Predictors of Diverse Usage Behavior towards Personal Knowledge Management Systems Submitted to Online Information Review

Purpose – This study argues that individuals’ use of personal knowledge management systems (PKMS) significantly differs as a result of their underlying innovativeness and involvement traits. Based on the literature, this study proposes that whilst more-involved users utilize PKMS more frequently, more-innovative users utilize more functions of PKMS. Accordingly, this study informs scholars and managers that using a single approach that is, only use frequency or the number of functions used to evaluate the performance of a PKMS may lead to a biased result. Design/methodology/approach – A field survey was conducted to collect data. Correlation techniques and regression analysis were used to test the proposed relationship between constructs. Findings – Findings indicated that whilst both traits were significantly associated with PKMS usage behaviors, users’ involvement was the primary predictor of PKMS use frequency, while users’ innovativeness predominated in the prediction of the number of PKMS functions they used. That is, although more-involved users may use fewer functions compared with more-innovative users, they are more likely to become long-term supporters of PKMS because their use frequency is significantly higher than that of more-innovative users. Originality/value – After a half-century of development of information technology, this paper addresses the importance of taking a step further and verifying the behaviors related to the use of PKMS with different approaches such as use frequency and the number of functions used. In particular, this study is a pioneering piece of research in the information system discipline, revealing that individuals’ underlying innovativeness and involvement contribute to different PKMS use behaviors. Paper type – Research paper