Understanding the role of knowledge sharing for developing employee competencies and improve internal customer service and performance a case study of Avon Crowncaps & Containers Nig. Ltd.
Authors
Uzor, Ikechukwu Azubuike
Issue Date
2018
Degree
MBA in Human Resource Management
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
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Abstract
Purpose: knowledge sharing has a critical role to play in an organisation as a high-performance practice to develop their knowledge resource this knowledge is usually domiciled in the employee who are the knowledge holder. This research aims to understand the role of knowledge sharing in developing the competencies of organisation’s employee and investigate how Knowledge Sharing can help improve internal customers service delivery and performance. While most organisations commit financial, technical and human resources towards developing and evolving their knowledge resource and the existing literature on knowledge sharing looks at the impact of knowledge sharing on the overall organisation performance this research will contribute to the literature by focusing on the employee perception about their organisation knowledge sharing initiatives, the impact on their service delivery to other employees from different departments and the benefits of sharing knowledge. Knowledge sharing is a deliberate decision and action made by the organisation management and the organisation must play an important role of creating an enabling environment with the right support facilities to allow knowledge seeking activities to strive and develop strategies to help mitigate the impact of the barriers to knowledge sharing. Thus, this research will provide an insight into the employee perceptions on knowledge sharing, investigate the expected benefit, organisational support and barrier and make recommendations on how the organisation can manage the employee knowledge sharing initiatives. Design/methodology/Approach: This study is based on qualitative analysis of semi structured interviews from employees chosen from five different departments in Avon Crowncaps & Containers Nig. Ltd. Findings: The participants reveal things that show their understanding of their organisation knowledge sharing initiatives and they identified organisational support and impediment to knowledge sharing some of which agree with the literature review and some other are in contrast. 5 | P a g e The research revealed the importance of Information and Communication Technology facilities to the knowledge sharing process and the positive effect ICT have on knowledge sharing and the need to continually improve, upgrade and update their information and communication technology facilities to improve their innovative capabilities and aid knowledge diffusion within the organisation. The organisation culture was also another important finding of the research as we identified the need for organisations to evolve their corporate culture to a more knowledge-based culture with clearly stated knowledge sharing goals in their corporate strategy and documents. They can also organize a more unified training and development for the whole employees and this training can be done departmentally to avoid wasting of time. Originality/Value: This research findings will be of interest to human resources manager as a guide towards understanding the employee perception of knowledge sharing and how to provide the enabling environment and evolve strategies to remove barriers to knowledge sharing within the organisation.