An Assessment of Knowledge Sharing on Employee Performance: A Study of Kwara State Internal Revenue Service

Abstract

A knowledge gap exists in organizations because existing knowledge is not being effectively disseminated throughout organizations which affects productivity level and opportunity exploration. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of knowledge sharing on employee performance. The specific objectives were to: evaluate the influence of knowledge sharing strategies on employee productivity; determine if the organizational structure has an effect on employee efficiency, and determine the influence of effective communication on employee effectiveness. The study adopted a survey research design. The population of the study consisted of 720 staff of Kwara state internal revenue service (KWIRS) from which a sample of 257 respondents was selected using simple random sampling. Two hundred and fifty-seven (257) copies of Questionnaires were designed and distributed to respondents, however, only 242 copies of questionnaires were correctly filled and returned, which constitutes a 96.16% rate of response. Multiple Regression analysis was used to analyze the data at a 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that knowledge sharing strategies have a high positive correlation with the productivity of employees with R2=0.957, and a p-value of 0.000<0.005 for training and use of library respectively; organizational structure significantly impacts employee effectiveness with R2= 0.947 and p-value of 0.000<0.005 for centralization and decentralization respectively; and effective communication has a positive impact with employee effectiveness with R2= 0.809 and p-value of 0.000<0.005 for personal communication and electronic communication respectively. The study concluded that knowledge sharing strategies have a significant relationship with employee productivity, the organizational structure has a significant relationship with employee efficiency and effective communication has an influence on employee effectiveness. The study recommended that knowledge sharing strategies such as training and the use of a library should be implemented to increase employee performance, a standard and flexible organizational structure should be designed to enable employees to be highly efficient and effective communication should be encouraged among employees through both personal and electronic communication.