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This paper aims to explore the relationships between participants’ perceived benefits of sharing knowledge privately, within a group or with the general public within an organisational knowledge network. The quality and quantity of knowledge shared are explored in relation to the level of knowledge sharing visibility (both content and participants’ profiles).

A research framework of perceived benefits of knowledge sharing is designed; survey and content analysis are used to explore influences of perceived benefits on the quantity and quality of knowledge shared by participants for each level of knowledge sharing within an organisation. The research model is empirically tested using a questionnaire survey with 205 participants and content analysis of their contributions in a high-tech corporate group. This study uses the partial least squares path-modelling method to explore relationships between constructs of the research model.

The current research results show that intrinsic benefits are more influential than extrinsic benefits for private knowledge sharing, while extrinsic rewards play an important role at the public knowledge sharing within organisations. In addition, results indicate that both the quality and quantity of knowledge sharing at the group-level knowledge sharing are significantly higher than at the private and the public levels.

Contemporary knowledge management systems are developed by integrating communication channels in different visibility levels of knowledge exchange. Managers of knowledge management systems are advised to use the research outcome for developing incentive strategies in different levels.

In contrast to previous studies that focus on only one level of knowledge sharing, this paper explores relationships between perceived benefits of knowledge sharing with the quantity and quality of shared knowledge for three distinct levels of knowledge sharing.

This paper aims to examine how knowledge sharing behavior is influenced by three sets of dynamics: a rational calculus that weighs the costs and benefits of sharing; a dispositional preference that favors certain patterns of sharing outcomes; and a relational effect based on working relationships.

Concepts from social exchange theory, social value orientation, and leader‐member exchange theory are applied to analyze behavioral intentions to share knowledge. The study population consists of employees of a large pension fund in Canada. Participants answered a survey that used allocation games and situational vignettes to measure social value orientation, propensity to share knowledge, and perception of cost and benefit.

The results suggest that personal preferences about the distribution of sharing outcomes, individual perceptions about costs and benefits, and structural relationship with knowledge recipients, all affect knowledge sharing behavior significantly. Notably, it was found that propensity to share knowledge is positively related to perceived benefit to the recipient, thus suggesting that evaluation of cost and benefit in social exchange is not limited to self‐interest, but is also influenced by perceived recipient benefit. Moreover, it was found that the relationship with the sharing target (superior or colleague) also influenced sharing.

Most studies emphasize the organizational benefits of knowledge sharing. This study examines knowledge sharing from the perspective of the individual who approaches knowledge sharing as a social exchange that involves perceptions of costs and benefits, preferences about sharing outcomes, and relationship with the sharing target. The study also introduces innovative methods to measure social value orientation and propensity to share knowledge.

This paper aims to explore participants’ perceived benefits and costs that influence the quantity and the quality of voluntary participation in knowledge networks in a resources-constrained economy.

A conceptual model of perceived benefits and costs of knowledge sharing is designed on the basis of literature. The influence of perceived benefit and cost on perceived quantity and quality of knowledge sharing are assessed on the basis of a survey with 283 participants in a business context within a resource-restrained economy.

The results indicate that reputation, reciprocity and altruism are perceived to benefit quantity of participation, whereas reciprocity, altruism and knowledge self-efficacy are perceived to benefit the quality of participation in knowledge networks. Effort and time have a negative impact on both quantity and quality of participation in knowledge sharing.

This study provides insights into the factors that influence acceptance and use of knowledge networks and can thus influence business policies.

This exploratory study explores both perceived benefits and costs of participation in knowledge sharing in a resource-constrained economy.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the relationships among factors which result in improved knowledge sharing, through the empirical validation of a theoretical model consisting of three dimensions: expected benefit in relation to knowledge sharing, trust at workplace, and employee knowledge‐sharing behavior.

This study targets three technological companies with a total of employees exceeding 1,500 (n=563), utilizing a survey questionnaire as the data collection instrument to test the relationship among the three dimensions. The structural equation modeling approach is used to test the proposed model.

The results show that trust at workplace has a mediating effect on organizational knowledge‐sharing behavior. It is also discovered that there is significant correlation between expected personal benefit through sharing knowledge and the development of trust at workplace.

This study contributes empirical data to the predominantly theoretical literature by offering a deeper understanding of the mediating effect of trust on employee's expected benefit for the purpose of knowledge exchange behavior within teams and among teams.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate both the impact of different reward types and the adoption of knowledge-sharing practice on a crowdsourcing-based open innovation contest. Despite the benefit of knowledge sharing, contestants could struggle to find a balance between knowledge sharing and knowledge protection in open innovation.

The authors' approach follows a stylised contest model in a game-theoretical setting in which contestants first decide on their efforts and then the contest sponsor chooses the winner. Moreover, the outcome of an open innovation contest is delineated as either intermediate goods that require further refinement and risk-taking versus a market-ready end product for the contest sponsor. The authors also investigate how knowledge sharing among contestants would be influenced by reward types such as fixed-monetary prizes vs performance-contingent awards.

The contest sponsor will lower the prize level after adopting knowledge sharing. Therefore, the total effort will decline regardless of the reward type. Moreover, the choice of reward types depends on the contest sponsor's characteristics because the performance-contingent award is suitable for a large market size but the fixed-monetary prize can more efficiently raise the quantity of contestant inputs.

Prior studies have tested the connection between contest performance and knowledge sharing in crowdsourcing-based contests; however, there is not an integrated framework to best design the operation of a contest when considering different reward types and knowledge-sharing practices.

In practice, showing the community’s need for knowledge (e.g. listing requests for new articles) is used to drive knowledge sharing in Wikipedia. Yet, theoretical understanding of how it influences one’s knowledge sharing is still lacking. The aim of this study is to develop a model of the influence and show that one takes others’ utility into account (utility interdependence).

The proposed model was tested with data collected in a survey of 323 Wikipedia users.

Others’ knowledge need affects one’s perceived forgone benefit of free riding (i.e. a cost of knowledge sharing) and, thereby, increases the intention to share knowledge.

This study contributes to research by identifying utility interdependence in knowledge sharing. For practice, the findings provide empirical support for the general belief that showing others’ knowledge need is useful for promoting sharing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that affect knowledge sharing in a public sector organization.

The paper is based on quantitative research. The data were gathered through questionnaires and analyzed using multiple regression.

Community‐related considerations, normative considerations and personal benefits were three motivators found to have a unique contribution to the variance in knowledge sharing. The following enablers had a significant main effect on knowledge sharing: social interaction, rewards, and organizational support. Two barriers, degree of courage and degree of empathy, which measured organizational climate, were found to have a significant main effect on knowledge sharing. The interaction of normative consideration with social interaction, personal benefit with organizational support, and normative considerations with degree of courage, had a moderating effect on the relationship between motivating factors and knowledge sharing.

The study was conducted in a single public sector organization, which limits the generalizability of the findings to other settings. Another limitation is that attitudes toward knowledge sharing, and knowledge‐sharing behaviors, vary across cultures. Finally, self‐reported data are subject to response bias.

Identifying factors that influence knowledge sharing could help practitioners create a knowledge‐sharing culture that is needed to support knowledge sharing and knowledge management within public sector organizations.

This empirical study will contribute to the theoretical knowledge on knowledge sharing in the public sector, which has been neglected in knowledge‐sharing research.

This study aims to investigate the key elements that influence knowledge sharing practice, primarily the relationship between knowledge sharing practice and organizational performance within the oil and gas (OG) industry.

A sample of 203 responses was collected from the OG industry using an online questionnaire. Data were analyzed using applied structural equation modeling to validate the model and test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that significant relationships exist among the model constructs. These findings provide a better understanding of the factors that influence knowledge sharing practices within the OG industry. These findings prove that knowledge sharing practices positively impact organizational performance through cost reduction, organization growth and intangible benefits.

This study demonstrates that organizations in the OG industry may increase performance by adopting knowledge sharing practices. This study also provides practitioners with important information to enhance knowledge sharing practice within their organizations. For instance, managers should focus on Web 2.0 and other knowledge sharing systems to facilitate both tacit and explicit knowledge sharing. The findings provide empirical evidence that knowledge sharing practices allow organizations to transfer expert knowledge to younger generations of employees. As a result, organizations will be able to capture knowledge and alleviate the negative impact of high staff turnover within the OG industry.

The lack of knowledge sharing practices and the eminent loss of technical knowledge within the (OG) industry, because of retirements and turnover, create a difficult challenge for practitioners. Research on knowledge sharing within the OG industry is limited. Therefore, this study provides an in-depth analysis regarding the critical knowledge sharing practices and valuable information to researcher and practitioners’ knowledge sharing practices within the OG industry.

The purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical model that integrates two different mechanisms to explain knowledge sharing. First, adapted from traditional reward systems, the calculative-based mechanism (CBM) serves as the benchmark. Second, the relational-based mechanism (RBM) plays a complementary role. RBM is founded on social interaction and consists of two social network constructs: relational deposits (i.e. network and valued network centralities) and withdrawals (i.e. network and valued network densities).

This study collected survey data in collaboration with a health-care organization. The data collected from 180 respondents were tested against the research model using a partial least squares analysis.

This study found the CBM to be beneficial for knowledge sharing. The findings support the RBM prediction of a positive relationship between the deposit construct and knowledge sharing, but fail to support the RBM prediction on the withdrawal construct. The RBM explained about 15 per cent more of the variance than the CBM. In addition, the withdrawal construct of the RBM predicts respondents’ beliefs in reciprocal obligation.

RBM does not as strongly associate with economic benefits as the CBM, but it still plays a noteworthy role in increasing the possibility of an individual knowledge sharing.

The study is the first to propose the concepts of relational deposits and withdrawals. The authors use a roster-based sociometric approach to collect the social network data and to benchmark the effect of RBM with that of CBM on individual knowledge sharing and his/her beliefs in reciprocal obligation.

This empirical study explores knowledge outflows from MNE subsidiaries and its impact on subsidiary performance. We develop hypotheses derived from literature on MNE knowledge flows integrated with an organizational economics perspective on knowledge-creating MNE subsidiaries. The hypotheses are tested using a simultaneous equation model applied to a unique data set encompassing a German MNE, HeidelbergCement. Enablers and impediments of knowledge outflows are assessed to explain why subsidiary managers share their knowledge with other MNE units. Our findings suggest that knowledge outflows increase a subsidiary's performance only up to a certain point and that too much knowledge sharing is detrimental to the contributing subsidiary's performance.