Identifying the Effective Components on Nurses' Knowledge Sharing Behavior with Mixed Method Research

Abstract

Background. Knowledge-sharing is a process in which people mutually exchange tacit and objective knowledge and create new knowledge. This study aimed to identify the main themes and organize the components of nurses' knowledge sharing. Methods. A mixed research method was adopted to conduct the present study. To this end, a qualitative method with a thematic analysis approach was first implemented to investigate the statistical population. The required data were collected by reviewing the published national and international articles using the keyword "knowledge sharing" in search engines. In total, 387 scientific research articles were retrieved from searching the literature. Then, the inclusion criteria were used to filter the information and reduce the number of articles to 48 containing the related codes specific to the themes. The quantitative part was an analytical survey. The statistical population included the nurses of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. The structural equation modeling methodology was adopted to determine a sample size of 284 individuals. Results. In the qualitative part, there were 27 main themes, 11 sub-core themes, and nine knowledge-sharing organizing themes, including attitude, mental norms, rewards, costs, perceived behavioral control, mutual benefits, knowledge-sharing tools, and perception of gaining reputation. The components of knowledge-sharing intention were identified in the quantitative part based on the nurses' points of view, and gaining reputation, mutual benefits, and mental norms were found the most important components in order of priority. Conclusion. Based on the findings of this study, the components of attitude, perceived behavioral control, reward, mutual benefits, reputation and subjective norms are effective in the knowledge sharing behavior pattern of nurses and can cause the actual behavior of the individual.