In the medical industry, doctors play a core role in promoting and improving patients¡¦ health conditions. In this pursuit, effective knowledge sharing between doctors and doctors and between doctors and patients is a critical element. In this study, the theory of social recognition is adopted to research doctor-to-doctor and doctor-to-patient knowledge sharing practices in a medical Center. The results show that at the individual level, self-promotion, professional pride, and a doctor¡¦s personal traits may influence their knowledge sharing practices. At the environments level, the factors are the master-apprentice system, changing values, the reward system, Electronic Patient Record (EPR), the assurance system, the education of doctors, and the progression of medical technique. Both the individual and environmental then interact reciprocally with the behavioral patterns that can be characterized by the following: the nomadic relationship between doctors and patients, poor doctor-patient communication, hollow authority, Electronic Patient Record (EPR), the cooperation in the medical family, the solitary individuality, the friendship of colleagues, and the influence of atmosphere in the hospital. To promote doctor-to-doctor or doctor-to-patient knowledge sharing practices, we suggest that hospitals should develop the assistant system of medical procedure for patients. This system may broadcast the Q&A for patients in the waiting room, check medical examples, and provide pertinent explanations for medical conditions. Last, we propose the development of web-based services to promote teamwork, case database to support analysis, and a problem-based learning system to facilitate doctor-doctor knowledge sharing practices.

M.Sc. / Knowledge has become a valuable resource for organisations contributing to their competitive advantage through innovation. Over the years, the capture of organisational information has grown to include structured information, such as corporate databases, as well as unstructured information, such as best practices, policies, rules and strategies. However, most of the organisational tacit knowledge gained through experience and development of expertise is never captured by the organisation and remains with employees, leaving the organisation whenever employees depart. The goal of the dissertation is to understand how knowledge travels through an enterprise, in order to gain insight into the possibilities of capturing organisational tacit knowledge, while encouraging employee collaboration. Based on this understanding, the aim is to propose a model that will allow knowledge sharing and encourage collaboration in order to present the organisation with an alternative knowledge base of daily user activities, organisational experiences and learning. The proposed collaboration model makes use of multiple agents, namely a user agent, a conversation manager agent, question analysis and query agents and a conversation classifier. The model aims to store knowledge base entries in an ontology-based structure and to leverage off the power of existing search engine technologies to perform searches. An implementation of the proposed model is discussed using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, a popular enterprise collaboration platform, which assists implementation and user adoption.

Due to the globalization in the world economy, most multinational organizations have changed the way they conduct business. This change also influenced the structure and working of IT services-providing companies. Due to the contemporary phenomenon of the world being seen as a global village, today organizations have access to a wider talent pool. Different multinational IT services-providing companies follow global software development models, while some of these also call people onshore from distant offices to work on different projects. In this scenario, cross-cultural teams are formed to work together and to fulfill clients’ requirements. The objective of this study is to identify cultural differences that affect the knowledge sharing process in IT services-providing companies. In this study, we present the case of a Swedish IT services-providing company that has extended operations into India. Our intention is to understand employees’ views about their work experience in a cross-cultural team. In this context, the study employs a qualitative approach, which helps to elucidate the role of national culture dimensions on an individual’s behavior within the workplace, as well as the impact national culture dimensions have on knowledge sharing processes. Six cross-cultural team members, who have the experience of working in a cross-cultural environment, were interviewed utilizing a semi-structured interview model. Data collection also includes two and half days of data collected during the observation of a cross-cultural team. The collected data helps to effectively clarify in-depth views about the concerns employees have while working within cross-cultural teams. The data collected was analyzed by applying hermeneutics, through which we mapped the answers to the theory of Hofstede on culture. The latter served as the indicator to focus on cultural dimensions that have decisive influence on knowledge sharing in cross-cultural environments. We conclude by highlighting several specific cultural factors that may affect knowledge sharing in cross-cultural environments.

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In the new global economy, knowledge is recognised as one of the most valuable organisational assets and an important competitive advantage. Therefore organisations need to concede that knowledge sharing is imperative in order to survive and compete effectively in the global economy. This study examined the extent to which culture impacted the effectiveness of knowledge sharing in an organisation. There were four dimensions of culture identified that influence knowledge sharing namely individualism/collectivism, power distance, masculinity/feminity and uncertainty avoidance. This research was quantitative in nature. A web based questionnaire was administered to a sample of 96 respondents in top and middle management by means of convenience sampling. The findings in this study indicate that age, gender and work experience have no influence on the impact of culture on knowledge sharing. It was further found that three out of the four cultural dimensions impacted knowledge sharing positively. They were low individualism and high collectivism, low power distance and low masculinity and high feminity. The fourth cultural dimension uncertainty avoidance was found to be high indicating a negative impact on knowledge sharing. Recommendations for future research include a larger sample size for a more comprehensive study, a comparative study with other chrome manufacturing operations and identifying the necessary tools required to reduce high uncertainty avoidance cultures. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

No / This paper reviews and analyses the literature on knowledge sharing in a university setting with the aim of identifying and understanding the determinants of knowledge sharing culture, research trends, theories, and future research opportunities for knowledge sharing in higher education institutions (HEIs). Findings suggest that there is disproportionately little knowledge sharing research in HEIs compared to the commercial sector. The review reveals that existing research on HEIs does not consider the determinants of knowledge sharing culture in a comprehensive manner. Research on knowledge sharing in commercial and HEIs in developing economies like Africa, the Middle East and South America is found to be limited. The review shows that future research should consider cultural and behavioural factors at different levels, that is, individual, national, professional teams, language issues and trust that might impact knowledge sharing practices among faculty members in HEIs in developing economies.

Studies in recent years have revealed that use of ICT can significantly impact knowledge sharing in organizations by enhancing the knowledge sharing process, reducing knowledge sharing barriers, and introducing technology barriers. While this has been identified in many studies and a significant research has been carried out to identify knowledge sharing barriers, there exists a considerable dearth of research when the question of ‘which knowledge sharing barriers can ICT reduce and how?’ is posed. This thesis aims to address this question by studying the case of an organization using ICT for knowledge sharing. The study was carried out using questionnaire and interview findings and results showed that if ICT is effectively used, a number of knowledge sharing barriers - in addition to time and space barriers - can be successfully reduced. Organizational and individual knowledge sharing barriers saw most reduction by ICT while technology barriers did not see any reduction by use of ICT alone. This is in coherence with different studies that use of ICT for knowledge sharing introduces its own technology barriers. However the results show that if employees are tech-savvy and management considerably supports employee involvement in the process of design and deployment of ICT enabled knowledge sharing, technology barriers can also be greatly reduced and even entirely eliminated.

Abstract Date: January 17, 2013 Level: Bachelor thesis in business administration, 15 ECTS Institution: School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology, Mälardalen University Authors: AZIZ Najibullah, GLEESON Darren and KASHIF Muhammad 28th August 1980, 29th November 1977, 22nd July 1984 Tutor: Eva Maaninen-Olsson Keywords: Knowledge, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, Factors Affecting Knowledge Sharing Research Question: What hinders or enables knowledge sharing in Swedish-based multi-national corporations from a cultural, motivational and trust perspective? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the barriers and enablers of knowledge sharing within multi-national corporations. Method: The research method chosen to fulfill the purpose of the thesis is a qualitative approach. In order to achieve the purpose both primary and secondary data was sought. In accordance with the qualitative approach, interviews have been carried out with senior managers in ABB, Bombardier, Ericsson and Siemens. Data collected from these interviews represents the primary data. Secondary data has been gathered from company websites. Conclusion: The results from the studied multi-national organizations suggest that knowledge sharing culture is influenced by communication, rules, regulations and routines (sub-factors of culture). This study shows that communication, rules, regulations and routines are enablers of knowledge sharing in the organizations. However, language and technology (sub-factors of culture) as collaborative tools are proven to be problematic; consequently creating hindrances to knowledge sharing. When it comes to motivational factors (rewards, power and reciprocity), this thesis shows that none of the studied companies offer rewards for knowledge sharing. This confirms the controversy connected with rewards which can either enable or cause hindrance to knowledge sharing. Reciprocity seems to enable knowledge sharing in the studied organizations whereas power remains controversial. The existence of power can either be a barrier or an enabler for knowledge sharing depending on the individual’s perception of power. This thesis also shows that the existence of trust enables knowledge sharing between employees, but the difficulties of building this trust is akey problem for management.

This research investigated which combination of factors had a positive and significant impact on knowledge sharing within an organisation. By finding this combination it will allow organisations to prioritise resources to specific factors that are seen to positively affect knowledge sharing. One hundred and seventy nine employees of a prominent South African company gave an indication into which factors in combination would provide a model that best predicts a positive impact on knowledge sharing. Statistical testing carried out on the resulting data gave an indication of the best fitting model. It was found that three of the four identified factors contributed 62% to the overall positive effect on knowledge sharing when measured together. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Knowledge is the resource that provides the best possibilities of being competitive since it increases while used and is difficult to copy. Knowledge sharing has been shown to increase organizational performance in both tangible and intangible measures. Therefore, it is important that employees of a research and development department in a large Swedish industry, that were recommended to telework in combination with short-time working due to covid-19, continue sharing knowledge. This study aimed to analyze how employees in a development department share knowledge while teleworking and how it differs from knowledge sharing in a traditional office. The phenomenon was analyzed in-depth, especially what prevents the knowledge from being shared and knowledge sharing barriers that exist during telework. The objective was to gain further knowledge of how departments can share knowledge efficiently while teleworking. A qualitative single case study was conducted and 8 semi-structured interviews were held with employees at the department. The findings suggest that knowledge sharing occurs with tools that are used in a traditional office and that is no difference in terms of whom employees share knowledge with, but the face-to-face meetings are missing. A further suggestion is that it occurs by less informal knowledge sharing and that the meetings tend to have a stricter agenda that is kept at a higher degree than when working in a traditional office. The knowledge sharing barriers identified were: challenging to express knowledge, time constraints, uncertainty which knowledge to share with whom, less informal places to share knowledge, lack of trust, differences in experience/knowledge/education, attitude, and culture & leadership. The results give companies in similar situations cognizance of how knowledge sharing occurs and differ when suddenly teleworking is required and knowledge sharing barriers that exist. These findings identify risks and difficulties of knowledge sharing when teleworking.