Knowledge Sharing Behaviour and Patterns in Organisations:- Agbo, A.D

ABSTRACT

Knowledge sharing is one of the activities that constitute the knowledge management (KM) processes of various institutions and organisations. This makes it a crucial administrative responsibility within organisational settings, whether these are project teams, formal work groups or communities of practice. Organisational settings usually exist to achieve a collective outcome, for example delivering physical or intellectual products and/or services. They are created or emerge as none of the actors involved can produce the collective outcome individually. Due to the division of labour and accompanying fragmentation, specialisation and distribution of knowledge, it becomes imperative to integrate a diversity of complementary knowledge in order to achieve the collective outcomes (Grant, 1996). It is evident that through effective creation and transfer of knowledge, organisations would be able to gain competitive advantage and superior performance (Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander, 1992). Thus, modern organisations are striving towards managing their knowledge so as to enhance its sharing from within the organisation. This is due to the fact that knowledge is now regarded as an asset capable of giving many untold benefits that make a difference between successful and less successful organisations. A remarkable contribution of knowledge sharing is that it improves the quality of service delivery of organisations. Thus, knowledge sharing is a necessary means for achieving the collective outcome ofwork in organisations.