Models for Describing Knowledge Sharing Practices in the Healthcare Industry: Example of Experience Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

Healthcare organisations have recently realised that medical knowledge not only needs to be managed but also shared among professionals and patients. Inadequate knowledge sharing in healthcare organisations can lead to medical errors. As a result, knowledge sharing in healthcare industry may no longer be a “nice to have” process but changes into a “must have” one. Acknowledgement of the importance of knowledge sharing in healthcare organisations has resulted in a number of studies in exploring and examining this phenomenon. Most of these valuable contributions are related to the nature of knowing, knowledge sharing means, and governance mechanisms. Despite the richness and depth in these three streams of research, none of the existing studies integrate these three concepts. And hence, there remains uncertainty about the intrinsic relationship among these three kinds of concepts. It is thus worthwhile to examine firstly, the relationship among these concepts and secondly, their impact on knowledge sharing performance. This study provides a comprehensive view of knowledge sharing practices from the three mentioned perspectives. A model for these three aspects of knowledge sharing practices is built through literature review, and the relationship among them is explored. It is proposed that both knowledge sharing means and governance mechanism impact the knowledge sharing process directly. Additionally, the governance mechanism has an indirect impact on the knowledge sharing process by influencing the choice and usage of the means. This study will provide organisations and policy makers with a framework to better understand knowledge sharing practices from different perspectives. This study applies the proposed model of the study as a core analytical framework to find out how strong experience knowledge sharing can be achieved and explain the reasons of that.