Knowledge management systems (KMSs) facilitate the efficient and effective sharing of a firm's intellectual resources. However, sifting through the myriad of content available through KMSs can be challenging, and knowledge workers may be overwhelmed when trying to find the content most relevant for completing a new task. To address this problem, KMS designers often include content rating schemes (i.e., users of the KMS submit ratings to indicate the quality of specific content used) and credibility indicators (indicators describing the validity of the content and/or the ratings) to improve users' search and evaluation of KMS content. This study examines how content ratings and credibility indicators affect KMS users' search and evaluation processes and decision performance (how well and how quickly users selected alternatives offered by the KMS). Four Interrelated laboratory experiments provide evidence that ratings have a strong influence on KMS search and evaluation processes, which In turn affects decision performance. Finally, this study demonstrates that certain credibility indicators can moderate the relationship between rating validity and KMS content search and evaluation processes.
Managers in modern organizations are confronted with ever-increasing volumes of information that they must evaluate when making a decision. Data warehousing and data mining technologies have given managers a number of valuable tools that can help them store, retrieve, and analyze information contained in large databases; however, maximizing user performance with these tools remains a challenge for information systems professionals. One important and under-explored aspect of the effectiveness of these tools is the design of the query interface. In this study, we compared the use of visual and text-based interfaces on both low and high complexity tasks. Results demonstrated that decision maker performance was more accurate using the text-based interface when task complexity was low; however, decision makers using the visual interface performed better when task complexity was high. In addition, decision makers' subjective mental workload was significantly lower when using the visual interface, regardless of task complexity. In contrast to expectations, less time was needed to make a decision on low complexity tasks when using the visual interface, but those results were reversed under conditions of high task complexity. These results have important implications for the design of managerial decision-making systems, particularly in complex decision-making environments.