Investigation of factors that affect the willingness of individuals to share knowledge in the virtual organisation of Taiwanese non-governmental organisations

With the advent of knowledge-intensive economies, plus the ever-accelerating development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), organisational knowledge has become the key driver of an organisation’s value and ultimately, an important source of an organisation’s sustainable competitive edge. Thus, numerous organisations have started to invest heavily in establishing knowledge management systems (KMSs). Subsequently, they wish to access knowledge from individuals in order to enhance their acquisition of knowledge and ultimately transform this into organisational knowledge. Even though existing research studies have evidenced extensively the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators of individuals’ knowledge-sharing behaviour in organisations from diverse perspectives (e.g. organisational behaviour, sociology and psychology), individuals still seem inclined to hoard their knowledge, rather than share it with others in organisations. To this end, this research aims to investigate and identify essential elements related to individuals’ knowledge-sharing behaviour within the complex context of the virtual organisation of Taiwanese Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs), comprising the whole system of Taiwanese Farmers’ Associations, by integrating multilevel perspectives of individuals in organisations (the micro-level), workplace networks in organisations (the meso-level) and organisational culture (the macro-level). [Continues.

Factors affecting employees' knowledge-sharing behaviour in the virtual organisation from the perspectives of well-being and organisational behaviour

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. Drawing on the concept of organisational behaviour, this research augments the concepts of social capital theory and organisational culture with one pioneering precursor and mediator, the sense of well-being, to develop an integrative understanding of the factors affecting individuals' knowledge-sharing behaviour within the more complex context of the virtual organisation of Taiwanese Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs). A field survey of 131 employees from the selected virtual organisation was analysed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to examine the outcomes empirically. Our research offers a persuasive body of evidence supporting the notion that increasing employees' sense of well-being can successfully form a bridge that can connect social capital tendency, organisational culture and employees' knowledge-sharing behaviour. Surprisingly, and contrary to common belief, the integrated model shows that social capital tendency seems to play a more important role than organisational culture in affecting employees' sense of well-being within the virtual organisation in a Chinese cultural context. Consequently, this research reveals the subtle interplay of employees' sense of well-being, social capital tendency, organisational culture and knowledge-sharing behaviour, while the in-depth analysis provides strong support for knowledge management research and practice

Factors affecting knowledge sharing in the virtual organisation: employees' sense of well-being as a mediating effect

In view of the importance of employees' knowledge sharing, this research, which draws on social capital theory and employees' sense of well-being, develops a comprehensive theoretical model which aims to explore deeply the mediating impact of employees' sense of well-being on social capital and the contribution of knowledge in the complex context of a virtual organisation. The quantitative approach was conducted at a virtual organisation of Taiwanese NGOs. 135 valid questionnaires were distributed and retrieved personally; subsequently these were analysed using partial least squares (PLS). The findings revealed that employees' sense of well-being improved considerably when they demonstrated stronger levels of social capital tendency. Meanwhile, employees increasingly contributed, not only their tacit but also their explicit knowledge, when they experienced a greater sense of well-being. Even more surprisingly, the results showed that employees' sense of well-being played a positively and pivotally mediating role in the relationship between social capital and employees' tacit and explicit knowledge-sharing behaviour in the virtual organisation. These suggest that managers within virtual organisations urgently need strategies to create an ambiance in which employees can feel a sense of well-being in order to enhance their willingness to share both their explicit and tacit knowledge