Obstacles Facing Knowledge Sharing in Developing Countries: Case study: Saudi Arabia

摘要

Innovation and product development are in the heart of much of today’s global economy.rnSince, innovation is a collective effort of the individuals in any organization; managing andrnsharing knowledge are becoming the major vehicle for the organizations to achieve theirrngoals and to compete and to foster innovation consistently.rnKnowledge Management (KM) is built around the cumulative experiences and practices ofrnthe individuals in a certain discipline. It relies heavily on the attitude and willingness ofrnemployees to share their knowledge with others. In this respect, knowledge sharing practicesrnand initiatives forms a key component of knowledge management programs, in terms ofrnorganizational and individual learning.rnThis paper addresses the parameters and possible obstacles of knowledge sharing practicesrnthat make it difficult for KM to achieve the goals of the organizations. It aims at identifyingrnthe possible knowledge sharing barriers in some of the developing countries. Thernknowledge sharing parameters and obstacles have been indentified and used throughout thernfield work investigations and surveys. The paper suggests grouping of the factors that affectrnknowledge sharing practices into five groups: Individual skill and culture, Individual feelings,rnIndividual characteristics, Organizational issues, and Technologies issues.rnA number of the Saudi companies have been selected as a sample for field testing. Data wererncollected and analyzed in order to confirm the validity of the proposed main factors, and thernsub-factors that may affect the process of Knowledge sharing. The analysis identified thernpotential barriers for knowledge sharing in the selected companies - considered as arnrepresentation of companies in developing countries. The findings can provide a helpfulrnstarting point and guideline for Saudi managers to be able to audit the existing practices ofrnknowledge sharing in their organizations and to identify the existing bottle-necks in order torndeal with them to improve the overall effectiveness of knowledge sharing activities.rnThe paper discusses the results which show that the most prevalent obstacles are thosernobstacles associated with "Individual’s feelings", followed by obstacles associated withrn"Individual’s skill and culture, then, obstacles associated with "Technology issues" factor,rnand fourthly with obstacles associated with "Organizational issues".