Title: Obstacles to knowledge sharing in engineering organisations: a quantitative approach

Authors: Iram Mushtaq; Ali Rizwan

Addresses: Faculty of Management Sciences, Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering, Islamabad, 44010, Pakistan ' Industrial Engineering Department King Adbulaziz University, Jeddah, 21577, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: This research identified the factors creating hindrance in the knowledge sharing process in engineering organisations. The population consisted of employees from different sectors including manufacturing, textile, chemical, civil and agriculture. A survey method was employed for the study and data was collected through a questionnaire using a Likert scale. The returned questionnaires were 623 out of 1200. The respondents were graduate engineers, DAEs and technical workers. The most dominant factor was communication among employees followed by trust, task interdependence, organisational structure, reward and recognition, and attitude. It was also found that there was significant difference in the impact of knowledge sharing factors on knowledge sharing due to gender and job level of employees which depicts the presence of vertical organisation structure and gender biasness. The findings of the study will give a direction to the organisations to work on significant factors that create hindrance in the way of knowledge sharing.

Keywords: knowledge sharing; trust; task interdependence; organisational structure; reward and recognition; attitude.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKMS.2018.094216

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, 2018 Vol.9 No.3, pp.293 - 307

Received: 20 Oct 2016
Accepted: 13 Nov 2017
Published online: 22 Aug 2018 *

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