The optimal knowledge creation strategy of organizations in groupthink situations

Abstract

Even though both collective intelligence and groupthink promote concurrence seeking, studies focused on the relationship between the two are lacking. Therefore, this study aims to explore how to transform groupthink into collective intelligence that contributes to knowledge creation. Three “switching factors”— “knowledge conflict,” “reconsideration,” and “organizational memory”—are defined herein. The effects of each factor and combinations of factors were tested through an agent-based model (ABM) and efficiency analysis. The ABM simulation showed that “knowledge conflict” is good for organizational performance but reduces the scope for new knowledge. On the contrary, a model with “reconsideration” or “organizational memory” was able to hold the heterogeneity of knowledge. With respect to efficiency, eight possible strategies were tested by stochastic frontier analysis. Its results showed that the combination of “knowledge conflict” and “reconsideration” had the highest efficiency with respect to both “between-group” and “meta-frontier.” Thus, this study suggests that the switching factors and strategies using their combinations can help in ensuring decentralization and diversity in organizations, and ultimately, contribute to new knowledge creation—specifically, the combination of “knowledge conflict” and “reconsideration” is the most efficient strategy. This study contributes to the possible existence of switching factors and, using them, builds an optimal strategy in the practical field of knowledge management.