective in their innovation efforts under two conditions: 1) there must be a knowledge-sharing climate in the team (arguably allowing the team...

Computer users were surveyed before and after the Michelangelo trigger date (March 6, 1992) to examine risk perceptions and performance of risky and protective behaviors. Consistent with Risk Homeostasis theory, population risk perceptions changed over the course of the risk period, while personal risk perceptions remained unchanged. Protective beh...

A field study of a global science/technology company provides evidence of the value of both organizational practices and technology tools for supporting knowledge attainment (the combined tacit and explicit knowledge gained in a focal area – in this study we focus on product knowledge attainment) in virtual environments. We present a three-dimensio...

Group diversity structure (the composition of racial and job-function diversity) and pre-discussion decision effects on group decision accuracy were tested in three-person groups. Evidence supported the social categorization model and the notion of multiple faultlines (i.e., subgroup boundaries). Crosscut diversity structure, where racial and job-f...

Capturing what an organization knows and effectively managing the flow of knowledge across an organization is a challenge. One promising method used to facilitate knowledge transfer is the creation and development of Communities of Practice (COP) within the organization. This paper will focus on the relationship between organizational practices and...

Information technology can facilitate the dissemination of knowledge across the organization— even to the point of making virtual teams a viable alternative to face-to-face work. However, unless managed, the combination of information technology and virtual work may serve to change the distribution of different types of knowledge across individuals...

A framework for using Group Support Systems (GSS) to aid learning about group problem-solving processes is presented. The authors describe a typical group problem-solving process and GSS. A framework for matching GSS tools to stages of the group problem-solving process is presented. The authors then detail how two simulations were developed for use...

Current research regarding media richness has concluded that richness is an emergent property of the media and its context. The notion that media richness is an emergent property of the environment implies that it should be measured through perceptions as a psychological reaction to the media and its context. Recent studies have suffered from the l...

Information technology may play the role of a jealous mistress when it comes to the relationship between individual and organizational knowledge creation. Information technology can facilitate the dissemination of knowledge across the organization - even to the point of making virtual groups a viable alternative to face-to-face work. However, unles...

Computer-based enterprise simulation is increasingly being used as a pedagogical tool in educational courses and training programs. However, the learning benefits from this activity have not been fully understood. In this study, we focus on the participant’s ability to translate a company’s strategy to a set of decisions in a simulation exercise, a...

A theoretical framework for understanding creativity in a complex social setting, such as an organization, is developed. Organizational creativity is defined as the creation of a valuable, useful new product, service, idea, procedure, or process by individuals working together in a complex social system. The starting point for the theoretical devel...

In this article we develop a theoretical framework for understanding creativity in complex social settings. We define organizational creativity as the creation of a valuable, useful new product, service, idea, procedure, or process by individuals working together in a complex social system. The starting point for our theoretical development is prov...

Measures of 2 constructs of role ambiguity (process and goal clarity) were developed. Mental health workers ( N = 402) from 2 organizations provided evidence that a confirmatory 2-factor model fit the data better than a 1-factor model. A path model including antecedents (autonomy, job feedback, agent feedback, recognition) and consequences (job sat...

Individuals' ability to detect nonlinearities in monotonic increasing contingency functions was studied. The probabilistic nature of the contingency function along with the amount of information available to learn the contingency function was found to affect the extent to which subjects learned the degree of nonlinearity in the function form. Subje...

Social uncertainty about the behavior of others with whom one is interdependent for rewards is hypothesized to encourage self-interested behavior and inhibit behavioral commitment to the group. This paper examines the roles of uncertainty, expectations, and feedback about other group members' contributions to the group in interdependent decision ma...

Motivation has been defined as the allocation of time and effort across competing demands. Such resource allocation problems are made more difficult when the relationships between activities and desired outcomes are uncertain. Cognitive theories of motivation assume that individuals make judgments about the associations of specific activities with...

When studying job attitudes researchers have consistently found positive relations between job satisfaction and organizational level. This finding has led researchers to search for characteristics of jobs that vary across organizational levels in ways that are related to job satisfaction. An alternative explanation is that measurement artifacts acc...

A laboratory study was conducted to examine the role of two components of participatory work evaluation procedures on fairness attitudes and work performance. Opportunity for influential opinion expression and knowledge of evaluation criteria were manipulated in a business simulation exercise. Thirty-eight male and 49 female undergraduates worked u...

Typescript. Thesis (M.A.) - California State University, Fresno. Includes bibliographical references.