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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore how an individual's cognitive style influences the type of knowledge they prefer to work with, and to identify how this relationship influences knowledge management strategies and their outcomes. Design/methodology/approach -The paper integrates adaption-innovation theory and aspects of knowledge management theories. Findings -Adaptors are likely to prefer to work with knowledge that is relatively more explicit and innovators are likely to prefer to work with knowledge that is relatively more tacit. Understanding these preferences, and making the appropriate type of knowledge available to the right mix of adaptor and innovator types of individuals may influence organizational performance.Research limitations/implications -Conceptual and empirical research should consider how individuals' cognitive style influences their ability to utilize organizational knowledge resources. Practical implications -Organizations should consider evaluating the cognitive style of their members in order to be able to better assign them to knowledge tasks. Group tasks should be planned with the mix of individuals' cognitive style in mind. These efforts should help to avoid underutilization of appropriate knowledge as well as overuse of inappropriate knowledge. Originality/value -The paper proposes that cognitive style influences the degree to which an individual prefers to work with tacit or explicit knowledge. This preference can influence the type and degree of knowledge use when performing organizational tasks.

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Technological changes ripple through information technology (IT) development environments. IT professionals must often incorporate these changes into their job or risk obsolescence. This paper looks at the effects of technological change, and focuses on job environment conditions which affect individual performance, health, and well-being by applying person-job fit theory to software developers that have moved to an object-oriented development approach. Heretofore, the literature on person-job fit has viewed its effects statically, disregarding the effects of change. The current research recognizes the dynamics of the IT workplace and investigates the impact of a rapidly changing job environment on individual IT workers by including a comparison of fit at two different points in time. Results indicate that for a change in job environment, individuals whose professional needs match what is supplied by the job fare better in terms of strain and performance. By devoting attention to supplying IT workers who are facing increasing amounts of change with job environment dimensions these workers need, managers are able to direct their efforts toward the job environment dimensions that may improve worker performance and reduce the ill-effects of stress and strain. This, in turn, may have positive effects on overall system development. This study provides insights for managers regarding the pressures felt by software developers moving to a new development environment, and contributes to the person-job fit literature by incorporating a technological change in job environment. ACM Categories: D.1.5 Object Oriented Programming; D.2.9 Management.

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