Why employees share their knowledge

Abstract

Sharing knowledge among employees reduces the risk of losing unique knowledge, contributes to higher productivity and to higher quality, to better problem-solving, to reducing costs, and to organizational innovativeness. Knowledge sharing is driven by employee motivation for it. Nevertheless, motivation is not a simple construct. Therefore, the goal of this study was to find out which kind of motivation is essential to knowledge sharing. An inventory taking into account three types of motivation (hedonic intrinsic, normative intrinsic, and extrinsic) was constructed and a principal axis factor analysis was done. 229 participants from nine organizations fulfilled the questionnaire aimed at their motivation to knowledge sharing. The factor analysis confirmed the questionnaire construction and the inventory demonstrates a high reliability. Based on the mean of the indexes that were calculated, hedonic intrinsic motivation seemed to be the main driver of knowledge sharing. However, the relationship between motivation for knowledge sharing and the intensity of knowledge sharing in the organization was examined as well (N = 99). Motivation for knowledge sharing and all its factors were identified to be significantly related to knowledge sharing. All of these correlations were positive, and in the case of normative intrinsic motivation the correlation was moderate. That is why rather normative intrinsic motivation (and not hedonic intrinsic motivation) is essential. Additionally, the results showed no significant correlation between hedonic intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. The study indicates that managers in the Czech Republic should support employee organizational commitment if they want to achieve a higher intensity of knowledge sharing.