Abstract
D.Phil.
In today's knowledge-intensive economy, an organisation's available knowledge
is becoming an increasingly important strategic resource. The effective
management of this resource is, consequently, one of the most important
challenges facing today's organisation. Organisational learning processes which
are responsible for the creation and sharing of knowledge should produce a core
competence, which represents a form of valuable intellectual capital for the
organisation and this has become a business imperative in the knowledgeintensive
economy
Without knowledge sharing between individuals, in groups, amongst groups and
in the organisation as a whole there can be no knowledge and no sustainable
competitive advantage through the use of organisational knowledge. Discovering
the enablers and barriers to knowledge sharing is one of the aims of the study. I
believe the proposed study could contribute to the "how" of knowledge sharing. This study will explore what the systemic relationship between knowledge
management; knowledge sharing and organisational ethos is with the aim of
developing a substantive knowledge-sharing model that explicates the
knowledge-sharing processes.
Based on the literature review, the reasons for organisations to focus on
knowledge management and knowledge sharing are relatively consistent across
organisations. At one level, organisations are concerned with keeping people
informed regarding information and business processes to avoid duplication of
effort, but also to stimulate collaboration and encourage group sharing. On a
deeper level, most executives would agree that focusing on knowledge management is likely to increase organisational adaptability and competitiveness.
Knowledge sharing can be viewed as a type of constant business innovation
process.