Perspectives of SMEs on knowledge sharing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors (trust, formalization, knowledge technology, empowering leadership, effective reward systems and motivation) that influence knowledge sharing among the small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia, in order to meet the challenges of today's dynamic business environment.Design/methodology/approach – Systematic sampling was used to select 680 manufacturing sector participants from the SME Corporation Malaysia business directory to participate in the survey, out of which 250 valid responses were returned, yielding a response rate of 36.75 percent. Factor analysis and reliability analysis were conducted before testing the seven hypotheses formulated for this study using regression analysis.Findings – The results indicate that knowledge technology, motivation, effective reward systems, trust and empowering leadership explain up to 60.2 percent of the variance observed in attitude towards knowledge sharing. It was also found that attitude ...

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