2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Is it an Antecedent? Is it an Outcome? No, it’s Culture!
Understanding the Relationship between Cultural Values and the
Use of Information Systems Fostering Collaboration
Sven Dittes
University of Hagen, Germany
[email protected]
Stefan Smolnik
University of Hagen, Germany
[email protected]
Abstract
interact in the daily organizational life [6, 7] and, thus,
transform the cultural values within the organization
[8, 9].
Summarizing,
literature
shows
that
the
organizational culture influences the use of KMS, ESS,
and collaboration systems, but also has the potential to
transform the organizational culture, resulting in a
rather complex relationship. This leads to the question
whether cultural values influence the adoption and use
of these systems, or whether they influence the cultural
values – making the relationship between such systems
and the cultural values within an organization a
‘chicken-and-egg phenomenon.’
Furthermore, the cultural values within an
organization have been shown to be a very complex
concept [10]. Leidner and Kayworth [11] state that
every person’s cultural identity is comprised of
different values at different layers (e.g. national,
organizational, and sub-unit). Additionally, Gallivan
and Srite [10] theorize that, in each action, some layers
might be more dominant regarding explaining cultural
values’ influence than others.
In this study, we aim at shedding light on the
complex relationship between the use of IS that foster
collaboration and the cultural values within an
organization by reviewing previous research that
mention such a link. We chose to only include
empirical studies, since we are solely interested in
relationships that are actually observed in practice.
Furthermore, we investigate the conceptualizations of
cultural values in these studies. We therefore derived
the following research questions:
RQ1: How is the relationship between the use of IS
that foster collaboration and the cultural values within
an organization observed in current empirical studies?
RQ2: How are cultural values conceptualized in these
studies?
By answering these research questions, we aim to
derive a research agenda that indicates future research
opportunities to study the relationship between cultural
values and IS that foster collaboration in an
organizational setting. Based on this research agenda,
we contribute to research by revealing research gaps
Information systems (IS) that foster collaboration
in organizations, such as knowledge management
systems (KMS), enterprise social software (ESS), and
collaboration systems, have shown the potential to
improve employees’ work quality and performance.
However, leveraging these benefits is highly dependent
on the influence of cultural values within the
organization. Furthermore, using such systems is said
to have also the potential to change cultural values.
Based on these insights, we conducted a
comprehensive literature review in order to understand
whether and how empirical studies observe such
effects. Our review shows that empirical studies
uncovering the phenomenon of reciprocity between
cultural values and the use of IS to foster collaboration
is still scarce. As a result of our study, we derive a
research agenda that includes research opportunities
to study this relationship in an organizational setting.
1. Introduction
Today’s organizations increasingly implement
information systems (IS) that foster collaboration in
organizations, such as knowledge management systems
(KMS), enterprise social software (ESS), and
collaboration systems [1]. The use of such technologies
has shown the potential to benefit organizations in the
form of, for example, their employees’ improved work
performance and productivity, their improved work
quality, as well as better coordination and collaboration
within the organization [2, 3]. These benefits are
rooted in employees using these systems to interact,
share knowledge, and help each other.
However, research has shown that these benefits
cannot always be leveraged, because employees do not
use these systems. Literature provides both positive
and negative explanations of the different factors
influencing employees’ use behaviors [4, 5]. One of
these factors is the influence of cultural values.
Additionally, research mentions that the
organizational use of IS that foster collaboration has
the potential to also transform the way employees
1530-1605/16 $31.00 © 2016 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/HICSS.2016.523
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that serve as an inspiration to undertake future research
endeavors. Ultimately, we contribute to the IS research
stream dealing with the influence of culture and IS
(e.g. [10, 11]).
discover how cultural differences based on
nationalities influence business behavior. In our study,
we draw on the definition by Schein [18], who defines
organizational culture as shared values, beliefs, and
practices of the people in the organization. Based on
this, Goffee and Jones [19] state that cultural values are
“the glue that holds organizations together.” Given the
importance of cultural values’ influence regarding
explaining employee behavior within an organization,
IS research adopted the organizational culture concept
to explain the use and adoption of IS (e.g. [10, 11]).
As already mentioned, the cultural values concept
is very complex. Describing this complexity, Gallivan
and Srite [10] use the ‘virtual onion of culture’
metaphor: This notion refers to each person’s cultural
identity being a product of several cultural layers.
These layers are entangled. Examples of such layers
are religion, nationality, organization where employed,
workgroup, and family. Therefore, in order to
understand the cultural influence to explain an
employee’s actions, we have to consider culture’s
complexity.
2. Foundations
2.1. IS fostering collaboration
Our study’s technological focus is to review
existing empirical studies on IS that foster employees’
collaborative behavior. We therefore identified three
major system types in the literature: First,
collaboration systems are defined as a software that
supports
“communication,
coordination
and
cooperation processes in groups” [12]. Second, we
found KMS. To define KMS, we draw on the
description by Alavi and Leidner [13], who state that
KMS help employees find an expert, share knowledge,
and work together in virtual teams. Third, ESS can be
seen as KMS and collaboration systems’ current
development and progression. Leonardi, Huysman and
Steinfield [14] define ESS as: “Web-based platforms
that allow workers to communicate messages with
specific coworkers or broadcast messages to everyone
in the organization.” Using ESS, employees can post,
edit, and sort text and files linked to themselves or
others [14]. Since all three system types by definition
allow employees to collaborate, as well as to share and
exchange knowledge, we focus on these system types
in our literature review. Thus, when mentioning IS that
foster collaboration in the following, we always refer
to all three system types (collaboration systems, KMS,
and ESS). However, when discussing particular papers
within the literature review, we refer to the actual
system under study.
Further, literature states that many different factors
(e.g. the system and content quality [15] and trust
among employees [16]) influence employees using and
adapting IS that foster collaboration. Hence, these
factors can be seen as the antecedents of employees’
adoption and use of such systems. Further, literature
shows that if employees interact with each other by
using such systems, this leads to different positive
outcomes, such as an increase in productivity and in
job performance [2, 3].
2.3. Cultural values and the use of IS that foster
collaboration
In the respective literature, we found different
approaches to and perspectives on the relationship
between cultural values and the use of IS that foster
collaboration. On the one hand, cultural values are
regarded as a powerful influence on human behavior
(e.g. [20]). Thus, by referring to the use of IS that
foster collaboration as human behavior, previous
research has proposed that cultural values are an
antecedent of such systems’ use. On the other hand,
from a use perspective, existing studies suggest that
using IS that foster collaboration has the potential to
also change and transform the cultural values within an
organization [8, 9] and, thus, also suggest that these
cultural values are an outcome.
Based on this argumentation, we develop a review
framework to guide the literature analysis. This
analysis of the existing research will determine
whether cultural values should be seen as an
antecedent, an outcome, both, or none of these when
examining the use of IS that foster collaboration (see
Figure 1). Since we are only interested in analyzing
studies that mention the influence of cultural values on
the use of IS fostering collaboration or in studies that
mention employees using such systems to transform
the cultural values in the organization, we place the use
of collaboration systems, KMS, or ESS at the center of
our review framework and suggest that cultural values
are an antecedent, as well as an outcome.
2.2. Cultural values in organizations
The research on cultural values’ impact on
organizations is rooted in the organizational research of
the 1980s, when, for example, Hofstede [17]
conceptualized five dimensions of culture in order to
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Cultural Values
as Antecedent
Use of Collaboration
Systems, KMS, or ESS
Table 1. Literature sources and search process
Journal/conference
Hits
Final
proceeding
sample
European Journal of
3
99
Information Systems
Information Systems Journal
16
3
Information Systems Research
5
1
Journal of the Association for
12
0
Information Systems
Journal of Information
0
43
Technology
Journal of Management
58
4
Information Systems
Journal of Strategic
32
2
Information Systems
MIS Quarterly
36
0
International Conference on
75
7
Information Systems (ICIS)
European Conference on
101
10
Information Systems (ECIS)
Hawaii International
264
17
Conference on System Sciences
(HICSS)
TOTAL
741
47
Cultural Values
as Outcome
Figure 1. Review framework
The notion of the virtual onion of culture will also
guide our research. We therefore examine on which
layer previous research observed cultural values.
Furthermore, we examine how cultural values are
described and conceptualized in different research
settings.
3. Research process and method
Our study is based on a comprehensive structured
literature review of empirical studies dealing with the
relationship between cultural values and the use of IS
that foster collaboration in organizations. In doing so,
we follow the recommendations of Webster and
Watson [21].
As recommended, we first conducted our search in
leading IS journals. We therefore selected the eight
journals of the Senior Scholars’ Basket of Journals,
since these represent the IS discipline’s top journals
and include the major contributions to the research
field [21]. Furthermore, we decided to include three
leading IS conferences’ proceedings in our search (see
Table 1).
We started with a full text search, using a
combination of keywords. We searched for all papers
including the word “culture” in combination with one
of the abovementioned system types. In order to ensure
we included all possible description and spelling
variations for the system types, we reviewed selected
seminal papers in the respective research streams. We
identified the following keywords and formulated the
following
search
query:
“culture”
AND
(“collaboration system” OR “collaboration tool” OR
“collaboration
software”
OR
“collaboration
technology” OR “collaboration platform” OR
“collaborative system” OR “collaborative software”
OR “enterprise social media” OR “enterprise social
software” OR “enterprise 2.0” OR “organizational
social media” OR “organizational social software”
OR “knowledge management system” OR “KM
system”). We found a total of 741 different papers (see
Table 1).
For the selection process, we reduced the initial set
of papers to the final sample. In the last step, two
researchers clarified ambiguous selections to
specifically avoid any personal preferences and biases.
In this selection process, we applied four selection
criteria: (1) Since we are only interested in studies on
the relationship between cultural values and employees
using IS that foster collaboration in an empirical
setting, we filtered all non-empirical studies. (2) Since
we only want to examine organizational phenomena,
we limited our sample to empirical studies in an
organizational context. (3) Since we found many
papers that briefly mention a relationship between
cultural values and the use of IS that foster
collaboration (e.g. only in a subordinate clause in the
paper’s introduction), we decided to solely include
research papers that empirically validate this
relationship in the finding section. (4) The fourth
selection criterion addressed the IS. Our goal is to
understand the influence of cultural values on an
employee’s use of IS that foster collaboration.
The Palgrave search engine could not search for our complex
search query. Consequently, we could only search for the different IS
types and had to filter the papers dealing with cultural values
manually.
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Cultural Values as
Antecedent
•
•
•
•
Use of Collaboration
Systems, KMS, or ESS
National Layer (2)
Industry Layer (1)
Organizational Layer (30)
Department Layer (3)
• Knowledge Management Systems (20)
• Enterprise Social Software (15)
• Collaboration Systems (12)
36
Cultural Values
as Moderator
Cultural Values as
Outcome
Cultural Values
as Moderator
2
• National Layer (1)
• Organizational Layer (1)
9
• Organizational Layer (9)
1
• Organizational Layer (1)
Figure 2. Results of the analysis of the selected literature
between various factors influencing the use of IS that
foster collaboration and the actual use. In addition, we
found one paper dealing with cultural values as a
moderator in terms of the outcome argument.
On examining the different cultural layers, the
numbers in the boxes of Figure 2 show that, for
example, 30 papers empirically assessed cultural
values on the organizational layer as an antecedent, and
nine papers assessed them as an outcome of these
systems’ use.
We therefore searched for literature dealing with
employees’ use and adoption of such systems.
However, applying this selection criterion turned out to
be non-trivial. It was difficult to distinguish between
papers dealing with general knowledge management
(KM) behavior and those dealing with employees
using the actual IS, specifically when analyzing papers
from the KMS research stream. The importance of
distinguishing between KM and KMS is also described
in the literature. Jennex, Smolnik and Croasdell [22],
for example, state that the successful use of KMS does
not mean that the KM efforts are also successful.
As a result of our literature selection process, 47
papers remained, which we analyzed by applying our
review framework’s lens (for a full list of all the papers
included in this literature review, please contact the
authors).
Figure 2 shows the results of our analysis. The
numbers in the figure represent the number of times the
different concepts and aspects were mentioned in the
47 papers. In order to interpret the numbers, it is
important to mention that some of the 47 papers in
total were counted multiple times, since they, for
example, mention cultural values as antecedent as well
as an outcome, or deal with multiple cultural layers.
The final sample comprises 20 papers dealing with
KMS, 15 papers dealing with ESS, and 12 papers
dealing with collaboration systems.
In terms of the relationship between cultural values
and the use of collaboration systems, KMS, and ESS,
we found, for example, 36 papers mentioning cultural
values as an antecedent, whereas only nine papers
stress cultural values as an outcome. Additionally, we
discovered papers mentioning cultural values as a
moderator by conceptualizing cultural values as a
social contextual factor. Consequently, we found two
papers that conceptualize culture as a moderator
4. Findings and research agenda
4.1. Concept reflecting cultural values
As a first step in the analysis, we reviewed the final
sample according to the cultural values reflected in the
papers. In doing so, we uncovered several concepts
reflecting cultural values.
The organizational or corporate culture is the most
occurring concept. For example, Kuikka and Äkkinen
[23] stress that a “challenge to the adoption of social
media is corporate culture.” Jennex [24] came to a
similar conclusion in his study on the use of KMS. He
suggests that the organizational culture encourages
employees to use KMS [24].
We also reviewed papers that introduce a specific
manifestation or state of cultural values as an
influential factor: Steinhüser, Smolnik and Hoppe [25]
introduce communication culture as an ESS success
factor. Ren, Kiesler and Fussell [26] mention “the
importance of fostering a collaborative culture” when
a particular collaboration system is implemented.
Further, Wickramasinghe [27] mentions that the
implementation of a firm-wide KMS depends on a
supporting culture. Moreover, O’Donovan, Heavin and
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Butler [28] describe trustworthy culture, team oriented
culture,
and
knowledge-sharing
culture
as
manifestations of cultural values. Several studies (e.g.
[29, 30]) especially mentioned knowledge-sharing
culture as a manifestation of cultural values.
We find that all these concepts describe various
manifestations of cultural values based on different
states which a company can adopt. However, we find
that these manifestations are partly on different
abstraction levels and, thus, not fully distinct.
Therefore, this finding leads to our first research
opportunity:
Research opportunity 1: Future research endeavors
could develop a holistic conceptualization of cultural
values, including different manifestations that are
important within the realm of research dealing with IS
that foster collaboration.
Since we conducted a full text search that also
allowed us to search the references of all the papers,
we uncovered concepts related to the cultural values
concept, because the concept was derived from
literature dealing with organizational culture. For
example, we found papers describing the trust (e.g.
[3, 31]) and climate (e.g. [32, 33]) concepts. The
similarity and difference between organizational
culture and climate are described in detail in the
literature (e.g. [34, 35]). Tesluk, Farr and Klein [35]
state that “both climate and culture deal with the ways
by which organization members make sense of their
environment.” However, “culture operates at a greater
level of abstraction than climate” [35], meaning that
culture is rooted much deeper in an organization than
climate is. Therefore, it is very hard to assess and
measure a highly complex phenomenon like culture
[36]. As a result, it is easier to measure the trust and
climate concepts. Based on this, future research
endeavors aiming at not only assessing and describing,
but also measuring cultural values within organizations
should rather draw on the climate concept:
Research opportunity 2: Future research endeavors
measuring cultural values could measure trust and
climate as indicators of organizational culture.
employee portals on an organizational level before
implementing such a system.
However, as Figure 2 shows, we also found studies
conceptualizing the relationship between cultural
values and the use of IS that foster collaboration on a
different layer. Yang, Wen, Adamic, Ackerman and
Lin [37] investigate the differences in national cultural
values
when
adopting
computer-mediated
communication systems
in a
multi-national
organization. Further, Gemmo, Rajola and Santuccio
[38] examine the influence of cultural values from an
industry layer. In their findings, they mention that, in
the banking industry, the culture is often too
bureaucratic and, thus, hinders the use of KMS [37].
Furthermore, Jarvenpaa and Staples [39] survey
cultural values by specifically referring to particular
departments. However, Figure 2 shows that the number
of papers investigating other layers than the
organizational layer is still relatively small and mostly
limited to the antecedent argument.
Drawing on this finding, researching the
relationship between cultural values and the use of IS
that foster collaboration on another layer than the
organizational layer could be a fruitful path for future
research. Since cultural values usually comprise a
combination of different cultural layers [11], a onesided view would omit much explanation potential
regarding the relationship between cultural values and
the use of IS that foster collaboration. Therefore, we
argue that cultural values should not only be studied on
the organizational layer, and derive our third research
opportunity:
Research opportunity 3: Future research endeavors
could investigate the influence of other layers of
culture than the organizational layer – especially if
culture is conceptualized as an outcome of the use of IS
that foster collaboration.
Furthermore, we mostly found papers that deal with
cultural values on a single layer. Conversely,
Schlagwein and Prasarnphanich [40] include the
national culture, as well as the organizational culture,
as antecedents of social media platforms’ use. Their
research model implies a one-sided relationship
between the two layers (national culture influences
organizational culture) [40]. However, Gallivan and
Srite [10] describe the relationship between different
layers as very complex. Therefore, we find that
researchers should focus on investigating this complex
relationship (whether it is one-sided or not). Based on
this finding, we derive our fourth research opportunity:
Research opportunity 4: Future research endeavors
could investigate the interplay and entanglement of
different layers of culture when explaining the use of IS
that foster collaboration.
4.2. Cultural layers
In a second step of our analysis, we draw on the
virtual onion of culture concept [10] by reviewing the
final sample in terms of the different cultural layers
applied in these studies. We discovered papers that
apply a variety of layers (see Figure 2). Most of these
papers deal with the influence of cultural values from
the organizational layer. For example, Urbach,
Smolnik and Riempp [2] state that organizations
should foster a culture that encourages the use of
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In addition, in terms of practical implications, we
find that when conducting design science [41], it could
be very interesting to investigate whether particular
layers dominate and if and how this dominance can be
changed in order to improve the use of IS that foster
collaboration. Thus, we posit our fifth research
opportunity:
Research opportunity 5: Future research endeavors
could investigate how particular cultural layers
become more dominant than others when explaining
the use of IS that foster collaboration and if and how
this dominance can be changed.
environment “fostered a culture where employees feel
safe in contributing and expressing their ideas and
opinions freely.”
We furthermore found a few papers emphasizing
further possibilities to describe the relationship
between cultural values and the use of IS that foster
collaboration. For instance, Bock, Kankanhalli and
Sharma [44] describe cultural values as collaborative
norms that moderate the relationship between the
perceived usefulness of a KMS and its actual use. The
study by Min, Lee, Ryu and Lee [33], in which both
the innovative and affective climate in an organization
moderate the relationship between the use of KMS and
the positive outcomes, such as knowledge adoption
behavior, provides another variation to describe
cultural values’ influence. Reviewing the paper by
Ravishankar, Pan and Leidner [45], suggest yet another
variation in that employees’ use of these IS depends on
an alignment of the cultural values and the
implemented technology [45].
One finding of our literature review refers to the
different variations and possibilities with which to
conceptualize and describe the relationship between
cultural values and the use of IS that foster
collaboration. This led us to the question of how all
these different conceptualizations are related. Trying to
answer this question, we found a few studies that imply
that there is a reciprocal relationship. For instance, in
their case study, Pope and Butler [29] find that a
“culture of knowledge sharing was identified as a
major contributor.” However, they also mention that
“the cases exhibited a reciprocal relationship” between
cultural values and the behavior of employees using a
KMS.
Summarizing, we found several empirical studies
mentioning that cultural values are in various ways
related to employees using IS that foster collaboration.
However, most of the reviewed literature has a rather
narrow scope by only focusing on a single relationship.
Additionally, we found evidence that the relationship
between cultural values and the use of IS that foster
collaboration might be reciprocal.
Therefore, we posit our sixth research opportunity:
Research opportunity 6: Future research endeavors
could seek to develop a more holistic perspective of the
relationship between cultural values and the use of IS
that foster collaboration by considering culture as both
an antecedent and an outcome.
4.3. Relationship between cultural values and
IS that foster collaboration
The third step of our analysis evolves from the
different relationships between the cultural values and
employees using IS that foster collaboration. The
results of our analysis are depicted in Figure 2. The
analysis shows that the most papers empirically derive
or validate the antecedent relationship, stating that
cultural values have a major influence on whether and
how employees adopt and use IS that foster
collaboration: We found quantitative-empirical studies
in which cultural values directly impact the system use.
An example is the study by Maruping and Magni [42],
who state that the team learning and team
empowerment climate directly influence the intention
to use a collaboration system. Further, we found
quantitative-empirical studies in which cultural values
only indirectly influence usage behavior via mediating
factors. For example, Fu and Lee [31] conceptualize
trust as influencing the use of KMS by first influencing
the system’s perceived usefulness and affection. We
moreover also found qualitative-empirical research
describing the relationship between cultural values and
the use of IS that foster collaboration as an antecedent.
As an example, we posit the research by Richter and
Wagner [43], who, in the results of their interview
study on ESS, mention that “for social software
initiatives to be implemented successfully, a certain
culture needs to prevail in an organization.”
Further, we also discovered papers mentioning
cultural values as an outcome of the use of KMS and
collaboration systems: For example, Cao, Vogel, Guo,
Liu and Gu [3] conceptualize trust as an outcome of
ESS use. Additionally, Bibbo, Sprehe, Michelich and
Lee [9] confirm that the use of wikis in a workplace
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Table 2. Research agenda
Research
opportunity
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Description
Future research endeavors could develop a holistic conceptualization of cultural values, including
different manifestations that are important within the realm of research dealing with IS that foster
collaboration.
Future research endeavors measuring cultural values could measure trust and climate as
indicators of organizational culture.
Future research endeavors could investigate the influence of other layers of culture than the
organizational layer – especially if culture is conceptualized as an outcome of the use of IS that
foster collaboration.
Future research endeavors could investigate the interplay and entanglement of different layers of
culture when explaining the use of IS that foster collaboration.
Future research endeavors could investigate how particular cultural layers become more
dominant than others when explaining the use of IS that foster collaboration and if and how this
dominance can be changed.
Future research endeavors could seek to develop a more holistic perspective of the relationship
between cultural values and the use of IS that foster collaboration by considering culture as both
an antecedent and an outcome.
Future research endeavors could investigate a temporal causality in the reciprocity between
cultural values and the use of IS that foster collaboration. Are there any triggers or timespans for
reversing the relationship?
This might imply that there is a temporal order in
the relationship between cultural values and the use of
IS that foster collaboration. Consequently, the culture
could influence the use of these systems after the
implementation in the early-adoption phase.
Conversely, in the post-adoption phase, the system use
could influence the cultural values. Based on this, we
posit our seventh research opportunity:
Research opportunity 7: Future research endeavors
could investigate a temporal causality in the
reciprocity between cultural values and the use of IS
that foster collaboration. Are there any triggers or
timespans for reversing the relationship?
analyzed and clustered these papers by applying our
initially developed review framework. As a result, we
identified research gaps and, based on these gaps,
developed a research agenda, including seven research
opportunities to guide future research endeavors (see
Table 2).
Discussing our key results, we found that only three
studies dealt with cultural values as a moderator. Thus,
given that cultural values are rather intangible and
ubiquitous in a company [46], this finding is surprising
since it implies that most of the existing studies see
culture more as a direct influence than as a contextual
factor. Drawing on the direct influence, we further
found far more empirical studies investigating cultural
values as an antecedent towards the use of IS that
foster collaboration than as an outcome.
Relating this finding to IS acceptance and use
research such as the streams on technology acceptance
and IS success, one could suggest that there is a similar
development. Whereas the Technology Acceptance
Model (TAM) ends at conceptualizing the use of an IS
omitting the outcomes [47], the IS Success Model
acknowledges the outcomes by conceptualizing the net
benefits using the IS [48]. However, the focus on
antecedents might be explained as being a natural
development since it is important to understand the
factors leading to using an IS before analyzing possible
benefits and outcomes. Furthermore, since cultural
values can only be developed and, thus, changed over
5. Conclusions
In our study, we conducted a structured literature
review of the relationship between cultural values and
the use of IS that foster collaboration in an
organizational setting. We identified and included three
major system types that reflect IS that foster
collaboration and knowledge exchange between
employees in a company (collaboration systems, KMS,
and ESS). In so doing, we searched for empirical
studies in the leading journals and conferences on the
IS research field.
In the course of our study, we identified 47 relevant
research papers out of 741 studies. Further, we
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[2] Urbach, N., Smolnik, S., and Riempp, G., "An empirical
investigation of employee portal success", The Journal of
Strategic Information Systems, 19(3), 2010, pp. 184-206.
time [49], the lack of longitudinal research in the IS
domain [50] also explains the existence of less studies
conceptualizing cultural values as an outcome.
Additionally, we found only a few studies stating a
reciprocal relationship between cultural values and the
use of IS fostering collaboration. However, looking at
the KM research stream, we found studies
acknowledging and studying a reciprocal relationship
between KM behavior and activities and the
organizational culture (e.g. [51]). Transferring the
results of these previous studies to the use of IS
fostering collaboration, the KM research stream might
be a fruitful starting point towards developing a more
holistic perspective of the mentioned reciprocal
relationship.
Our research has some limitations that need to be
considered. Our review might be biased owing to our
choice of keywords, the exclusive inclusion of domainspecific top IS journals and leading conferences, and
the subjective interpretations and preferences that
influenced the paper selection and classification. The
possibility exists that other researchers could have
selected papers as relevant which we did not, and could
have classified them differently. Further, we also
included studies dealing with organizational climate
und trust. Although these concepts are not the same
and are not used synonymously as cultural values, they
are deeply related.
In order to improve the significance of our results,
a comprehensive literature search of major academic
databases would be required. However, we are
confident that our results will successfully bear an
extended literature search and that our results are
replicable.
Finally, our research makes several contributions to
the theoretical body of knowledge. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the first attempt to review and
analyze the existing literature regarding the
relationship between cultural values and the use of IS
that foster collaboration in an organizational setting.
Furthermore, we identified various research gaps and
derived a research agenda, including seven research
opportunities. These research opportunities can inspire
other IS researches to undertake research endeavors in
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