Antecedents of Knowledge Sharing among Service Employees

The aim of this study is to investigate the antecedents of knowledge sharing among employees. Tacit and explicit knowledge sharing is of vital importance to organizations, enabling them to create value and sustain competitive advantage. This paper focuses on knowledge sharing as a reciprocal process of knowledge exchange and examines the factors that potentially have an impact on knowledge sharing. In this context, the effects of attitude toward knowledge sharing, subjective norm, organizational culture and organizational justice on ‘intention to share knowledge’ are examined. ‘Attitude toward knowledge sharing’ refers to an employee’s general assessment on knowledge sharing in organizational context. ‘Organizational culture’ consists of assumptions, perspectives, norms and values shared by employees and it contributes to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization. The term ‘organizational justice’ is characterized as the extent to which employees perceive workplace procedures, interactions and outcomes to be fair in nature. The ‘subjective norm’ is defined as perceived social pressure to perform or not perform a behavior. Based on these conceptualizations, a survey was conducted on a sample of 281 employees working for 2 service industry businesses in a province of Turkey. The data were gathered by structured question forms. Attitude toward knowledge sharing and intention to share knowledge were measured with 5 items each, while subjective norm was measured with 3 items. Organizational culture and organizational justice were measured with 6 items each. All scales were 5-point Likert-type scales whose reliability and validity were supported by previous researches by various scholars. In addition to the aforementioned variables, gender, age, managerial role, education and workplace tenure were considered as control variables that might have influence on intention to share knowledge. The data were analyzed with LISREL 8.7 software. First, confirmatory factor analyses were applied and the underlying factor structures of the variables were determined. Second, the research model was tested with path analysis and the proposed relationships between variables were examined. Last, the results are reported and theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed.