Knowledge transfer and knowledge sharingas concepts were used interchangeably in the early work presented afterNonaka’s Harvard Business Review article with knowledge transfer being usedmore. The author that adopted the term ‘Knowledge Sharing’ was Melissa M.Appleyard in 1996 (Paulin and Suneson, 2012). Here, she included bothcomparisons on the industry level of interaction (by comparing knowledgesharing in the semiconductor industry with knowledge sharing in the steel industry)and on a national level (Japan is compared to the US) using individualrespondents. Other researchers in the same stream are Dyer and Nobeoka (2000).
Their findings include the statement that Toyota’s relative productivityadvantages were explained in part by their ability to create and sustainnetwork-level knowledge sharing processes. Otherperspectives that are strong in the Knowledge sharing (KS) stream of researchare psychological and the sociological. Cabrera and Cabrera (2002), for example,included the psychological notion of social dilemmas when analyzing theinclination of individuals to share knowledge with other individuals regardlessof the fact that the company they work for has invested in specific technologyto enable such knowledge sharing. Fernie,S., Green, S.
D., Weller, S. J., & Newcombe, R. (2003) have a strong focuson personal knowledge. They argue that knowledge is highly individualistic andthat it is embedded in specific social contexts.
This article is a decent caseof the course within the information that is centered around the individuallevel setting particular subjective learning (Fernie et al, 2003). Another example of this stream is when knowledgesharing between individuals in organizations is examined. Here, four majorfactors that influence Knowledge sharing (KS) were identified as: nature of knowledge, motivation to share, opportunities to share and culture the work environment (Ipe, 2003).Wang and Noe (2010) presented an in-depthreview of articles on individual-level knowledge sharing.
They submitted thattheir article was the first to systematically review individual knowledgesharing and that previous reviews have focused on technological issues ofknowledge sharing or knowledge transfer across units or organizations, orwithin inter-organizational networks.
