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"It’s Easier to Ask Someone I Know"

Call Center Technicians’ Adoption of Knowledge Management Tools

Southern Methodist University, jdowning{at}smu.edu

This article traces the early implementation phase of a set of knowledge management tools in four customer call support centers within a multinational corporation. Through a case study analysis, this article addresses two fundamental issues. First, the article investigates how the organization keeps a new type of knowledge worker—the relatively unskilled, low-paid customer call support technicians who staff the phones at centers around the United States—current with the latest information on those products they support. Second, data from the case study suggest specific innovation factors that discourage technicians from adopting the knowledge tools.

Key Words: communication in organizations • call centers • diffusion of innovations • knowledge management • organizational learning

Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 41, No. 2, 166-191 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0021943603262140


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