Tacit knowledge sharing in IT R&D teams: Nonlinear evolutionary theoretical perspective

Tacit knowledge sharing influences the performance of IT R&D teams. However, information regarding the mechanism of tacit knowledge sharing is limited. Accordingly, we develop a nonlinear dynamic model to explore the influence of structural changes on tacit knowledge sharing behavior in an IT R&D team, particularly in response to gradual changes in payoff structures. The following results were observed : (1) Certain situations and a traditional correlation analysis confirmed that the current contradictions in the influence of reward systems on knowledge sharing behavior are unified. (2) Under special conditions, the influences of several critical factors (e.g., reciprocity, penalty of social reputation, and supervising mechanism) lose efficacy. As an alternative, managers can only enhance the reward system or reduce sharing cost. The effectiveness of knowledge sharing substantially improves only once it reaches certain critical thresholds. (3) During a catastrophe, a team's behavior may become immune to the deterioration of payoff structures. However, sudden jumps (i.e., from sharing to hiding knowledge) may occur when another threshold is reached. In summary, once team members experience a sudden jump, retrieving the previous cooperative status becomes difficult.