Improving knowledge sharing behaviors: The contribution of cultural and job design factors within innovative manufacturing companies

Knowledge management scholars have long been concerned about the way managers could lead organizational members to voluntarily share what they know within the company, thus underlining that the success of knowledge management activities is strongly linked to how intra-organizational knowledge sharing is implemented. The relevance of knowledge sharing process is justified by the fact that sharing knowledge and information allows employees to talk and listen to each other, to stimulate new knowledge creation and to fasten mutual learning. Knowledge sharing is thus the first step organizations should take to value and exploit their knowledge. Studying knowledge sharing processes within firms becomes particularly relevant when the focus is on knowledge-intensive organizations where strategic knowledge is usually dispersed across highly skilled workers operating in different units, departments, or divisions and whose values needs to be exploited as much as possible in order to support the ability of the firm to remain competitive in its market.