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Antecedents and Outcomes of Knowledge Sharing: A Proposed Causal Model

on Jordanian Telecommunication Firms

Conference Paper · January 2013

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 Entrepreneurship Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth 249

Antecedents and Outcomes of Knowledge Sharing:

A Proposed Causal Model on Jordanian Telecommunication Firms
Ra’ed (Moh’d Taisir) Masa’deh, MIS, Faculty of Business, The University of Jordan, Amman,
Jordan, r.masadeh@ju.edu.jo

Ala’a Hamdi Gharaibeh, MIS, Faculty of Business, The Amman Arab University, Amman, Jordan,
allaa_eng @yahoo.com

Abstract
Organizations seek to adopt management approaches that enable them to be effective and efficient.
Therefore, gurus and researchers developed management concepts and theories to meet the
organization’s environment demand and customer needs. Also, rapid technological developments
have contributed to uncertainty and unpredictability in all sectors which have emphasized the
importance of the ability of an organization to adapt to unexpected changes, something that is
considered to be critical to achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage. Indeed, knowledge
management came in this sequence to enhance organizational effectiveness and competitiveness.
Indeed, some researchers (e.g. Kumar and Rose, 2012) emphasized that very little theoretical work
arises studying the associations between knowledge sharing antecedents, knowledge sharing
capability, innovation, and firm performance. Therefore, the current study proposed a causal linkage
among such relationships.
Keywords: Knowledge Sharing, Innovation, Firm Performance, Jordan.

Background of the Study

Some scholars (e.g. Murray, 1998) argued that KM is a strategy that utilizes a firm’s intellectual
assets and the talents of its members to produce new products, values, and to enhance
competitiveness; others (e.g. Alavi and Leidner, 2001) emphasize the need for large firms to integrate
their IT with their KM strategies and processes in order to survive in their highly competitive
business environments. Therefore, some researchers emphasize that KM capability could be a vital
mediator between IT and firm performance (Chan and Reich, 2007; Masa’deh, 2012; Masa’deh and
Shannak, 2012; Shannak et al., 2012). Essentially, Nonaka (1994) distinguished two types of
knowledge: explicit and tacit knowledge. Since explicit knowledge tends to be considered as
everything that can be documented, archived, or codified, it can be contained within artifacts like
paper or technology. Therefore, it could be shared (e.g. books can be passed on, databases can be
consulted). Tacit knowledge is more difficult to qualify, and is retained by people in their heads.
Hence, it is the product of their minds’ experiences and learning. Nevertheless, in some cases it could
be shared (e.g. by the use of email, chat rooms, or instant messaging as individuals tend to use such
technologies informally). Nonetheless, explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge complete each other,
and both are important elements of knowledge management approaches in firms (Alwis and
Hartmann, 2008).

In addition, firms need to manage their knowledge resources more efficiently to enhance performance
and to attain a competitive advantage (Sáenz et al. 2012; Wu et al. 2012). Furthermore, the goal of
KM, in part, is to capture the tacit knowledge required by a business process. Therefore, KM enables
a firm to position its tacit knowledge for responding quickly to customers, creating new markets,
developing new products, and dominating emerging technologies. Another goal of KM is to capture
the explicit knowledge required by firms. This is by applying technical and socio-technical
organizational knowledge management systems. Therefore, scholars emphasize the need for firms to
integrate their IT with their KM strategies, processes, and practices to achieve competitive
advantages and greater financial performance (Kamasak and Bulutlar, 2010; Mills and Smith, 2011;
Wu et al. 2012).
250 Entrepreneurship Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth

Problem Definition
According to (Davenport and Prusak, 1998, p. 5), Knowledge can be viewed as “a fluid mix of
framed experience, values, contextual information and expert insights that provides a framework for
evaluating and incorporating new experience and information”. Further, knowledge management
consist a set of processes: knowledge creation, knowledge storage and retrieval, knowledge transfer
and knowledge application which is a key component of an effective knowledge management. Also,
researchers and practitioners focus on knowledge sharing and various enablers work together to
success knowledge sharing across the organization because of knowledge management alone cannot
lead organization to success (Kumar and Rose, 2012). According to Skyrme and Amindo (1997),
firms face several difficulties when apply knowledge management systems, including a lack of senior
management commitment; lack of making knowledge useable; lack of motivating employees to
search, accept, and adopt best industry practices; lack of motivating employees to share knowledge;
and lack of rewards and recognition. Furthermore, most firms emphasized that the bulk of the
knowledge required is available within the firm, but finding and leveraging such knowledge is
problematic (Cranfield University, 1998). Indeed, knowledge sharing is still a major issue in the field
of knowledge management. Sáenz et al. (2012) argued that there is a lack of research in this field,
examining key antecedents affecting knowledge sharing and its impact on firm performance.
Moreover, because of highly competitive in telecommunication world, telecommunication companies
need to be developed in order to compete with others. This is by recognizing that innovation is a
decisive enabler for organization to thrive (Kumar and Rose, 2012).

As stated above, some researchers (e.g. Kumar and Rose, 2012; Lin, 2007) emphasized that very little
theoretical work occurs studying the relationships between knowledge sharing antecedents,
knowledge sharing, innovation, and firm performance. Therefore, the current study comes to fill the
gap in this important area of knowledge management. This is by proposing and empirically testing a
causal model representing such relationships.

The Importance of the Study

In the field of IS, knowledge sharing has been considered as a top concern for IT managers and
business executives (Kumar and Rose, 2012; Saulais and Ermine, 2012; Sáenz et al. 2012).
Therefore, IT and business managers and executives need to pay great attention to issues related it.
Further, the focus is on the identification of the missing links as part of the causal chain between
knowledge sharing and a firm’s performance. Indeed, several researchers (e.g. Mishra and Bhaskar,
2011; Pinho et al. 2012; Rivera-Vazquez et al. 2009) called for further research to identify the
antecedents that enhance the occurrence of knowledge sharing, while others (e.g. Kamasak and
Bulutlar, 2010; Mills and Smith, 2011; Wu et al. 2012) stressed the need to study the effect of
knowledge sharing on firm performance. Therefore, in order to respond to some scholars’ calls for
further research in the field, and since no previous research has investigated the associations among
knowledge sharing antecedents, knowledge sharing, innovation capability, and firm performance; this
study comes to examine the relationship between knowledge sharing antecedents and knowledge
sharing, and its effect on firm’s performance through the exploitation of innovation capability.

Moreover, the current research is one of the first to such associations. This is to say that the study is
one of the foremost studies that is expected to enrich the knowledge when it comes to the concept of
knowledge sharing for assessing the impact of knowledge sharing antecedents on firm performance
mediated by innovation variable. It is also expected the results of this study will be valuable for
companies and might be considered as a guideline to enhance what companies in Jordan seek to
provide knowledge sharing between knowledge workers that suit the needs, requirements, and
expectations of the employees and regulators on a competitive base.

The contributions of this study will be useful for both academia and practitioners. From the academic
perspective, this study aspires to fill the gap of the incomplete causal chains between knowledge
sharing and firm performance. Furthermore, because most knowledge sharing literature is theoretical
and lacks empirical evidence, the current study will not only provide a succinct and holistic review of
the extant literature on knowledge sharing, but it will also be the first research of its kind to test the
 Entrepreneurship Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth 251

causal chain of knowledge sharing. Furthermore, from the industry practitioner’s point view, this
study will be valuable to IT managers and executives and business managers and executives in terms
of their real relationships among them and their employees, and to achieve the best practices for
managing knowledge sharing in the firms they work for. IT and business senior management also
need to recognize the knowledge sharing mechanisms in which they may well transform their IT
preferences into operational decision making. Consequently, the present findings could provide
useful and practical guidelines to IT managers and executives and business managers and executives
to walk through their investment decisions and understand the resources and conditions required to
realize the potential values of their IT investments in terms of innovation capabilities, and business-
based performance.

Research Objectives
Despite the number of researches on knowledge management, little or no empirical work has been
carried out to investigate the relationship between knowledge sharing antecedents and knowledge
sharing, and its effect on firm’s performance through the utilization of innovation. Therefore, this
study tries to fulfill the following objectives:
1. To identify the extent to which (enjoyment in helping others, knowledge self-efficacy,
top management support, organizational rewards, and ICT use) that are believed to
enable knowledge sharing put into effect in the telecommunication companies in
Jordan.
2. To identify the level of knowledge sharing that is being practiced in the
telecommunication companies in Jordan.
3. To investigate the nature of the relationships between knowledge sharing enablers (i.e.
enjoyment in helping others, knowledge self- efficacy, top management support,
organizational rewards, and ICT use); and knowledge sharing itself.
4. To investigate the nature of the relationship between knowledge sharing and business
performance through the proposed intermediary variable (i.e. innovation).

In order to achieve the above aims and objectives, the following research questions are presented:
1. Is the proposed causal model of the relationships among knowledge sharing
antecedents (i.e. enjoyment in helping others, knowledge self-efficacy, top
management support, organizational rewards, and ICT use), knowledge sharing, and
its outcomes (i.e. innovation, and business performance) valid?

2. Do knowledge sharing antecedents (i.e. enjoyment in helping others, knowledge self-

efficacy, top management support, organizational rewards, and ICT use) contribute to
knowledge sharing?

3. Does knowledge sharing contribute to business performance through the proposed

intermediary variable namely innovation?

By answering these research questions, this research will make several important contributions for
both academia and practice.

Research Methodology
According to Sekaran (2003), there are two main philosophical positions: positivism and interpretive.
Positivism is concerned with establishing the fundamental patterns or relationships in social life. It is
associated with highly structured quantitative methods such as experiments and questionnaire
surveys. An interpretive disputes that statistical patterns or correlations are not understandable on
their own. Therefore, it is necessary to uncover what meaning people give to the actions that lead to
such patterns. However, because of the nature of the current research questions, besides the
252 Entrepreneurship Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth

researcher’s limited time and budget, and her experience of Jordanian firms’ unwillingness to take
part in telephone/postal/email surveys, the current research data will be conducted by using drop and
collect surveys which cover large samples of the population. This technique is less expensive and
consumes less time than other methods such as interviews; and covers a wider geographical area than
self-administered surveys. As a result, the researcher will use this method of data collection in
Jordan.

Furthermore, data should be collected from the people, events, or objects that can provide the correct
answers to solve the problem (Sekaran, 2003) and represent the whole people, events or objects the
researcher want to study. Therefore, the population of this dissertation consists of telecommunication
employees (Zain, Orange, and Umniah) in Jordan. Indeed, the researcher will choose these three
companies as they are the largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) working in Jordan. Also, in order
to develop an appropriate sample from the population selected for this study, convenience sampling
will be used. Convenience sampling entails selecting randomly the cases that are easiest to obtain for
the sample, and continuing this process until the required sample size is reached (Saunders et al,
2007).

Research Hypotheses and Model

In order to test the causal model of the relationships among knowledge sharing antecedents (i.e.
enjoyment in helping others, knowledge self-efficacy, top management support, organizational
rewards, and ICT use), knowledge sharing, and its outcomes (i.e. innovation, and business
performance); the following hypotheses will be drawn (see Figure 1 which displays the research’s
proposed model):
H1: Performing enjoyment in helping others is positively related to knowledge sharing.
H2: Performing knowledge self-efficacy is positively related to knowledge sharing.
H3: Performing top management support is positively related to knowledge sharing.
H4: Performing organizational rewards is positively related to knowledge sharing.
H5: Performing ICT use is positively related to knowledge sharing.
H6: Knowledge sharing has a direct effect on business performance.
H7: Performing knowledge sharing is positively related to innovation.
H8: Performing innovation is positively related to business performance.
 Entrepreneurship Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth 253

H1
Enjoyment in
helping

H2
Knowledge
Self-efficacy

H7 H8

Top H3 Knowledge Business

Management Innovation
Sharing Performance
Support

Organizational H4 H6
Rewards

H5
ICT use

Fig 1. The Research Model

Operational Definitions of Variables

As this research is deductive and quantitative in nature, one of the important characteristic of
deduction is the need to operationalize the variables of the study in a way that facilitate the
measurement of facts quantitatively (Saunders et al, 2007). Knowledge sharing antecedents (i.e.
enjoyment in helping others, knowledge self-efficacy, top management support, organizational
rewards, and ICT use) were adapted from Lin (2007); Knowledge sharing was identified from Kim
and Lee (2006) and validated by Kumar and Rose (2012); innovation variable was adapted from Lee
and Choi (2003) and validated by Kumar and Rose (2012); and business performance was adapted
from Sáenz et al. (2012). Table (1) states the eight components. In addition, Table (2) shows the
measured constructs and the items measuring each construct. Indeed, this research will ask the
employees to complete the surveys on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1= strongly disagree, to 7=
strongly agree.
Table 1. Components and Definitions
Components Definition
Enjoyment in helping others The degree to which employees are motivated by
relative altruism owing to their desire to help others.
Knowledge self-efficacy The degree to which employees believe that their
knowledge can help to solve job-rotated problems and
improve work efficacy.
Top management support The degree to which top management support occur to
create a supportive climate and providing sufficient
resources.
Organizational rewards The degree to which organizations values shape
254 Entrepreneurship Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth

employee behaviors.
ICT use The degree to which ICT enhance rapid search, access
and retrieval of information, and support
communication and collaboration among
organizational employees.
Knowledge sharing The ability of employees to share their work-related
experience, expertise, know-how, and contextual
information with other employees through informal
and formal interactions within or across teams or work
units.
Innovation The degree of belief that the organizations produce
novel ideas to enhance the provision of different
services or establishment of new products.
Business performance The degree to which organizations achieve financial
and market performance compared to their key
competitors.

Table 2. Constructs and Measurement Items

Construct Measurement Items
Enjoyment in helping others • I enjoy sharing my knowledge with colleagues
• I enjoy helping colleagues by sharing my
knowledge
• It feels good to help someone by sharing my
knowledge
• Sharing my knowledge with colleagues is
pleasurable
Knowledge self-efficacy • I am confident in my ability to provide knowledge
that others in my company consider valuable
• I have the expertise required to provide valuable
knowledge for my company
• It does not really make any difference whether I
share my knowledge with colleagues (reversed
coded)
• Most other employees can provide more valuable
knowledge than I can (reversed coded)
Top management support • Top managers think that encouraging knowledge
sharing with colleagues is beneficial
• Top managers always support and encourage
employees to share their knowledge with colleagues
• Top managers provide most of the necessary help
and resources to enable employees to share
knowledge
• Top managers are keen to see that the employees
are happy to share their knowledge with colleagues
Organizational rewards • Sharing my knowledge with colleagues should be
rewarded with a higher salary
• Sharing my knowledge with colleagues should be
rewarded with a higher bonus
• Sharing my knowledge with colleagues should be
rewarded with a promotion
• Sharing my knowledge with colleagues should be
rewarded with an increased job security
ICT use • Employees make extensive use of electronic storage
(such as online databases and data warehousing) to
access knowledge
• Employees use knowledge networks (such as
groupware, intranet, virtual communities, etc.) to
 Entrepreneurship Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth 255

communicate with colleagues

• My company uses technology that allows
employees to share knowledge with other persons
inside the organization
• My company uses technology that allows
employees to share knowledge with other persons
outside the organization
Knowledge sharing • I voluntarily share my know-how, information, and
knowledge with other employees
• I cooperate or communicate with other employees
in teams or groups for sharing information and
knowledge
• I can freely access documents, information, and
knowledge held by other divisions within the
organization
Innovation • My organization has produced many novel and
useful ideas (services/products)
• My organization fosters an environment that is
conducive to our own ability to produce novel and
useful ideas (services/products)
• My organization spends much time in producing
novel and useful ideas
• My organization considers producing novel and
useful ideas as being important activities
• My organization actively produces novel and useful
ideas (services/products)
Business performance • Compared to your key competitors over the last five
years, innovation outcomes have had a very positive
impact on the company’s income statement
• Compared to your key competitors over the last five
years, innovation outcomes have had a very positive
impact on the company’s competitive position
• Compared to your key competitors over the last five
years, innovation outcomes have allowed the
company to grow and improve its market share

Data Analysis
By using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17, descriptive analysis will be used
to describe the characteristic of the sample and the respondents of the questionnaires. Also, in order
to examine the research hypotheses, the current study will employ Structural Equation Modeling
(SEM) techniques with Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) 6 software. SEM can be divided into
two sub-models: a measurement model and a structural model. Whereas the measurement model
identifies relationships between the observed and unobserved variables, the structural model defines
relationships among the unobserved (i.e. latent) variables by specifying which latent variables
directly or indirectly influence (i.e. cause) changes in other latent variables in the model (Byrne,
2001).

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