A Comprehensive Model of Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge is a critical organizational resource that provides a sustainable competitive advantage in a competitive and dynamic economy. Organizations must therefore consider how to transfer expertise and knowledge from experts who have it to novices who need to know. That is, organizations need to emphasize and more effectively exploit knowledge-based resources that already exist within the organization. Research has shown that knowledge sharing (KS) and combination is positively related to reductions in production costs, faster completion of new product development projects, team performance, firm innovation capabilities, and firm performance including sales growth and revenue from new products and services. However, despite these investments it has been estimated that at least $31.5 billion are lost per year by Fortune 500 companies as a result of failing to share knowledge (Babcock, 2004). An important reason for the failure of KMS to facilitate KS is the lack of consideration of how the organizational and interpersonal context as well as individual characteristics influence KS (Carter & Scarbrough, 2001; Voelpel, Dous, & Davenport, 2005). This paper presents a comprehensive model of knowledge sharing. It first presents a simple knowledge conversion model based of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). The comprehensive model of knowledge sharing argues that KS is affected by environmental forces, knowledge values of the organization, cultural and structural characteristics of the organization, personal characteristics of the individuals, teams and the context within the organization. The paper represents work in progress. The final version of the proposed model will be tested in knowledge organizations in Switzerland and Malaysia.