Organizational Factors Affecting Knowledge Sharing Capabilities: A Study with Portuguese Health Professionals

The importance of knowledge management in the healthcare sector has been highlighted in an attempt to expand the speed of new digital technologies to establish external collaboration, employee engagement, networking, and customer service, providing at the same time new challenges for the overall education system. Kim and Lee's empirical study, supported on Davenport and Prusak's framework, evaluated to what extent i) organizational culture (ii) organizational structure, (iii) application of information technology, influence sharing knowledge capabilities in public organizations in South Korea. The goal is to validate Kim and Lee's instrument, trying to replicate the theoretical model suggested by them but not fully validated,with 203 health professionals from the Algarve region (southern Portugal). The data were submitted to an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis with (STATA), in order to meet a criterion-related validity. Results show the effect of "cultural organizational" through the facets "visions and objectives," "trust," and "social networks" on KSC. The variables "organizational structure" and "information technology" provided no statistical support because they were not significantly associated with employee's knowledge-sharing capabilities. Small sample size and perceptual measures are only some of several limitations. Future studies must prepare a systematic literature review and use the results of this first study in order to find out a valid model.