Individual Factors and Knowledge Sharing

Problem statement: Knowledge management has been acknowledged as an im portant element for businesses today. While individuals wit hin the organizations might recognize the importance of knowledge management for the success of their day to day business functions, previous literatures have shown that individuals are still r eluctant to participate in knowledge management efforts especially knowledge sharing. As the behavi or people show in different situations depends highly on their personal intentions as well as the social forces, the degree of the reluctance or willingness towards sharing their knowledge might a lso fit in the same case. Based on previous studies we develop a conceptual framework to suggest a rela tionship between knowledge sharing and four of the individual factors namely altruism, self effica cy, mutual reciprocity and trust. Questionnaire is proposed to collect data and multiple regressions a s the statistical technique to analyze the data. Conclusion/Recommendations: This study makes an attempt to discuss some of the individual factors that can affect knowledge sharing.


INTRODUCTION
Managing organisational knowledge has been identified as the most important force of today's business activities. Knowledge management affects an organisation both directly and indirectly, such as increasing return on investment, employee satisfaction, and providing economies scope and scale (Becerra-Fernandez et al., 2004). Knowledge is considered to be the only resource that increases in value, so is worth of great effort in managing it (Probst et al., 2000).
Knowledge management has changed the paradigm of most organisations by turning the organisational climate to be a learning block where knowledge is discovered, captured, shared and applied to maximise and actualise their goals and objectives. Knowledge management makes it possible for employees to rely on captured past experience and knowledge in doing their current operations. This benefits the organisation by reducing defects in production and maximising the profit. Hence, it is beneficial for organisations to invest in managing their knowledge as well as investing into material assets (Quinn, 1992).
Knowledge management has given many organisations a sustainable competitive advantage, setting them at the high ranks in their market domains.
Knowledge management is defined as "performing the activities involved in discovering, capturing, sharing and applying knowledge so as to enhance, in a cost-effective fashion, the impact of knowledge on the units goal achievement" (Becerra-Fernandez et al., 2004). Knowledge management can be termed as the act of finding, selecting, sharing information and expertise essential for organizational activities (Gupta et al., 2000).
According to the International Labour Organisation (2006) knowledge sharing is "a process which begins by capturing and organising knowledge and experience gained from others and proceeds to make this knowledge accessible to a wider audience -thus cultivating new linkages between interest group". Knowledge sharing has been tagged as the key element within the organisations in the 21st century.
In as much as knowledge sharing is perceived as one of the critical factors in the functioning of an organisation, it's been proven that most of the employees share knowledge with one another reluctantly which in a way decreases the intellectual capacity of the organization and its productivity (Davenport and Prusak,1998;Haas and Hansen, 2005). Organisational environment is supposed to be a learning platform or knowledge society where individuals share and capture knowledge but as indicated above knowledge, especially tacit knowledge is thought to be inaccessible for employees within the organization.
Theoretically, knowledge sharing emanates from the social theory which is also the foundation of social exchange and social cognitive theories. Social cognitive theory defines human behavior as a dynamic, reciprocal and interactive network of a triad of personal factors, behavior and the environment (Bandura, 1989). This theory emphasizes that individuals may consider the environment, personal goals and social networks before taking the initiative to share knowledge. On the other hand, Social Exchange Theory states that voluntary actions of individuals are encouraged by the returns they receive from others (Blau, 1964). Thus the constructs, self-efficacy and altruism seems to evolve from Social Cognitive Theory, whilst mutual reciprocity and trust emanate from Social Exchange Theory. The aim of this study is to discuss the influence of individual factors i.e., altruism, self-efficacy, mutual reciprocity and trust on knowledge sharing based on the Social Exchange Theory and Social Cognitive Theory as the theoretical basis.
Knowledge: Knowledge does not lend itself to a precise definition, but many writers have made efforts to define it. According to Becerra-Fernandez et al. (2004) knowledge is a "justified belief about a relationship among concepts relevant to that particular area". Another definition introduces knowledge as a justified truth or belief (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Knowledge is also defined as "a fluid mixed of flamed experience, values, contextual information and expert insight" (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). Zack (1999) defines knowledge as "that which comes to believe on the value on the bases of the meaningful organized accumulation of information through experience, communication or inferences".
Most people use data, information and knowledge interchangeably. However, Becerra-Fernandez (2004) tries to draw-up the difference between these concepts. Data is identified as raw facts, figures and the truth of a subject or event. Data represents raw declaration or figures which has no meaning and intuition per se. Even though data has no meaning by itself, it is captured, stored and shared by using different forms of media to infer certain meanings by people. Information on the other hand, can be defined as data that has meaning, context, relevance and can be manipulated. Knowledge is akin to information and data but knowledge is the richest and deepest among them (Becerra-Fernandez et al., 2004). A certain level of knowledge is necessary to derive information out of data (Becerra-Fernandez et al, 2004).

Types of knowledge:
Tacit and explicit knowledge are the main important taxonomy of knowledge (Nonaka and Tekeuchi 1995;Polanyi, 1962). Explicit knowledge is the kind of knowledge that is communicated in a formal and systematic manner (Nonaka and Tekeuchi, 1995). Explicit knowledge is knowledge related to information and easy to articulate (Nonaka and Tekeuchi, 1995). Explicit knowledge can be found in manuals, drawings, audios, and computer programs. Explicit knowledge is easy to be captured, manipulated and assesible.
On the other hand, tacit knowledge is quiet complicated to express and formalize (Nonaka and Tekeuchi, 1995). According to Nonaka and Tekeuchi (1995) tacit knowledge is found in individuals' minds and thoughts and difficult to codified. Tacit knowledge is difficult to transfer or share than explicit knowledge (Ipe, 2003;Sazali et al., 2010). According to Marzana et al., (2010), the most pressing issues in an organisation today is how to capture, codify employees tacit knowledge. Examples of tacit knowledge are insights, intuitions, hunches, ideas and visions.
In the nutshell, Fatt and Khin (2010) denoted that the conversion of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge would lead to efficient organisational learning.
Knowledge management: Knowledge management is defined as the act of capturing, storing, sharing and using knowledge (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). Alavi and Leidner (1999) define knowledge management as "a systemic and organizationally specified process for acquiring, organizing, and communicating both tacit and explicit knowledge of employees so that other employees may make use of it to be more effective and productive in their study".
Knowledge management can also be described as the process of disseminating information to the right people at the right time and making good use of the knowledge resources (Ipe, 2003).
According to Becerra-Fernandez et al., (2004), the effect of knowledge management on organisations includes job satisfaction, increased return on investment, competitive advantage and improvement of the process of production. The president of American Productivity and Quality Centre, Carla O'Dell, uses Schlumberger Limited as an example. The organization implemented knowledge management database where employees form an expert team that shared knowledge among team members in order to respond to clients' enquiries. These activities improve the service delivery, reduce the number of defects in serving their customers. These in aggregate resulted in a 150 million-dollarsaving. In addition, the time that engineers used in solving and updating technical issues was reduced (O'Dell et al., 2000).
Knowledge sharing: Knowledge sharing is one of the core blocks of knowledge management. Perhaps it is the important aspect of knowledge management. Knowledge sharing is denoted as the edge to create knowledge which contributes to the increase in employees' performance and harnessing innovation (Dalkir, 2005). Knowledge Sharing is defined as a deliberate subjective act that makes knowledge reusable by other people through knowledge transfer (Polinyi, 1969). Knowledge sharing can also be defined as the act of exchanging ideas, experience through deliberations to create new knowledge (Bartol and Srivastava, 2002). De Vries (2006) denote knowledge sharing as the process of giving and receiving knowledge.
Organizations can choose to invest all their resources into knowledge management, however, when employees are not participating in sharing their knowledge among themselves within the organization, then the knowledge management efforts become a fiasco. When knowledge is not shared in the organization then the benefits of knowledge will not be actualized.

Individuals role in knowledge sharing:
In the process of knowledge sharing, individuals serve as knowledge generator and knowledge receptor. Individuals generate knowledge by exchanging their ideas and experience through socialisation. As a receptor of knowledge individuals seek and interpret the knowledge before it is transferred to any repository (Nonaka and Tekeuchi, 1995). In this process, it indicates that creation and sharing of knowledge depends on the conscious effort of an individual who has to set the ball rolling for knowledge to be shared or hored.
For instance, an employee is made known of a work problem faced by a colleague. The employee has the solution to the problem. The employee may share or may not share the knowledge with the colleague. It is up to him or her to share the knowledge with the colleague. The decision to share the knowledge may be influenced by his or her personal beliefs on knowledge sharing. The example indicates that individuals serve as a pivotal role in the process of knowledge sharing. Nonaka and Tekeuchi (1995) posits that, knowledge management process perhaps, knowledge sharing will not be successful within an organisation without the involvement of humans. Therefore, it is important to understand individual factors that influence individuals to share knowledge.
Theoretical background: Social cognitive theory, the construct and knowledge sharing: Social cognitive theory is a theory that has it bases in social learning theory. It defines individual behavior as dynamic, reciprocal or interactive network of personal factors, behavior and the surroundings (Bandura, 1989). This theory was introduced by Bandura and has its foundations in social learning theory, arguing that individual learning is influenced by the environment. The environment denotes the people and the artifacts within the organization. These emphasize that individuals' initiative to accomplish something may depend on the combination of these triadic factors.
This theory postulates that the combination of the three human behavior factors breed to a formulation of a certain outcome and expectation that lead to a decision (Bandura, 1989). These allude to the fact that individuals consider a combination of factors that are personal, social and environmental to make decisions on either to exhibit a certain behavior or not.
The social cognitive theory argues that the mind of an individual is an active tool which guides one's steps towards formulating expectations, abilities and outcomes (Bandura, 1989).In the context of knowledge management this theory can explain that if individuals are not sure of their capabilities and the outcome of the knowledge they are supposed to share, they may not share it. This shows that individuals build confidence before sharing their knowledge. If they feel incapacitated they will not share, however individuals may still share knowledge when their expectation of the outcome is high.
According to Bandura (1997) self efficacy is the judgments of one capability to organize certain behavior. Those individuals formulate their self efficacy based on their environment, personal, goals and the social network they find themselves in. Hence one may formulate a degree of self efficacy depending on the expectation of the outcomes. People may develop higher self-efficacy to exchange their knowledge when there is cooperation within the environment and the social network that they found themselves in.
Altruism also has a linkage with Social Cognitive Theory in that individuals weigh the psychological benefits before getting involved in sharing their knowledge. Even though an altruistic person may be seen as a person who donates without seeking any return, a study by Honeycutt, (1981) argues that an altruistic person gains a kind of control over the recipients. Moreover, an altruistic behavior of giving out something without expecting any return is personal. Therefore an altruistic individuals act upon their personal goals to undertake certain initiative whilst social cognitive theory also argue that individuals ability to exhibit certain behavior is based on the triadic factors, which highlights personal goals as a factor.
Social exchange theory, the constructs and knowledge sharing: Social exchange theory is one of the models used in explaining knowledge sharing behavior (Blau, 1964). Social exchange theory is concerned with people behavior, outcomes or benefits, environment and the interpersonal network between individuals (Blau, 1964).
In actual sense the Social Exchange Theory views relationships or exchanges as cost-benefit analyses. It states that people will try to maximize profit and minimize cost in their endeavour. The benefit of this behavior is normally intangible and based on the expectation of the future outcome. Social Exchange Theory posits that individuals may not involve in certain activities unless they view the outcomes as being positive.
In the process of exchange the donor assumes a confirmation of positive returns before exhibiting the action. Here it is not a commodity exchange form where there is an agreement; but there can be just a mental assumption of the positive outcome.
Social exchange theory argues that individuals may form their knowledge sharing behavior based on the future expectations, meaning that individuals will not share when they perceive activities as mere costs, but intend to share when positive returns are expected.
Reciprocity indicates that people may exhibit knowledge sharing behavior with the intention of accruing positive rewards. The social exchange theory also posits similar ideology that individuals share their knowledge only when they perceive benefits after the activity. The social exchange theory can be deduced as the foundation of mutual reciprocity which argue based on the benefit returns and states that one will not exhibit certain behavior unless the expectation of the outcome is positive (Blau,1964).
On the construct of trust, individuals will not consider certain activities when they feel uncertain about associated future returns. In other words people will decide on a behavior based on the trust they have for the system. Individuals develop their trust for another only when they are guaranteed that their dealings with the person will not cost them. When there is existence of trust between two people they turn to easily cooperate among each other (Molm, 2003). This alludes to the fact that when individuals perceive other partners untrustworthy they will not exchange or cooperate with them since there is a certain level of uncertainty. Based on this discussion on trust one may conclude that trust within two individuals may encourage them to share their knowledge. The link between social exchange theory and trust is that knowledge being shared won't cause harm to the giver.

Hypothesis:
Trust: Trust is the focal point of every relationship within the organization (Fox, 1974). Trust is defined as the act of becoming open to people based on the good recognition of the result of their action (Gambetta, 2000;Regilsberger et al., 2003). With trust people tend to risk, with the intention of the other partner would not cause any harm. Trust has been proven to be the most cost efficient technique that enhances knowledge sharing within the organization (Dyer and Singh, 1998). Trust enhances the act of knowledge sharing within the members of the organization. Whenever there is trust within individuals in an organization there is a tendency of higher cooperation and commitment (Molm, 2003).
According to Nonaka and Tekeuchi (1995) trust among people (interpersonal trust) contributes to improvement in knowledge sharing behavior among employees. Kalantzis and Cope (2003), conclude in their study that inter-personal trust is directly proportional to knowledge sharing.
We feel that, people will be motivated to share their knowledge when they perceive the recipients to be honest, trustworthy, and reliable. Higher trust will make individuals not think of any future negative occurrence on the activities and will share their knowledge. The first hypothesis is proposed.
Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between trust and knowledge sharing behavior Altruism: Altruism can be referred to as a behavior that costs an individual and benefit the other person. People donate something to other people without thinking of any returns when showing altruistic behavior. Altruism is a costly activity that profits others (Chattopadhyay, 1999). Normally, some individuals may share their experience and knowledge with others without thinking of the benefit he or she may gain from it. From the definitions above, it can be seen that individuals within an organisation may share their knowledge freely without thinking of any strings attached. We postulate that individuals with higher altruism may easily share their knowledge than individual with low altruism. In her study, Lin (2007) found that, females have high altruism than males and so they tend to share knowledge more than men. This leads to the next hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2: Altruism has a positive relationship with knowledge sharing behavior Mutual reciprocity: According to Davenport and Prusak (2008), mutual reciprocity is one of the key enablers of knowledge sharing. According to Blau (1964) reciprocity is "actions that are contingent on rewarding reactions from others and that cease when these expected reactions are not forthcoming". According to Kelley and Thibaut (1978) individuals involved in virtual teams would share their knowledge when they perceive a commensurate behavior from the other partner. It was confirmed that knowledge sharing within communities of practice (CoPs) is enhanced through reciprocity behavior shown by individuals (Wasko and Faraj, 2005). Study by (Chiu et al., 2006) concludes that reciprocity has a positive significant relationship to knowledge sharing behavior.
Mutual reciprocity is about cost and benefit. In the context of knowledge sharing, the donor of the knowledge will decide whether the recipient possesses potential of giving back a positive outcome. People tend to weigh others' capabilities before they exhibit certain behavior. They intend not to lose in any endeavour so they will not share their knowledge to someone who has nothing to offer. This leads to the next hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3: Mutual Reciprocity has a positive relationship with knowledge sharing Self-efficacy: According to Bandura (1997) self efficacy is people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action. It concerns not with the skills one has but with judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses. According to Endres et al. (2007) the act of individuals making judgement on their capabilities gives an insight into how people make decisions on sharing their personal knowledge. Bandura (1997) postulates that, self-efficacy determines the willingness of a person to perform certain activities. In addition, a study conducted by Elias et al. (2010) concludes that self efficacy influences students' adjustment behavior.This indicates that individuals' behavior of sharing their knowledge may be affected by their selfefficacy. Research by Endres et al. (2007) posits that individuals environment contribute to the formulation of self-efficacy which leads to knowledge sharing. We believe that individuals with a higher self efficacy may share their knowledge and past experience more willingly than individuals with low self efficacy because individuals with higher self efficacy would formulate a positive judgement on their capabilities which would motivate them to share their knowledge. Thus the last hypothesis is proposed.
Hypothesis 4: Self-efficacy has a positive relationship with an individual's knowledge sharing behavior The hypotheses are summarized in a diagram form in Fig. 1.

Proposed empirical test:
We propose an empirical study to test the hypotheses we just suggested. A questionnaire can be used to collect data on individual variables i.e., altruism, trust, self-efficacy and mutual reciprocity and dependent variable i.e., knowledge sharing. Each items used to measure the construct will be on the 5 points likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The questionnaire consists of part A and part B.
The part A may capture the respondent's demographic variables, which includes: Age, Gender, Tenure, and Level of education and Position. These would be closed ended questions where respondent only has to choose from the list of categories attributed to them. Part B would consist of about 25 liker scale questions, 5 questions for each of the variables. That is the independent variables and the dependent variable i.e., altruism, trust, reciprocity, self-efficacy and the dependent variable knowledge sharing. We propose a multiple regression as the statistical technique to test the relationships.

CONCLUSION
As Nonaka and Tekeuchi (1995) indicated organisations would not succeed in creating knowledge without individuals since individuals are considered as being key elements in knowledge management. This study makes an attempt to discuss some of the individual factors that can affect knowledge sharing.