Factors that affect scientists' knowledge sharing behavior in health and life sciences research communities: Differences between explicit and implicit knowledge

In the past decade, the number of knowledge networking platforms has been rapidly increasing, in part to support data intensive and cross-disciplinary research in growing fields such as health and life sciences. To promote knowledge sharing, it is important to understand why scientists want to or hesitate to share knowledge with other research communities. We examined five determining factors (reciprocal benefit, anticipated relationship, reputation, altruism and fear of being scooped) that impact scientists' intention to share explicit and implicit knowledge and built a predictive research model. The proposed model was then evaluated using partial least squares (PLSs) method against 141 valid survey responses. The results suggested that reciprocal benefit and fear of being scooped were significant in affecting implicit and explicit knowledge sharing behavior in health and life sciences research communities. Reputation had a main effect on scientists' intention to share explicit knowledge and anticipated relationship had an effect on scientists intention to share implicit knowledge. However, altruism showed no main effects on knowledge sharing. We concluded by discussing strategies, derived from analyzing our survey data, to assist user experience practitioners in designing and promoting knowledge networking support in complex scientific domains. This study examines the factors that affect knowledge sharing behavior in health and life sciences research communities.Two types of knowledge are considered; implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge.Reciprocal benefit and fear of being scooped are critical in explicit and implicit knowledge sharing behavior.Anticipated relationship influences one's implicit knowledge sharing behavior.Reputation affects one's explicit knowledge sharing behavior.