Knowledge sharing behavior of academics in higher education

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of motivation to share, interpersonal trust, job involvement, job satisfaction and continuance commitment on knowledge sharing behavior of academics in higher education institutes.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were conveniently collected through a self-administered questionnaire from 369 academics working in six public sector universities of Pakistan. Correlation and incremental regression analyses were run to draw the results.

Findings

Results reveal that 24 percent of the variation in KSB is due to the changes in all the independent variables – intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, interpersonal trust, job involvement, job satisfaction and continuance commitment. The study also identifies job involvement and continuance commitment as strong determinants of knowledge sharing behavior among academics.

Research limitations/implications

To facilitate knowledge sharing behavior among academics, management of the universities must provide the ways for improving the levels of job involvement, continuance commitment and job satisfaction.

Originality/value

This is the first study that investigated the combined effect of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation to share, interpersonal trust, job involvement, job satisfaction and continuance commitment on knowledge sharing behavior of teachers in public sector universities in Pakistan.

Citation

Bibi, S. and Ali, A. (2017), "Knowledge sharing behavior of academics in higher education", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 550-564. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-11-2016-0077