Promoting knowledge sharing performance in a knowledge management system: do knowledge workers’ behavior patterns matter?

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to identify the impact of demographical and organizational variables such as age, gender, experiences use of knowledge management system (KMS), education and job level on knowledge sharing (KS) performance of knowledge workers in knowledge activities of a KMS. Specifically, it seeks to explore that is there any relationship between the KS behavior patterns of high KS performance knowledge workers with their performance. Furthermore, this study using its conceptual attitude model aims to show that whether knowledge workers’ behavior patterns in sharing information and knowledge throughout a KMS have any specific effect or not.Design/methodology/approachThis paper proposed a framework to mine knowledge workers’ raw data using data mining techniques such as clustering and association rules mining. Also, this research uses a case-based approach to a knowledge-intensive company in Iran that works in the field of information technology with 730 numbers of workers.FindingsFindings suggest that demographical and organizational variables such as age, education and experience use of KMS have positive effects on knowledge worker’s KS behavior in KMSs. In fact, people who have lower age, higher education degrees and more experience use of KMS, have more participation in KS in KMS. Also, results depict that the experienced use of KMS has the most impact on the intention of KS in this KMS. Findings emphasize on the importance of the influence of the behavioral, organizational environments and psychological factors such as reward system, top management support, openness and trust, on KS performance of knowledge workers in the KMS. In fact, according to data, the KMS reward system caused to increasing participation of the users in KS, also in each knowledge activity that top managers participate in, the scores were higher.Practical implicationsThis research helps top managers in designing policies and strategies to improve the participation of knowledge workers in KS and helps human resource managers to improve their membership policies. Also, assist Information Technology (IT) managers to enhance KMSs’ design to leverage with organization strategies in the field of improving KS and encourage people to participate in KMS.Originality/valueThis research has two key values. First, this paper applies a data mining framework to mining and analyzing data and this paper uses actual data of a KMS in a specialist company in Iran, with about 27,740 real data points. Second, this paper investigates the impact of demographical and organizational attributes on KS behavior, which little is empirically known about the impact of demographical variables on KS intention.