Using what we know

This paper examines when and how project teams' use of knowledge previously codified and stored in the organization affects team performance. We draw upon the team effectiveness, knowledge management, and information systems literatures to develop five hypotheses on the effects of team knowledge use on two measures of team performance (quality and efficiency), based on structural characteristics of the task and team. We also distinguish between a team's mean use of stored knowledge and the concentration of knowledge use in a team. Using objective data from several hundred software development projects in an Indian software services firm, we find that mean team knowledge use has a positive effect on project efficiency but not on project quality. Team concentration of use is also associated with project efficiency but, in contrast to mean use, is related to lower project quality. As predicted, we also find that mean team use is more positively related to performance when teams are dispersed geographically, have less human capital, or are faced with particularly complex tasks. Our findings offer insight for theory and practice into how accessing stored organizational knowledge can improve knowledge workers' productivity and help build organizational capability.