Trust, organizational commitment and tacit knowledge sharing between employees in IT industry firms in Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

In organizations, knowledge is divided into two types: explicit and tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge can play an important role towards company’s sustainable development and competitiveness capabilities. The crucial of tacit knowledge has been verified in relation to decision-making, time management, quality and performance in organizations. Tacit knowledge is an intangible asset and its value increases as more people share it. However, tacit knowledge sharing is not a very easy task because of its complex nature. This study aims to analyze the psychological mechanism affecting the tacit knowledge sharing (TKS) behaviour of IT employees based on psychological contract model and organizational commitment literature. Surveys were designed by structured questionnaires to collect data using convenience sampling and yielded 408 responses from IT employees working at IT industry enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City. The research hypotheses were developed and validated using structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. The results show that TKS is directly influenced partly by trust (TRU) among coworkers and three organizational commitment components such as affective, normative, and continuance commitment (AOC, COC and NOC) mediate the relationship between TRU and TKS. Based on these results, author offers some suggestions to managers in firms concerning relevant policies that enable their knowledgeable employees to share tacit knowledge.