مطالعه تجربی از اثرات به اشتراک گذاری دانش و رفتارهای یادگیری بر عملکرد شرکت

Knowledge sharing and learning behaviors in the workplace are believed to be very important to the success of firms. In this study, the relationships between knowledge sharing and learning behaviors, business process improvement, product and service offerings, and organizational performance are examined based on a sample of 134 firms engaged in manufacturing, and wholesale or retailing operations. Data analyses using the partial least squares statistical technique revealed that knowledge sharing and learning behaviors are positively associated with business process improvement, and product and service offerings. Business process improvement and product and service offerings are positively associated, and they in turn are positively related to organizational performance. The findings reinforce the importance of knowledge sharing and learning to companies. Executives should encourage knowledge management and organizational learning activities within their firms, and give proper considerations to the strategies and implementation of programs supporting these activities in order to enhance firm performance.

An organization that fails to learn may be sub-optimal or even dysfunctional (DiBella, 1995). In contrast, a learning organization is believed to be able to generate competitive capabilities to sustain its business performance in the market (Slater & Narver, 1995). Leaders who intend to develop their firms as learning organizations need to create supportive environments that are conducive to learning, and exchanging ideas and knowledge (Garvin, 1993). In this regard, many academics and consultants consider the behaviors of learning and the sharing of knowledge among employees and internal organizational units to be the essential elements of knowledge management (Choi & Lee, 2002). Knowledge sharing among co-ordinated organizational units should contribute to the generation of organizational capabilities vital to a firm’s business performance (Kogut & Zander, 1996). That said, the following question may arise: What are the key dimensions of organizational capabilities that would be affected by knowledge sharing and learning activities which would in turn result in firm performance gains? Some of the capabilities often highlighted by the organizational learning and knowledge management literature are product innovation and product offerings. More recently, some academics have pointed to various aspects of organizational innovation. Process innovation has been recognized by many as an important result of knowledge sharing and learning, and it is believed to be a critical contributor to a firm’s competitive advantage. As there is still a dearth of empirical research into knowledge sharing (Ipe, 2003), this study is intended to fill this gap by investigating the effects of knowledge sharing and learning on an organization’s business process improvement, product and service offerings, and overall firm performance. The paper is organized as follows. The results of a literature review on related subjects are presented in the next section. In Section 3, the research model defining the constructs and hypothesized relationships is depicted, and this is followed by an explanation of the research methods in Section 4. Data analysis and the findings are reported in Section 5. Section 6 concludes the paper with a discussion of the implications and limitations of this study, research directions, and concluding remarks.