Antecedents and consequences of knowledge sharing behavior

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate an integrative model that explores the relationship between knowledge sharing antecedents (motivation, job involvement and job satisfaction) and its consequences (organizational human capital and organizational performance).
 
Design/methodology/approach – A structured questionnaire was developed. The hypotheses were simultaneously tested on a sample of 403employees out of 800 distributed, giving a response rate of 50.37 per cent. Several analytical techniques were used to assess the relationships among the variables under investigation.
Findings – The findings of this study have shown significant positive relationships among the variables under investigation. The research confirmed the importance of motivation, job involvement and job satisfaction as key indicators of knowledge sharing and its consequences.
 
Practical Implications – the relationships among the variables under investigations may provide a clue regarding how companies can promote knowledge sharing culture, which focuses on the employees' job involvement and satisfaction derived from their motivation to boost organizational human capital and performance by increasing their willingness to collect knowledge and disseminate to their colleagues.
 
Research Limitations – The research was limited to one manufacturing company in Egypt. Future research could add views from the manager’s value perceptions point of view and also examine the crucial relationship network. Our model should be cross-validated with the same instruments in other industries. Also the use of cross-sectional design restricts inferences being drawn regarding casualty. Conducting longitudinal research could serve to enrich the results.
 
Originality/Value– the paper contributes in adding to the body of the Egyptian culture knowledge by addressing the antecedents and consequences of knowledge sharing behavior from the employees perspective - an emphasizing approach on the pivotal role of knowledge sharing as well as the asset of the organizational human capital that has not been taken before in the Egyptian business market.