The Relationship of Knowledge Sharing in Strategic Alliance: A Partial Least Square Analysis of Hotel Industry in Cambodia

Abstract

Seven latent variables were integrated into the Structural Equation Model to investigate the effect of Communication, Learning Intent, Mutual Commitment, Trust, Absorptive Capacity, and Knowledge Sharing on Innovation in Cambodia’s four and five-star hotel industry. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis was adopted to evaluate the model’s suitability. The empirical results of this research found that there was a direct positive significant effect of Communication, Mutual Commitment, and Trust on Knowledge Sharing. All latent variables, Communication, Learning Intent, Mutual Commitment, Trust, Absorptive Capacity, and Knowledge Sharing, in this study had a significant positive influence on Innovation. Despite Learning Intent and Absorptive Capacity latent constructs had an insignificant direct effect on the Knowledge Sharing variable, it turned out that they had a highly statistically positive significant impact at a 1 percent level on the Innovation construct through the mediation of Knowledge Sharing. Regarding the estimated path coefficient generated from the model of this research, Knowledge Sharing produced the highest parameter, 3.094, and had a highly statistically significant effect on Innovation which concluded that the greater the Knowledge Sharing, the more the Innovation would be made. The second variable that had a huge direct positive impact on Innovation was Communication since the estimated slope parameter was 2.738. Keywords: Structural Equation Model, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Knowledge Sharing, Innovation