What is it about?

a study which investigates some factors in the current state of knowledge management (KM) in Saudi Arabia, and to consider the relevance of the findings for KM and information sharing generally.

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Why is it important?

Presents an analysis of some general issues of KM and information sharing through the lens of one cultural context.

Perspectives

Knowledge has been widely known as the main source for making the right decision in information management cycle. Any organization could achieve competitive advantages' in services industries. This study aimed to: determine the type of factors that are used in information seeking feedback to knowledge sharing in Saudi Arabian companies, identify the degree of use of the "information seeking" in "organizational learning", "self-worth", "in-role behavior", "Individuals` intention to share knowledge" towards knowledge sharing, determine how the members of a consulting team tend to seek information in by sharing knowledge in general, and when they are using human and digital resources. It aimed also to compare the information seeking towards sharing knowledge between using human resources and digital resources. The study finding can be a guide lines to improve decision making process in organizational behavior in information seeking and knowledge sharing which is essential and very important. A web-based questionnaire of the survey method was applied and distributed to Saudi Arabian companies. Also a comparative approach was used to find out the differences between using human resources and digital resources. The most important finding that Information seeking feedback to knowledge sharing for workers in Saudi companies have agreed to be in four factors that modify the organizational behavior which consist of: organizational learning, sense of self worth, in- role behavior, and positive knowledge sharing behavior in doing their jobs. All the demographic factors indicated that there are no relationships between Gender, Age, Education, Job position, and Working experience and the "information seeking" of the consulting team members. There are some increased and decreased counts of organizational behaviors in information seeking towards knowledge sharing in general. the highest action is "in- role behavior", the lowest action is "positive knowledge sharing behavior", while "organizational learning" still having a higher degree of counts than "sense of self worth", but both of them have lower action than " in- role behavior". It is clear that the sample of the study tend to seek information by consulting human resources more slightly than digital resources. There is a positive medium relationship that means the use of human resources always followed by using digital resources. the Kruskal-Wallis test that led to significant results which approved that there are no differences towards knowledge sharing on the mean of sample of the study according to their information seeking behavior in the different managerial levels. The most important recommendations that Organizations that want to promote feedback seeking behavior for better decision-making, should consider the relationship between the demographic factors and the "information seeking" when sharing knowledge, and realize that information seeking towards knowledge sharing differ according to the managerial level.

Professor Sawsan Taha Dulaymi
king Abdul Aziz University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: The individual and the collective, Journal of Documentation, January 2015, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/jd-09-2014-0121.
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