Factors affecting knowledge sharing among governmental employees abroad: Case of a Kuwaiti embassy

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Abdulla Abdulrahman Al‐Kandari,Adel Ismail Al‐Alawi,Sara Abdulrahman Al‐Bassam
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2412

ACADEMIC PAPER

Factors affecting knowledge sharing among governmental

employees abroad: Case of a Kuwaiti embassy

Abdulla Abdulrahman Al-Kandari

1

| Adel Ismail Al-Alawi

2

|

Sara Abdulrahman Al-Bassam

3

1

Curriculum and Teaching Methods, College of

Basic Education, Al-Ardiya, Kuwait

2

Department of Management and Marketing,

College of Business Administration, University

of Bahrain, Zallaq, Bahrain

3

Department of Innovation & Technology

Management, College of Graduate Studies,

Arabian Gulf University, Manama, Bahrain

Correspondence

Adel Ismail Al-Alawi, Department of

Management & Marketing, College of Business

Administration, The University of Bahrain,

P.O. Box 32038, Zallaq, Bahrain.

Email: adel.alalawi@gmail.com

Knowledge sharing (KS) is an individual behavior that can be supported and encour-

aged by systems and processes in organizations to exchange or transfer tacit and

explicit knowledge. This paper aims to investigate factors affecting KS among gov-

ernmental employees abroad and to examine the relationship between factors such

as tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, informal communications, personal disputes,

and institutional role on KS among the employees of the Kuwaiti Embassy in Bahrain

as an example of one of the Kuwaiti embassies in the world. This study identifies five

variables through a review of the literature with positive correlation coefficients that

are statically significant at level 0.01, with 99% confidence to support all the factors.

The quantitative methods used to gather the primary data and the targeted popula-

tion consisted of 62 Kuwait Embassy employees. The results indicated that all factors

were positively and significantly related to KS in a governmental organization. The

findings also show that all the factors significantly affect KS. Future research is

needed to study KS; moreover, it would also be interesting to investigate hypotheti-

cal differences of the KS between embassy staff, others in the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs (MOFA), and those who are in other governmental organizations and private

institutions. Factors affecting KS among embassy employees were reviewed to sug-

gest a conceptual model explaining the significance of KS. This paper presents a fur-

ther clear vision of the factors that affect KS in the embassy. Consequently,

management in the MOFA can implement a practical plan to support those factors.

1|INTRODUCTION

Over the last decade, the effects of knowledge were evident and cau-

ght the interestof various researchers in the publicand private sectors.

The realizationthat knowledge is the most valuable asset of anyorgani-

zation and the first driver of success and superior performance leads

firms to develop means to capture knowledge and transfer it among

the stakeholders such as employees, customers, and even citizens to

empower them to access governmental public databases and facilitate

online services and transactions. Al-Alawi, Al-Marzooqi, and

Mohammad (2007, p. 24) stated the significance of knowledge sharing

(KS) for the success of knowledge management (KM) in organizations

and emphasized that whereas “traditional KM emphasis was placed on

technology or the ability to build systems that efficiently process and

leverage knowledge, the new model of KM involvespeople and actions.

It aims at creating an environment where power equals sharing knowl-

edge rather thankeeping it.”Al-Alawi (2005.p . 107) further argued that

“KM initiatives are weak in Bahraini organizations because they

deployed technology and ignored cultural and organizational develop-

ment issuesthat are seminal to any successfulKM project or system.”

1.1 |Knowledge sharing in the government

KS is individual behavior that can be supported and encouraged by

systems and processes in organizations to exchange or transfer tacit

Received: 25 March 2020 Revised: 2 July 2020 Accepted: 16 August 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2412

J Public Affairs. 2022;22:e2412. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1of12

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2412