Examining the Factors to Knowledge Sharing Within an Organisational Context

PhD Importance and Key Contributions As society moves forward, competition for scarce resources has driven an increased demand for “a conscious strategy [by organisations] of getting the right knowledge to the right people... [ view full abstract ]

PhD Importance and Key Contributions
As society moves forward, competition for scarce resources has driven an increased demand for “a conscious strategy [by organisations] of getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and helping people share and put information into action in ways that strive to improve organisational performance” (O’Dell et al. 1998). This is one of the fundamental objectives of any organisation. Prusak (2001), suggests that the only thing that gives a company a competitive edge is what it knows, how it uses what it knows and how fast it can create something new. Proposing that, knowledge and behaviour towards knowledge, provides a competitive advantage for organisations (Metaxiotis et al. 2005). Hence, it has become apparent that the leveraging and utilisation of this asset is critical to organisational success.


Theoretical Base
Influencing employees’ to share their knowledge is a challenging undertaking, since knowledge is a highly personal asset (Smith 2001), which is not easily accessible (Mansor et al. 2015), since it critically lies within the individual (Nahapiet & Ghoshal 1998; Riege 2005; Cabrera & Cabrera 2002). This particular classification of knowledge is known as ‘tacit’ knowledge. Tacit knowledge is automatic (Smith 2001), difficult to access (Foos et al. 2006), extremely hard to express and formalize (Nooshinfard & Nemati-Anaraki 2014), troublesome to transfer (Swift et al. 2010), and costly (Suppiah & Singh Sandhu 2011; Dhanaraj et al. 2004). Thus, Knowledge Management (KM) practices have gained increased interest within scholarly and practitioner circles. Influential factors can range from, culture, trust, management support, rewards, perceptions, reciprocity and information technology (Tohidinia & Mosakhani 2010; Cabrera & Cabrera 2002; Reychav & Weisberg 2010; Ford & Staples 2010; Titi Amayah 2013)





Research Questions
The foci of research are to examine the factors which influence the KS while providing a novel approach to encourage and prompt employees at all stages of the employment life-cycle to share knowledge.

Key Questions:
1. What are the factors which influence employees’ willingness to KS?
1.1 Provide taxonomy of these factors in relation to KS.

2. What measures can the organisation take to encourage KS?
2.1 Develop a preparatory strategy which encourages a transformation in employees’ beliefs, norms and values towards KS.

3. What program initiatives can be developed to influence employees’ behaviour towards KS?
3.1 Cyclical engagement of group inclusion to motivate employees’ to continuously respond to knowledge intensive questions.

4. What long-term controls can be put in place to ensure management are continuing their KS initiatives?
4.1 Enable a sustainable program for repeated KS activities throughout the employee lifecycle.


Findings
It is anticipated that the findings will show that key to of leveraging tacit knowledge is the on-boarding stage of employee development. Although there are many challenges to KS, it is expected that through the manipulation and transformation of the socio-behavioural and psychological forces (Rousseau 1995a, p. 161), linked with the holistic view of ‘trust’ is significant to the internal negotiations of KS.
A ‘perceived’ autonomy will be realised, which will increase the willingness to KS (Lin & Tang 2016). The employee will experience a sense of ‘self-determination’ of choice in initiating and regulating their own actions (Deci et al. 1989), given added responsibility and accountability (Evans 2012); leading to a stronger feeling of commitment to KS.

Implications
A framework will develop employees’ perceived need to KS through transforming their perceptions at an early stage of employment. In doing so, the overall project will aid in the reduction of knowledge loss (Ellen Caroline & Hester 2012; Ragab & Arisha 2013; Martins & Meyer 2012). Taxonomy of factors influencing both KS and behaviour will be developed adding to the domain of Knowledge Management and Human Resource Management.


Word Count:
500 excluding titles and references.



References:
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Willingness, Knowledge-Share, Perceived, On-boarding. [ view full abstract ]

Willingness, Knowledge-Share, Perceived, On-boarding.