Factors influencing the improvement of knowledge sharing : empirical study of the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT)

Abstract

The important of knowledge sharing in knowledge based economy is very critical for the competitiveness of any organizations. IEAT is demanded to motivate its employees to perform even more complex tasks. More importantly, a unique challenge is how to develop or install strategy of the organization that would help upgrading employee efficient skills and employee knowledge through the supply chain, as well as making decision more precise.

This research was design to investigate the relationship among learning organization culture, individual’s perceived organizational commitment to knowledge sharing, organizational citizenship behavior, and extrinsic motivation on knowledge sharing at Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT), and to evaluate both direct and indirect relationships among those selected factors in association with knowledge sharing within IEAT.

Researcher conducted a survey to collect data from full time employee of IEAT. A survey questionnaires were distributed to various working departments according to the approval and scrutinize of the IEAT head office. Distribution of the whole set of questionnaires was kindly handled by IEAT. 300 questionnaires were distributed to all respondents and researcher received 247 questionnaires.

To analyze data collected form survey, researcher uses (SPSS) program and AMOS program (Analysis of Moment Structure) for hypotheses testing. Through this empirical work, a path model was develop and drawn. Additionally this research also employed a statistical method namely stepwise regression to analyses step by step of variable factors which influencing on knowledge at IEAT.

The result showed that all variables studies (learning organization culture, individual’s perceived organizational commitment to knowledge sharing, organizational citizenship behavior, and extrinsic motivation) were indicated to have a significant relationship on knowledge sharing at IEAT. Based on the finding of this research learning organization culture was the only factor found to have both direct and indirect positive effects on the extent of the individual sharing knowledge while other three factors namely: individual’s perceived organizational commitment to knowledge sharing, organizational citizenship behavior and, extrinsic motivation, presented only a direct effect on this capability.