Knowledge sharing

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Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (namely, information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, peers, families, communities (for example, Wikipedia), or within or between organizations. [1] [2] It bridges the individual and organizational knowledge, improving the absorptive and innovation capacity and thus leading to sustained competitive advantage of companies as well as individuals. [3] Knowledge sharing is part of the knowledge management process. [4]

Contents

Apart from traditional face-to-face knowledge sharing, social media is a good tool because it is convenient, efficient, and widely used. [5] Organizations have recognized that knowledge constitutes a valuable intangible asset for creating and sustaining competitive advantages. [6] However, technology constitutes only one of the many factors that affect the sharing of knowledge in organizations, such as organizational culture, trust, and incentives. [7] The sharing of knowledge constitutes a major challenge in the field of knowledge management because some employees tend to resist sharing their knowledge with the rest of the organization. [8]

In the digital world, websites and mobile applications enable knowledge or talent sharing between individuals and/or within teams. The individuals can easily reach the people who want to learn and share their talent to get rewarded.

Knowledge sharing as flow or transfer

Although knowledge is commonly treated as an object, Dave Snowden has argued it is more appropriate to teach it as both a flow and a thing. [9] Knowledge as a flow can be related to the concept of tacit knowledge. [10] [11] [12] While the difficulty of sharing knowledge is in transferring knowledge from one entity to another, [13] [14] it may prove profitable for organizations to acknowledge the difficulties of knowledge transfer and adopt new knowledge management strategies accordingly. [9]

Knowledge sharing levels

Knowledge can be shared in different ways and levels. The following segmentation sheds light on the essence of sharing.

Explicit knowledge

Explicit knowledge sharing occurs when explicit knowledge is made available to be shared between entities. Explicit knowledge sharing can happen successfully when the following criteria are met:

Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge sharing occurs through different types of socialization. Although tacit knowledge is difficult to identify and codify, relevant factors that influence tacit knowledge sharing include:

Embedded knowledge

Embedded knowledge sharing occurs when knowledge is shared through clearly delineated products, processes, routines, etc. This knowledge can be shared in different ways, such as:

Methods

There are several methods both formal and informal that have claims to enable knowledge sharing in organisations. These include, but are not limited to:

Connection to adjacent disciplines

Information technology systems

Information technology (IT) systems are common tools that help facilitate knowledge sharing and knowledge management. [31] The main role of IT systems is to help people share knowledge through common platforms and electronic storage to help make access simpler, encouraging economic reuse of knowledge. IT systems can provide codification, personalization, electronic repositories for information and can help people locate each other to communicate directly. With appropriate training and education, IT systems can make it easier for organizations to acquire, store or disseminate knowledge. [31]

Economic theory

In economic theory, knowledge sharing has been studied in the field of industrial organization and in the field of contract theory. In industrial organization, Bhattacharya, Glazer, and Sappington (1992) have emphasized the importance of knowledge sharing in research joint ventures in a context of imperfect competition. [32] In the theory of incomplete contracts, Rosenkranz and Schmitz (1999, 2003) have used the Grossman-Hart-Moore property rights approach to study how knowledge sharing is affected by the underlying ownership structure. [33] [34]

Importance to organizations

Knowledge is transferred in organizations whether it is a managed process or not since everyday knowledge transfer is a key part of organizational life. However, finding the best expert to share their knowledge in a specific matter could be hard, especially in larger organizations. Therefore, a structured strategy for knowledge transfer is required for the organization to thrive. [15] Larger companies have a higher tendency to invest more on knowledge management processes, although competitive benefits are gained regardless of organization size. [35]

In an organizational context, tacit knowledge refers to a kind of knowledge that human beings develop by the experience they gain over years. [36] At present the employees' experience and knowledge can be seen as the most important and most valuable source that organizations have to protect. [37] Knowledge constitutes a valuable, intangible asset for creating and sustaining competitive advantages within organizations. [6] Several factors affect knowledge sharing in organizations, such as organizational culture, trust, incentives, and technology. [7] In an organization, five distinct conditions of the organizational culture have a positive effect on knowledge-sharing: communication and coordination between groups, trust, top management support, the reward system, and openness. [4] Concerning the communication and coordination between groups condition, the organizations that are centralized with a bureaucratic management style can hinder the creation of new knowledge whereas a flexible decentralized organizational structure encourages knowledge-sharing. [38] Also, internationalization is crucial for compliance or conformity. Dalkir (2005) says that internationalization is believing that the "behavior dictated by the norm truly the right and proper way to behave". [4] If the norm is to communicate and collaborate between teams, it will be much easier for members of the group to internalize these values and act accordingly.

Drivers for knowledge sharing are connected to both human resources and software. [39] Knowledge sharing activities are commonly supported by knowledge management systems, a form of information technology (IT) that facilitates and organizes information within a company or organization. [31] Knowledge sharing in knowledge management systems can be driven by accountability-inducing management practices. The combination of evaluation and reward as an accountability-inducing management practice has been presented as and effective way for enhancing knowledge sharing. [40]

Challenges

Knowledge sharing can sometimes constitute a major challenge in the field of knowledge management. [11] The difficulty of knowledge sharing resides in the transference of knowledge from one entity to another, [14] [13] Some employees and team leaders tend to resist sharing their knowledge for (inter)personal matters, [11] [41] for instance because of the notion that knowledge is one's property; ownership, therefore, becomes very important. [42] Leaders and supervisors tend to hoard information in order to demonstrate power and supremacy over their employees. [41]

In order to counteract this, individuals must be reassured that they will receive some type of incentive for what they create. [42] Supervisors and managers have a key role in this – they need to create a work culture which encourages employees to share their knowledge. [43] However, Dalkir (2005) demonstrated that individuals are most commonly rewarded for what they know, not what they share. [42] Negative consequences, such as isolation and resistance to ideas, occur when knowledge sharing is impeded. [31]

Sometimes the problem is that a part of an employee's knowledge can be subconscious and therefore it may be difficult to share information. [44] To promote knowledge sharing and remove knowledge sharing obstacles, the organizational culture of an entity should encourage discovery and innovation. [42] Members who trust each other are willing to exchange knowledge and at the same time want to embrace knowledge from other members as well. [45] National culture is also one of the common barriers of knowledge sharing because culture has a huge effect on how people tend to share knowledge between each other. [41] In some cultures, people share everything, in other cultures people share when asked, and in some cultures, people do not share even if it would help to achieve common goals. [41]

The political scientist Hélène Hatzfeld has pointed out that people who have knowledge can be reluctant to share that knowledge when they are not confident in their own expertise, so to facilitate knowledge sharing, structures can be designed to elevate everyone to the status of a potential expert and make them more comfortable contributing; one example of such a system, to which Hatzfeld attributes mixed success in this regard, is Wikipedia. [46]

Pinho et al. (2012) have made a comprehensive literature review of knowledge management barriers and facilitators. [47] Barriers are considered to be obstacles that hinder knowledge acquisition, creation, sharing and transfer in and between organizations based on individual, socio-organizational or technological reasons. Respectively facilitators are seen as enabling factors that improve, stimulate or promote the flow of knowledge. According to Maier et al. (2002) understanding of the process supporting knowledge management enables further consideration of the obstacles and facilitating factors. [48]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge management</span> Process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization

Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.

Organizational learning is the process of creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge within an organization. An organization improves over time as it gains experience. From this experience, it is able to create knowledge. This knowledge is broad, covering any topic that could better an organization. Examples may include ways to increase production efficiency or to develop beneficial investor relations. Knowledge is created at four different units: individual, group, organizational, and inter organizational.

Organizational culture refers to culture related to organizations including schools, universities, not-for-profit groups, government agencies, and business entities. Alternative terms include corporate culture and company culture. The term corporate culture emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was used by managers, sociologists, and organizational theorists in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge transfer</span> Sharing knowledge for problem solving

Knowledge transfer refers to transferring an awareness of facts or practical skills from one entity to another. According to professor Røvik (2016), knowledge transfer succeeds when three crucial variables coincide: the translatability of the source practice, the transformability of the transferred knowledge, and the similarity between source and recipient. That is, the particular profile of transfer processes activated for a given situation depends on (a) the type of knowledge to be transferred and how it is represented and (b) the processing demands of the transfer task. From this perspective, knowledge transfer in humans encompasses an expertise from different disciplines: psychology, cognitive anthropology, anthropology of knowledge, communication studies and media ecology.

Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge—as opposed to formalized, codified or explicit knowledge—is knowledge that is difficult to express or extract; therefore it is more difficult to transfer to others by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. This can include motor skills, personal wisdom, experience, insight, and intuition.

Personal knowledge management (PKM) is a process of collecting information that a person uses to gather, classify, store, search, retrieve and share knowledge in their daily activities and the way in which these processes support work activities. It is a response to the idea that knowledge workers need to be responsible for their own growth and learning. It is a bottom-up approach to knowledge management (KM).

A virtual team usually refers to a group of individuals who work together from different geographic locations and rely on communication technology such as email, instant messaging, and video or voice conferencing services in order to collaborate. The term can also refer to groups or teams that work together asynchronously or across organizational levels. Powell, Piccoli and Ives (2004) define virtual teams as "groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to accomplish one or more organizational tasks." As documented by Gibson (2020), virtual teams grew in importance and number during 2000-2020, particularly in light of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic which forced many workers to collaborate remotely with each other as they worked from home.

Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making. It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management structures, which has shown to be less effective as participants are growing less interested in their leader's expectations due to a lack of recognition of the participant's effort or opinion.

Collaborative innovation is a process in which multiple players contribute towards creating new products with customers and suppliers.

Organizational memory (OM), sometimes called institutional memory or corporate memory, is the accumulated body of data, information, and knowledge created in the course of an organization's existence. The concept of organizational memory includes the ideas of components knowledge acquisition, knowledge processing or maintenance, and knowledge usage like search and retrieval. Falling under the wider disciplinary umbrella of knowledge management, it has two repositories: an organization's archives, including its electronic data bases; and individuals' memories.

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning. Wenger then significantly expanded on the concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Onboarding</span> Management jargon for introducing new employees to employers policies and practices

Onboarding or organizational socialization is the American term for the mechanism through which new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become effective organizational members and insiders. In standard English, this is referred to as "induction". In the United States, up to 25% of workers are organizational newcomers engaged in onboarding process.

A knowledge organization is a management idea, describing an organization in which people use systems and processes to generate, transform, manage, use, and transfer knowledge-based products and services to achieve organizational goals.

Participative decision-making (PDM) is the extent to which employers allow or encourage employees to share or participate in organizational decision-making. According to Cotton et al., the format of PDM could be formal or informal. In addition, the degree of participation could range from zero to 100% in different participative management (PM) stages.

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is employee's behavior that goes against the legitimate interests of an organization. This behavior can harm the organization, other people within it, and other people and organizations outside it, including employers, other employees, suppliers, clients, patients and citizens. It has been proposed that a person-by-environment interaction (the relationship between a person's psychological and physical capacities and the demands placed on those capacities by the person's social and physical environment.) can be utilized to explain a variety of counterproductive behaviors. For instance, an employee who is high on trait anger is more likely to respond to a stressful incident at work with CWB.

Communities that support innovation have been referred to as communities of innovation (CoI), communities for innovation, innovation communities, open innovation communities, and communities of creation.

Cross-cultural psychology attempts to understand how individuals of different cultures interact with each other. Along these lines, cross-cultural leadership has developed as a way to understand leaders who work in the newly globalized market. Today's international organizations require leaders who can adjust to different environments quickly and work with partners and employees of other cultures. It cannot be assumed that a manager who is successful in one country will be successful in another.

Text and conversation is a theory in the field of organizational communication illustrating how communication makes up an organization. In the theory's simplest explanation, an organization is created and defined by communication. Communication "is" the organization and the organization exists because communication takes place. The theory is built on the notion, an organization is not seen as a physical unit holding communication. Text and conversation theory puts communication processes at the heart of organizational communication and postulates, an organization doesn't contain communication as a "causal influence", but is formed by the communication within. This theory is not intended for direct application, but rather to explain how communication exists. The theory provides a framework for better understanding organizational communication.

Process capital is the value to an enterprise which is derived from the techniques, procedures, and programs that implement and enhance the delivery of goods and services. Process capital is one of the three components of structural capital, itself a component of intellectual capital. Process capital can be seen as the value of processes to any entity, whether for profit or not-for profit, but is most commonly used in reference to for-profit entities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge-based decision making</span> Decision-making process

Knowledge-Based Decision-Making (KBDM) in management is a decision-making process that uses predetermined criteria to measure and ensure the optimal outcome for a specific topic.

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