Knowledge Sharing and its Impact on Knowledge Creation

Abstract

It is known that "knowledge management" is associated with significant benefits which can empower organisations to get more competitive advantages in their market. Knowledge sharing and knowledge creation are the two vital aspects of knowledge management which play an important role in creating organisational value. The value-creation of knowledge depends on level of sharing knowledge and skills among people across the organisation. So, most companies are focussed on enhancing their capability of knowledge sharing to create new knowledge. The aim of this paper is to test empirically the degree of influence of different knowledge-sharing mechanisms on the knowledge creation capability of Iranian manufacturing industries. A question survey was administered to a sample of manufacturing industries operating in Iran to elicit opinions of the personnel on the relationship between knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. The questions were structured mostly based on Sa'enz et al. (2009) and Choi and Lee (2002) studies. More than 400 respondents from 16 organisations responded to the survey. A short training course was held in all sample firms separately to explain importance and applications of knowledge management for respondents. SPSS and LISREL software were utilised to analyse research data using Regression tests and structural equation modelling (SEM). Results obtained show that knowledge sharing has a positive influence on the knowledge creation in Iranian manufacturing industries. However, a meaningful relationship was observed between information technology and management processes and two constructs of knowledge creation. The main contribution of the paper is to provide empirical evidence about the impact of knowledge sharing on knowledge creation. Moreover, it reveals what the most effective knowledge-sharing mechanisms are for this purpose, and provides companies with some implications in order to shape their knowledge management strategies.