Barriers to Knowledge Sharing

Technology itself does not make organisations share knowledge but, if people are willing to share it, technology can increase the reach and scope of such exchanges.

Developing a KM system in place is not going to make people utilise it, but the success of KM initiatives involves taking into account the socio-cultural factors that may inhibit people to willingly share their knowledge, such as:

 lack of trust,

 lack of time or

 fear of being judged

 concerns about loss of power/status.

Lack of trust between employees is a well-known issue that endangers relations and thus the efficiency of the whole company. In the case of knowledge sharing it makes the member of the team avoid sharing his or her knowledge because there is no trust in how that knowledge will be used or by who. To increase the level of trust between

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workers it is useful to first have more information available about colleagues (Dignum

& Eijk, 2005) and then have closer and more frequent communications (Cheng, et al., 2008). In this matter social networking tools help, providing more information about members of the company and facilities for communication between co-workers (Boeije, et al., 2009).

Lack of time is a common problem between workers that already spend a lot of time on the projects they are working on and feel sharing knowledge not wrong but simply as a waste of time, as if he or she is not paid to do so. In this case, it is necessary to make it clear to everyone, even writing it on the contracts if necessary, that part of the job is to define the notions learned and make them available for everyone to see. This way everyone will take some time at the end of a project and complete the task feeling rewarded from it.

The fear of being judged is usually felt by newcomers and, more in general, people that are not very familiar with the subject they are going to talk about while sharing their knowledge. It is completely normal to feel the pressure of the opinions of the co-workers, to consider the possibility to be mocked or ridiculed. Everyone can make mistakes. What is important is to learn from them. It is the company’s duty to clarify that a behaviour that tries to diminish a colleague’s image will not be tolerated.

Loss of power or status are the concerns of the senior members of an enterprise. The most experienced and knowledgeable elements of the company. This kind of employees are the ones that should best embrace the sharing attitude, since their contribution would greatly benefit the new members of the organization, making it easier for them to catch up and be ready to help when needed. This said, it is not easy for a person in a position of power to decide to share what made them reach that specific position. They may fear that sharing their knowledge would make them lose their job easily and the younger members of the company overtake them. In such a case, it is advisable to create an environment where it is clear that such an outcome is improbable and that the organization values very much the employee and its contribution to the global knowledge of the company. More specifically, such an outcome is possible only when the perceived benefits (some extrinsic motivation solutions, such as bonuses, presents, etc) are higher than the perceived costs of

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sharing (e.g. time and efforts for contributing knowledge). One of the immediate ways to reduce perceived costs is to make it easier for people who share their knowledge to do this, also with the help of IT, as well as make knowledge sharing secure from the point of view of the loss of jobs or advantages (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2003).

To sum up, in order to deal with the issues stated above the main directions of efforts are the following:

a) making knowledge visible and showing the role of knowledge in organizations, b) building a knowledge infrastructure, not only technical system, but also

connections among people given space, time, tools and encouragement to interact and collaborate,

c) developing knowledge-intensive and knowledge sharing culture in order to free employees from fear of losing their advantages when sharing their unique knowledge,

d) be liberated from the fear of losing important intellectual assets, if valued colleagues leave the firm. (Yang & Chen, 2007)

The last point of the list explains in short one the most important features of knowledge sharing: the possibility for a work team to preserve the knowledge of one of its members if he or she leaves the team or the company. This way it is easier for the team to recover from the loss and learn what they should in order to undertake the work of the colleague.

In order to reach the goals set for knowledge management and realize an effective knowledge sharing culture the company has to provide its employees the right tools, education on how to use them and motivation to make it happen. Realizing the right tools requires the chiefs of the departments involved to meet and make a list of all the features that a proper tool must have in order to be both useful and easy to learn. The IT department will be of help in this matter, yet the real problem is not the realization of the tools, but giving the employees the motivation they need to use them. As we read in (Argote, et al., 2003): “Organizational settings in the field of knowledge management can impact an individual‘s ability to create, retain and share knowledge, as well as provide motives and opportunities or tools to do this”.

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It is clear by now that knowledge sharing is not necessarily synonymous with pro-social behaviour. Indeed, knowledge sharing may involve significant effort or sacrifice.

For the most part knowledge-sharing barriers can be categorized into three dimensions:

a. individual,

b. organizational and c. technological.

A study of 1,180 staff members in the regional transport union of Palm Beach (Florida) determined that its culture was not conducive to knowledge sharing for a variety of reasons, including:

 absence of support systems,

 lack of training,

 lack of job security,

 lack of organizational culture,

 employee competition, and

 lack of recognition.

At the first element of the list, we find a huge technological problem. Having a good technical support is key to make it easier for everyone to share one’s expertise and later create new knowledge starting from the one collected so far.

The second issue in the list could be resolved exploiting technological tools, yet the decision to make this kind of effort has to come from the organization itself. The management have to evaluate the need for a proper introduction to the sharing mechanisms for the employees. The third and fourth elements still are a responsibility of the company, that must focus on creating a culture that considers the needs of the employees while clarifying how useful for everyone is to work not as individuals or small teams but as a community that involves all of the people at the company, the customers and the enterprise’s partners.

Competition is usually good for business. It pushes everyone to “go the extra mile” to become the best in what they do and be seen as such. As explained before, however, this kind of behaviour can lead to difficulties in sharing one’s hardly achieved expertise.

It is necessary to do what it takes to make the employees certain that they will not lose their advantage when sharing their unique knowledge.

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The last point is an organizational problem as it is the company that has to recognize the efforts of its workers. The solution for this problem can be found in a technical approach that exploits social media tools to make it easy for both the worker and the management to recognize when someone is making a significant effort in following the sharing culture. This is possible through instruments that make it clear to everyone who is the author of the shared piece of knowledge and who are the people that liked or shared it. When number of “likes” or “share” is reached the software given the employee a virtual medal, visible on his or her profile, which symbolizes the achievement. In has been studied that this kind of tools greatly increases the willingness of the stakeholders to participate in the community.

Beyond the effects of the introduction of technological tools, it has been proven that there is also a relationship between group compatibility and knowledge sharing. The more compatible a person is with the group in terms of age, gender, and other factors, the more likely he or she is to practice knowledge sharing. Conversely, individuals who perceive themselves in a minority (e.g. gender, marital status, education, etc...) are less likely to participate in knowledge sharing. Of particular note is the finding that women participants require a more positive social interaction culture before they perceive a knowledge-sharing culture as positive. The list of compatibility variables includes more than just the obvious traits of age, gender, ethnicity, and educational level. Personality differences, communication skills, and individual values also factored into the equation. (Keyes, 2013)

Another study, from (Wang & Noe, 2009), has shown instead that socially isolated members or sub-groups are more likely to disagree with others and so contribute their unique knowledge within a heterogeneous team.

We now know that people that perceive themselves as a minority in the team are less likely to share their knowledge, but when everyone is a minority and the group is truly heterogeneous then competition arises and knowledge sharing happens. In this case, within a functionally diversified team, the acknowledgement of team members' expertise also helps increase participation in knowledge sharing (Thomas-Hunt, et al., 2003). This leads us to the understanding that, in order to obtain the knowledge sharing pattern required to help group decision-making processes in the organization,

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work teams should either be formed of people with similar status, education, gender, age, skills and values or formed of a very heterogeneous set of team members.

In order to minimize the risks and increase the chances of success there are other steps that can be followed. The research has proven that a less centralized organizational structure can help facilitate the knowledge flow, as well as the open-space working environment (Yang & Chen, 2007). Another research suggests that the organizations should actively create opportunities for employee interactions to occur and employees’ rank, position in the organizational hierarchy and seniority should be deemphasized to facilitate knowledge sharing (Argote, et al., 2003).

We will later talk about the fact that many, if not all, of the guidelines collected can be followed and made a reality in the organization using an ESN.

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