Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

David Grosse Kathoefer and Jens Leker
Never<strong>the</strong>less, our study tries to improve <strong>the</strong> measurement model for academic NIH making it more
robust. Therefore, we rely on existing measures from literature and adapt <strong>the</strong> wording to <strong>the</strong> university
context. We propose a reflective four-factor model:
NIH 1: Knowledge <strong>of</strong> external partners
NIH 2: Performance <strong>of</strong> external knowledge
NIH 3: Trust in own competence
NIH 4: Sourcing <strong>of</strong> knowledge
The first construct was taken from <strong>the</strong> study <strong>of</strong> Bock, Zmud, Kim and Lee (2005). Their factor “Sence
<strong>of</strong> Self-Worth” evaluated <strong>the</strong> helpfulness <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> participants’ knowledge sharing for o<strong>the</strong>rs. This
helpfulness was replaced by <strong>the</strong> knowledge <strong>of</strong> external partners and <strong>the</strong> point <strong>of</strong> view was changed to
<strong>the</strong> participant. Additionally, <strong>the</strong> wording was adapted to <strong>the</strong> university setting. The second factor was
developed by Mehrwald (1999). The item asking for financial expenses for <strong>the</strong> projects was eliminated
in advance as it did not fitted <strong>the</strong> respective context. The third construct was also taken from
Mehrwald’s study. In both cases, <strong>the</strong> wording <strong>of</strong> all items was changed from technology orientation to
<strong>the</strong> broader scope <strong>of</strong> knowledge. The last factor was initiated by an item <strong>of</strong> McDonough and Barczak
(1991) asking for <strong>the</strong> extent to which technological developments for a product have come from
internal or external sources, respectively. In <strong>the</strong> course <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> pre-tests, this item was enlarged to a
factor, differentiating between several stages <strong>of</strong> a typical academic experimental research process.
These four constructs are fur<strong>the</strong>r merged to <strong>the</strong> reflective second-order factor coined NIH.
To secure unidimensionality, all single factors were assessed in principal component analyses. All
items <strong>of</strong> a single construct should show higher factor loadings than 0.5 and in combination form one
single factor (Hair, 2006). The respective items should fur<strong>the</strong>r explain more than 50% <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> total
variance (Hair, 2006). As a reliability measure, Cronbach’s alpha was used (Cronbach, 1951). In this
context, early stage studies and mature scales can be distinguished. For <strong>the</strong> former, a cut<strong>of</strong>f value <strong>of</strong>
0.6 can be regarded as sufficient, whereas for <strong>the</strong> latter a value <strong>of</strong> 0.7 is <strong>of</strong>ten required (Hair, 2006).
Although <strong>the</strong> scales <strong>of</strong> this study are taken from existing literature, <strong>the</strong> transfer to <strong>the</strong> new context
shows an exploratory nature. Thus, we accept a threshold value <strong>of</strong> 0.6 regarding Cronbach’s alpha. In
total, one item <strong>of</strong> each <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> factors NIH 3 and NIH 4 had to be eliminated, ending in α = 0.677 (for
fur<strong>the</strong>r details concerning factor loadings and quality criteria see Appendix).
In a second step, a confirmatory analysis was applied to validate our measurement model, including
predictor and control variables. Although multivariate normal distribution was not given, we used
maximum likelihood as <strong>the</strong> procedure <strong>of</strong> choice. West, Finch and Curran (1995) demonstrate that, as
long as skewness and kurtosis do not exceed values <strong>of</strong> two and seven, respectively, maximum
likelihood can be regarded as a robust technique providing reasonable results. During <strong>the</strong> analysis,
modification indices gave hints that five error variances should correlate. Finally, <strong>the</strong> global criteria are
very well fulfilled (Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.953; Root Mean Square Error <strong>of</strong> Approximation
(RMSEA) = 0.039; Standardized Root Mean Residual (SRMR) = 0.046) (Hu and Bentler, 1999). To
assess <strong>the</strong> single construct measurements, different quality criteria, like factor and item reliability and
average variance extracted, were employed in this step (Herzog, 2011). Fur<strong>the</strong>r, we used <strong>the</strong> Fornell-
Larcker criterion to test for discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Overall, we could show
that <strong>the</strong> measurement model <strong>of</strong> NIH fulfills <strong>the</strong> statistical requirements to use it in <strong>the</strong> fur<strong>the</strong>r analysis.
3.2.2 Independent variables
The operationalizations <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> independent constructs were tested in <strong>the</strong> same way as <strong>the</strong> dependent
one. The first predictor variable, “Opinion <strong>of</strong> colleagues”, is based on <strong>the</strong> construct “Attitude towards
<strong>the</strong> act” by Ajzen and Fishbein (1980). Using a semantic differential, <strong>the</strong> construct was confirmed in
several studies (e.g. Chang, 1998, O'Hara, Netemeyer and Burton, 1991). The introducing sentence
was adapted to <strong>the</strong> respective context (α = 0.969). Fur<strong>the</strong>r, “Internal communication” was taken from
Holtorf (2011). Here, it was used to measure communication inside teams. Therefore, we transferred
it to <strong>the</strong> organizational level <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> university (α = 0.933). “Work routine” was based on “routine
discretion” in <strong>the</strong> study <strong>of</strong> Kelley, Longfellow and Malehorn (1996). In <strong>the</strong> run <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> analysis, two
items had to be deleted due to missing cut-<strong>of</strong>f criteria. Hence, <strong>the</strong> construct consisted only <strong>of</strong> three
items (α = 0.747). Finally, “Group pride” was adapted from Tyler, Degoey and Smith (1996). Here, we
chose <strong>the</strong> construct analyzed in <strong>the</strong> university setting as it best fits our context as well. During
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