Knowledge Sharing in a Knowledge Intensive Organisation: Identifying the Enablers

The importance of organizational learning and knowledge to the competitive strength of organisation has become common wisdom. The challenge is in generating new knowledge via active learning and the sharing of the knowledge to ensure optimum exploitation. The identification and creation of the context, the policies, the structures and the mechanisms to facilitate learning, retention, sharing/transfer, and exploitation of knowledge are the real issues on the road to becoming a learning organisation. A total 118 executives of a knowledge intensive firm were surveyed to examine the role of these enablers on their knowledge sharing behavior. The commitment to training and development, access to learning resources, retention of learning, incentives for and feedback on learning were examined as key enablers of knowledge sharing. Correlation analysis suggests that the enablers posited are moderately to highly inter-related. Regression analysis shows that model accounts for 68% of the variance in knowledge sharing. Of the 5 enablers examined, feedback on learning and access to learning resources were significant and point toward a strong role in knowledge sharing. The study provides strong support for the synergistic use of internally coherent set of practices with feedback on learning behavior and access to learning resources playing the principal role in stimulating knowledge sharing. The findings generally resonate with the positions taken by Nonaka and Takuechi (1998), Krogh et al. (2002), Snowden (2003) and Gilmour (2003) who call for “atmospheric management” in knowledge intensive firms.

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