Knowledge boundary spanning and productivity in information systems support community

• This study examines effects of knowledge boundary spanning and network position on individual experiential learning.
• Knowledge boundary spanning exerted a more significant and positive impact than network position on worker productivity.
• Spanning business boundaries and technology boundaries both contribute to varied experience of IS workers.
• We propose a network-based theory of experiential learning via knowledge boundary spanning and network position.
• Efficient management of IS support should consider the strategy of varied experience to achieve IS worker productivity.

An information systems (IS) support community represents a knowledge-intensive network where IS professionals interact with end-users to resolve system use problems during the IS post-implementation stage. For IS professionals in the support function, providing support for multiple information systems to multiple business units requires knowledge about different domains (business units or technical systems). In this paper, we take a network perspective to empirically evaluate the effects of an IS worker's network position and knowledge boundary spanning on productivity. Drawing upon theories of experiential learning and knowledge boundary, we perform social network analysis and linear mixed effects modeling to analyze archival data comprising 36 IS workers and 23,450 support requests made by 4568 end-users during the first 13 months post SAP/R3 implementation in a large U.S. organization. Our findings reveal that IS workers' network centrality and boundary spanning positively influence productivity. Surprisingly, their boundary-spanning experience plays a substantially more important role than network centrality. This study makes important contributions to theory and practice in individual experiential learning in knowledge-intensive networks.