Review of Factors Influencing Employees’ Willingness to Share Knowledge

Effective management of knowledge is currently recognised as the foundation of any organisation to maximise its abilities and achieve business targets. Organisations strive to leverage knowledge stocks – mostly held in the minds of their individual employees – in order to create value and drive success. For organisations to promote effective knowledge management, they have to develop innovative methods to encourage knowledge sharing practices. Knowledge sharing (KS) is a vital organisational process which empowers individuals to confront challenges of uncertainty and complexity, instils best practices, and enables the transfer of knowledge between different parts of the organisation. Given the fact that knowledge is always a valuable asset, individuals tend to hoard knowledge for different reasons. Therefore, sharing knowledge is predominantly a voluntary process and only subject to the willingness of the individual to engage in the process. Studies have demonstrated that KS cannot be forced or mandated rather than fostered by facilitative efforts in order to motivate employees to share their tacit knowledge. The aim of the study is to evaluate the collective factors supporting the willingness of employees to share knowledge. After which, providing a summarised generic list of the terms illustrated throughout the extant literature. Previous research has shown that influencers such as the ‘perceptions’ of organisational culture, trust, infrastructure, and leadership, are among the most prominent determinants of KS within the corporate environment. There are other extrinsic motivators and social-psychological forces that can contribute to the increase of the behaviour of KS. Technology advances are also considered as an enabler because it can help in both direct and indirect transfer of knowledge. The findings provide researchers with an overall topology of the factors of KS, and equally offer useful insights for managers seeking to enhance willingness to share knowledge within their firms.