Managerial Practices for Knowledge Sharing in Organizations

Abstract

In today’s organizations managers are increasingly becoming aware that the proper use of knowledge can be a source of sustainable competitive advantage. While it is true that organizations try to attract the best personnel in terms of skill and experience, these skills do not automatically translate to increased efficiency, productivity and sustainable competitive advantage. Research has shown that worldwide organizations lose up to $10 billion due to lack of knowledge sharing. [1].Drawing from secondary sources of data the roles of individual, managerial and contextual factors in facilitating or impeding knowledge sharing has been analyzed. The benefits of knowledge sharing include improved organizational productivity, development of new strategic capabilities, better customer service, development of new knowledge, improved job satisfaction to the employees and job security among others [5], [6],[8], [4].The individual, managerial and contextual factors hindering knowledge sharing have been identified by,[5-6], [9], [4], [10], and others. These can be mitigated through better managerial practices for the benefits of knowledge sharing to be realised.