ABSTRACT:
This study attempted to
investigate the effects of communication on knowledge sharing in an
organization. Based on the data from COMU
Keywords: Knowledge sharing, communication
style, communication satisfaction
1. Introduction
Knowledge is seen as the
most strategically important resource (Conner & Prahalad,
1996; Grant, 1996; Nahapiet & Ghoshal,
1998) and the most valuable thing (Yozgat, 1998) for
the organizations striving for competition in knowledge economy. Managing
knowledge in organizations requires managing several processes of knowledge (Ruggles, 1998; Probst et al,
2000; Powers, 1999; Davenport & Prusak, 1998)
such as creation, storage, sharing, evaluating. Among those processes, sharing
is crucial for knowledge organizations as it is very much a sign for the
atmosphere of social interactions in the organizations. It requires individuals
to share what they know. The interesting charecteristic
of knowledge is that its value grows when shared (Bhirud
et al, 2005). Sharing knowledge can be actualised through personal interaction
or information systems (Seng et al, 2002). For
effective knowledge management the collaboration can be achieved via messaging,
sharing documents, conversations and meetings (Barth, 2003) The way of
effectively managing knowledge is to translate individual and group knowledge
to organizational knowledge (Van den Hooff & de Ridder, 2004: 117). Because of the managerial ignorance of
the ways in which knowledge workers communicate and operate through social
processes of collaborating, sharing and building on each others’ ideas,
there is no relationship between information technology (IT) expenditures and
company performance (Zack, 1999; Lang, 2001). Only 25% of IT investments
properly integrate business and technology objectives (Warne et al, 2003: 94).
The missing link in managing knowledge view is human and social factors (Thomas
et al, 201:881). A study by Clark and Rollo (cited in Crawford & Strohkirch, 2006) reveals that the 42% of corporate
knowledge is held in employees’ minds (i.e.tacit
knowledge).
2. Knowledge Sharing And
Communication
Knowledge management
process is about sharing, collaboration and making the best possible use of a
strategic resource (Bollinger & Smith, 2001). Knowledge sharing is the
process where individuals mutually exchange their implicit and explicit
knowledge and jointly create new knowledge (Van den Hooff
& de Ridder 2004: 117). Knowledge sharing is also
the most important ingredient of innovation (Bhirud
et al, 2005). Any knowledge sharing process consists of two parts- donating and
collecting. Knowledge donating can be defined as “communicating to others
what one’s personal intellectual capital”, whereas knowledge
collecting is defined as “consulting colleagues in order to get them
share their intellectual capital” (Van den Hooff
& de Ridder, 2004: 118).
Communication on the other
hand, is at the centre of any complex, modern organizations (Thomas et al,
2001: 870). It is accepted that communication has effects on individuals’
attitudes toward the organization. Organizational communication is considered
as the social glue (Greenberg & Baron, 2003:317). Communication helps
create shared meaning, the norms, values and culture of the organization (Wiesenfeld et al, 1998). Some of the practices for such
social notion can be innovation days, story telling, best practices day,
internal conference etc (Bhirud et al, 2005). In a
culture where the knowledge value is recognised, availability of information,
sharing of that information, information flows, IT infrastructure, personal
networking, system thinking, leadership, communication climate, problem solving,
training and many other factors can be supportive factors for successful
learning (Warne et al, 2003). Organisational culture recognizing the value of
knowledge allows personal contact that leads to capture tacit knowledge and
thus it can be transferred (Davenport & Prusak,
1998). Knowledge is a human act; is the residue of thinking; is created in the
present moment; belongs to communities; circulates through communication in
many ways; and is created at the boundaries of old, as McDermott describes
(1999: 105). Sharing knowledge is crucial since its value and synergy are
increased by sharing with others (Stewart, 1997: 182, 213; Yeniceri
& Ince, 2005: 70). Such sharing promotes common
identity, mutual trust and organizational learning (Schein, 1993) Sharing tacit knowledge can be possible
through joint activities such as being together, spending time, living in the
same environment, known as socialization stage for knowledge conversion (Nonaka & Konno, 1998). In other word, knowledge sharing
depends on the quality of conversations, formally or informally (
Knowledge sharing is a form
of communication (Van den Hooff & de Ridder, 2004: 120). Knowledge transferring between individuals
in organizations requires communication (Sveiby,
2000:6). Communication climate includes communicative elements of a work
environment, such as judgements about the receptivity of management to employee
communication, or the trust on information being disseminated in the
organization (Guzley, 1992). Listening, persuading,
teaching, learning, presenting, collaborating and coordinating are factors of
communication and partnering skills as one of the five competencies in
knowledge organizations (Davenport et al, 2001: 124). Without an environment
that encourages sharing, knowledge sharing expectations fail or fad (DeTienne & Jackson: 2001:6, 9). It is reasonable to
distinguish communication climates as supportive and defensive (Larsen & Folgero, 1993). Supportive communication climate can be
characterized by “open exchange of information, accessibility of coworkers, confirming and cooperative interactions and an
overall culture of sharing knowledge” (Van den Hooff
& de Ridder, 2004: 120). Supportive communication
climate was found necessary for the generation, sharing and continual existence
of organizational knowledge (Ali et al., 2002). Briefly, communication climate
is a crucial variable in explaining knowledge sharing. Supportive communication
has positive impact on knowledge donating and knowledge collecting. It’s
a central condition for successful knowledge sharing (Van den Hooff & de Ridder, 2004:
126). Since employees having a strong identification with their organizations
show a supportive attitude (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Dutton et al, 1994; Smidts
et al, 2001), the influence of communication aspects are noteworthy. However,
communication climate is only one of the multidimensions
of employee communication in organizations (Downs & Hazens,
1977). Employees are satisfied or dissatisfied with varying degrees on each
dimension (Clampitt & Downs, 1993:6; Smidts et al, 2001:1053).
2.1. Communication Satisfaction
Communication satisfaction
is a socioemotional outcome resulting from
communication interactions (Gray & Laidlaw, 2004: 426). Employee
communication satisfaction is seen important for employees playing central role
in determining organizational effectiveness (Gray & Laidlaw, 2004: 427).
Communication needs of organizations vary due to the mission, environment and
technology of an organization (Sampson, 2005). Due to the priority, for
instance is productivity, personal feedback and communication climate are the
key issues, or when the organization’s focus is to innovate and to adapt
to environmental factors, horizontal communication is essential (Sampson,
2005). Assessing communication satisfaction presents strenghts
and weakness of organizational communication and provides bases for
communication strategies for better relationships, to improve the transmission
of information and hence to improve organizational effectiveness (Gray &
Laidlaw, 2004: 427). It can be claimed that competent communicators are needed
at all organizational levels (Shockley-Zalabak,
2001:5), especially for the position of knowledge manager, effective
communicator is advised (Crawford & Strohkirch,
2006).
2.2. Communication Style
The satisfaction of
subordinate and supervisor with their relationship is affected by each
other’s communication style (Downs et al., 1988: 543), and varying styles
of communicating with other people have major impact on how people are
perceived in their communication environment (see Downs et al., 1988 for
review). Norton’s (1978: 99)
conceptualization of communication style is the most commonly used definition.
“The way one verbally and paraverbally
interacts to signal how literal meaning should be taken, interpreted, filtered,
or understood”. It is about the way individuals perceive themselves
communicating and interacting with others (Weaver, 2005:60). The study of
Crawford and Strohkirch (2006) revealed that
communication apprehension (level of fear or anxiety on communicating) has a
significant effect on knowledge management overall, especially on information
creation. Communication style as a communication behaviour includes the way one
interacts to create expectation for future on both participants (Coeling & Cukr, 2000:65).
The review of the topics above reveals that the
basic assumptions of this study can be proposed as the belows:
Ha.
Knowledge sharing has positive relationship with communicative dimensions.
Hb. Knowledge sharing varies due to group
differences.
Hc. Communicative dimensions vary due to group
differences.
Hd.Within-group sharing is more common than out-group
sharing.
3. Method
3.1. Sample And Data
Collection
Data were collected in
Table1:
Demography Of The Participants
|
|
Category |
n |
% |
|
Category |
n |
% |
|
Tenure |
1 year 2-3 yrs 4-5 yrs 6-9 yrs 10+ |
23 47 35 31 31 |
13.8 28.1 21.0 18.6 18.6 |
Age |
25> 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46< |
19 22 42 39 27 18 |
11.4 13.2 25.1 23.4 16.2 10.8 |
|
Position |
Academic Administrative |
111 56 |
66.5 33.5 |
Gender |
Male Female |
107 60 |
64.1 35.9 |
As it can be seen in Table
1, demographic profiles of the sample show that the majority is male (64.1%);
the major age is between 31 and 40 years of age. In terms of tenure at the
current university, new comers are lower (13.8%). The majority is academic (66.5%).
3.2. Instrumentation
Knowledge sharing was
measured with eight items of knowledge donating and knowledge collecting scales
tested by Van den Hooff et al., in 2003 (Van den Hooff & De Ridder, 2004).
Both scales are homogeneous and thus highly reliable (alpha=0.85 and alpha=0.77
respectively) in the mentioned study (Van den Hooff
& De Ridder, 2004:122). Both scales of knowledge
sharing are scored on a 5-point Likert Scale ranging
from 1, “never true of me”, to 5, “always true of me”
in our study, however the original version is 5-point agree/disagree scale (see
Van den Hooff & De Ridder,
2004).
Communication satisfaction
was measured by Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) developed by
Communicator style was
measured with ten items of the final version of Duran & Wheeless’s
Communicative Adaptability Scale: Self – Reference Measure (CAS-SR) in
the work of Downs et al, (1988:564-565). This final version contains 30 items
with 5 questions on each of the 6 dimensions. Each item is a statement of
communicative behavior and is scored on a 5-point Likert Scale ranging from 1, “never true of
me”, to 5, “always true of me” (Downs et al, 1988: 550-552).
Its six dimensions are social composure
(i.e. relax communicator experiencing little communication anxiety in social
situations), wit (humor
to diffuse anxiety and tension), appropriate
disclosure (flexibility of self-disclosure), articulation (correct pronounciation,
fluent speech, word choice, idea organization) , social experience (experienced to adapt to different social
situations), and social confirmation
(empaty and rewarding impression). In this study, we
selected 2 questions on each of the 5 dimensions and excluded the dimension
labelled as articulation.
3.3. Analysis Of Data
The data collected were
analysed via SPSS package version 12.0. Reliabilty
analysis of questionnaire forms including measures of knowledge sharing,
communication style and communication satisfaction are reliable. Cronbach’s alpha was found as follows: Knowledge
sharing (0,848) shows high reliability, Communication style (0,650) is
reliable, and Communication satisfaction (0,954) is highly reliable.
4. Results
The relationship between
knowledge sharing with its dimensions and communicative dimensions
(communication satisfaction and communication style) was tested with
correlation analysis. As it cab be seen on Table 2, knowledge sharing total (KSt) is strongly related with communication satisfaction
total (Ct) and communication style total (St). Knowledge donating (KSd) has strong relationship with communication style (St),
however, knowledge collecting (KSc) is strongly
related with communication satisfaction (Ct).
Table 2: Correlations Between
Knowledge Sharing And Communication
|
|
Comu |
||
|
|
KSt |
KSd |
KSc |
|
KSt |
|
|
|
|
KSd |
0,879** 0,000 |
|
|
|
KSc |
0,777** 0,000 |
0,383** 0,000 |
|
|
Ct |
0,315** 0,000 |
0,177* 0,022 |
0,376** 0,000 |
|
CPF |
0,295** 0,000 |
0,185* 0,017 |
0,327** 0,000 |
|
COI |
0,241** 0,002 |
0,176* 0,023 |
0,235** 0,002 |
|
CCC |
0,136 0,079 |
0,027 0,730 |
0,228** 0,003 |
|
CHC |
0,363** 0,000 |
0,191* 0,013 |
0,451** 0,000 |
|
CRS |
0,320** 0,000 |
0,185* 0,016 |
0,376** 0,000 |
|
St |
0,275** 0,000 |
0,262** 0,001 |
0,187* 0,016 |
|
Scomp |
0,078 0,314 |
0,007 0,927 |
0,142 0,067 |
|
Sconf |
0,273** 0,000 |
0,257** 0,001 |
0,188* 0,015 |
|
Sexp |
0,211** 0,006 |
0,264** 0,001 |
0,059 0,446 |
|
Sdiscl |
0,250** 0,001 |
0,193* 0,013 |
0,230** 0,003 |
|
Swit |
0,011 0,883 |
0,049 0,531 |
-0,042 0,587 |
**Significant at the 0.001 level (2-tailed);
*Significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
The overall situation of
the COMU staff was tested by split- half method to see 1)if
they are more alert on knowledge donating or knowledge collecting; 2)if they
prefer within-group sharing or outside-group sharing. Table 3a displays that
the mean of donating (15,42) is higher than collecting (14,50). The
within-group mean (12,36) of donating is higher than the mean of out-group
(10,56); and the within-group mean (7,53) of collecting is higher than
out-group mean (6,96) just like donating (see Table 3b, 3c). Thus, intragroup preference of sharing is over than out group
sharing that supports the group view.
|
|
Mean |
Variance |
Std.
Deviation |
N
of Items |
|
Part 1 (collecting) |
14,50 |
11,408 |
3,378 |
4(a) |
|
Part 2 (donating) |
15,42 |
10,498 |
3,240 |
4(b) |
|
Both Parts |
29,92 |
29,318 |
5,415 |
8 |
a The items are: c1, c2, c3, c4.
b The items are: d2, d3, d5, d6.
|
|
Mean |
Variance |
Std.
Deviation |
N
of Items |
|
Part
1 (within) |
12,36 |
5,171 |
2,274 |
3(a) |
|
Part
2 (out) |
10,52 |
7,456 |
2,731 |
3(b) |
|
Both
Parts |
22,88 |
19,877 |
4,458 |
6 |
a The items are: d1, d2, d3.
b The items are: d4, d5, d6.
|
|
Mean |
Variance |
Std.
Deviation |
N
of Items |
|
Part 1 (within) |
7,53 |
4,202 |
2,050 |
2(a) |
|
Part 2 (out) |
6,96 |
3,577 |
1,891 |
2(b) |
|
Both Parts |
14,50 |
11,408 |
3,378 |
4 |
a The items are: c1, c2.
b The items are: c3, c4.
Table 4: Differences Between
Groups And Comparison
|
Variable |
Chi-square |
p |
Groups |
u |
z |
p |
Mean |
|
kscollect |
11.073 |
0.050 |
26-30/ 36-40 |
237.0 |
-2.908 |
0.040 |
15.5/13.13 |
|
31-35/ 36-40 |
564.0 |
-2.431 |
0.015 |
14.79/13.13 |
|||
|
36-40/ 41-45 |
346.5 |
-2.363 |
0.018 |
13.13/ 15.33 |
In order to see the differences
between groups, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal
Wallis H test were conducted. Significant differences were found between age
groups concerning knowledge collecting as shown in Table 4. People with the age
of 36-40 are poor on collecting knowledge.
Table 5: Differences By Positional And Gender Groups
|
Category |
n |
Mean |
Variable |
u |
z |
p |
|
|
Position |
111 56 |
Academic Administrative
|
22.36 23.91 |
composure |
2991.5 |
-3.035 |
0.002 |
|
111 56 |
Academic Administrative |
8.51 7.77 |
kscollect |
2436.0 |
-2.284 |
0.022 |
|
|
Gender |
107 60 |
Male Female |
8.26 8.83 |
Confirm |
2584.5 |
-2.166 |
0.030 |
Composure style and
collecting knowledge is significantly different between academic and
administrative groups. There is a significant difference between male and
female with their confirmation style. No significant difference was found
between groups in terms of tenure (see Table 5).
5. Conclusions
This study examined the
relationships between knowledge sharing and communicative dimensions in COMU. Empirical findings revealed that overall of sharing knowledge has
positive relationships with communicative dimensions in Turkish culture (Ha).
The focus of sharing -donating and collecting knowledge varies. It can be
claimed that people are more willing to deliver knowledge due to
communicators’ style, and the ones seeking knowledge are influenced by
the communication satisfaction they have. The state of knowledge donating is
over collecting knowledge. On sharing knowledges and
skills with groups, peope are more alert to share
(donate or collect) those knowledges and skills with
their own groups than out-groups. In terms of group differences, collecting
knowledge is influenced by position (academic versus administrative). Age that
is influential on knowledge collecting but not on knowledge donating reveals
that people at the age between 31-39 are not so
willing to collect knowledge (Hb). This should be
tested with intention to leave the organization. In terms of communication
dimensions, only the style is different. The difference of communication style
between gender confirmation style indicates that women are more empathical and rewarding than male; and the difference
between composure level of administrators and academics indicates that
academics are less relax communicators, that is surprising because of their
teaching and presenting experiences (Hc). Knowledge
delivering or donating is commonn than collecting
knowledge and in-group sharing is common than out-group sharing (Hd). The findings of the study can
not be generalised, since the data were limited to COMU from
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Contact the Author:
Associate Prof. Dr. Murat GÜMÜŞ, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, School of Tourism & Hotel Management, Terzioglu Campus, 17100, Canakkale/ Turkey; Phone : :+90-286-218 00 18 1575) ; Fax: +90-286-218 05 47 ; Email : muratgumus@yahoo.com