Individuals´ Interaction with Organizational Knowledge under Innovative and Affective Team Climates: A Multilevel Approach to Knowledge Adoption and Transformation

Although organizational learning can be explained as mutual learning between an organization and the individuals in it, it has been mostly understood from the organization side. To understand how this mutual learning occurs from the side of the actual learners as the learning entity, we study how individuals learn organizational knowledge by adopting and transforming it and how they are influenced by the technical and social subsystems of an organization. From 350 responses within 66 teams from two companies, we investigate the effects of KMS use for strategic decision support and operational support on knowledge adoption and transformation and how innovative and affective climates moderate these relationships. Our findings show that individuals improve their work performance through both knowledge adoption and transformation and that different types of KMS use and different team climates play different roles in shaping knowledge adoption and transformation.