Knowledge Transfer Among Academics in Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

In this fourth industrial revolution, knowledge transfer is essential among experienced academics for cross-fertilisation of ideas. Academics or colleagues in higher education institutions (HEIs) should harness and share their intuitive knowledge, skills, and experience for better service delivery. The rationale attributes to the decrease in skilled professionals in academia, technophobia, age, and language barriers. The issues of physical and mental ability, communication barrier, lack of trust, policies affirmation and organisational culture not supportive of knowledge transfer in HEIs were identified. A flair for things such as the consideration of who must capture new knowledge for organisational sustainability; suitable infrastructural facilities that can be used to gather, store and distribute information and knowledge; uncertainty of diverse economic and political influences; and limited budgetary allocation was believed to also affect knowledge transfer among academics. The qualitative research approach makes use of interpretive content/document analysis harvested from different databases to support the arguments regarding what, why and how knowledge transfer is central to every human endeavour. Findings indicate that inter-and intra-organisational knowledge transfer and organisational culture are the oil that lubricates organisational growth of academia. The study found that tacit to tacit type of knowledge, skills, and experiences were mostly transferred through communication through face-to-face discussions, online platforms, emails, and LinkedIn. Formal and informal processes of knowledge creation, application, peer-to-peer, and teamwork training approaches (coaching, mentorship, networking, and work shadows) and the use of certain tools (social and collaborative tools, video, chat, intranet, blog, posting, forum and mobile devices) were significant in this era of digital technologies. The study recommends succession planning for knowledge transfer, an attitude of trust, cooperation and teamwork, training, communication, and lifelong learning to enhance knowledge transfer among academics.