Key success factor ranking for intrafirm knowledge sharing in the oil and gas industry: A Delphi approach

• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1646
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Author: Thassia Silva,Luiz Antonio Joia

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Key success factor ranking for intrafirm knowledge sharing in

the oil and gas industry: A Delphi approach

Luiz Antonio Joia

1

| Thassia Silva

2

1

Brazilian School of Public and Business

Administration, Getulio Vargas Foundation,

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2

Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate

Studies and Research in Engineering, Federal

University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro,

Brazil

Correspondence

Luiz Antonio Joia, Getulio Vargas Foundation,

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Email: luiz.joia@gmail.com

Funding information

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento

Científico e Tecnológico, Grant/Award

Number: 306517/2018-3; Coordenaç~

ao de

Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior,

Grant/Award Number: 001

Knowledge and its propagation are unquestionably at the center of most, if not all,

discussions on innovation, performance, as well as other elements related to firm suc-

cess. Although the literature has proposed several key success factors for knowledge

sharing within a firm, it has yet to explore how these factors rank in terms of impor-

tance from a firm nationality perspective. Through a Delphi method approach,

upstream professionals from four major multinational Oil and Gas firms (Brazilian,

North American, Norwegian, and French) ranked specific literature-based proposed

factors for successful intrafirm knowledge sharing. There were a total of three

rounds, where the first round had 41 participants, and the remaining two rounds had

39 participants. On average, open door policy and organizational culture were the

most relevant factors that lead to knowledge sharing within the four firms. In terms

of the least relevant ones, acknowledgement and status were seen, on average, as

factors less likely to lead to intrafirm knowledge sharing. Lastly, it can be concluded

that the Oil and Gas industry is very homogeneous regarding intrafirm knowledge

sharing as the outcomes accrued from this work are very similar regardless the

nationality of the Oil and Gas firm.

1|INTRODUCTION

Knowledge is perceived as one of the main drivers in the corporate

world today (Nooshinfard & Nemati-Anaraki, 2014). Yet, for knowl-

edge to become an effective source of sustainable competitive advan-

tage for a company, it is essential that it can be sharable by its

employees. Consequently, firms are increasingly intensifying their sea-

rch for ways to share successfully knowledge among their profes-

sionals in order to prevent the loss of organizational knowledge (Bou-

Llusar & Segarra-Ciprés, 2006; Murray & Peyrefitte, 2007).

Thus, the purpose of this research is to investigate knowledge

sharing in a cross-national context within Oil and Gas (O&G) firms.

As stated by Grant (2013, p.92), “the oil and gas industry has

been at the forefront of the deployment of knowledge management

techniques.”Specific conditions found within the oil and gas indus-

try suggest that the presence of solid knowledge management prac-

tices can generate the appropriate solutions for this industry.

Moreover, adequate knowledge management practices serve to

mitigate the negative impact of knowledge loss due to retirement

and downsizing in this sector in the coming years (Drain, 2001;

Grant, 2013).

In financial terms, the energy investments stood at 1.7 trillion

USD in 2016, accounting for 2.2% of the global GDP, whereas 649

billion USD of this lump sum were directly geared toward the segment

of O&G (International Energy Agency, 2016). More specifically, in

terms of employment, a total of 10.3 million jobs came from the O&G

industry in the United States in 2016, equating to 5.6% of the total

US job market (PwC, 2017).

Therefore, this work intends to answer the following research

question: How are the key success factors for intrafirm knowledge

sharing in the O&G industry ranked vis-à-vis firm nationality?

In essence, this study aims to analyze the key success factors for

knowledge sharing in four major O&G firms from four different

nationalities (American, Brazilian, French, and Norwegian) from the

Exploration and Production (E&P) professionals' perspective, by using

the Delphi method.

The E&P area—also referred to as upstream—is highly intricate in

terms of its produced and utilized knowledge. In this context, no

Received: 9 January 2019 Accepted: 18 May 2020

DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1646

174 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Knowl Process Manag. 2020;27:174–186.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/kpm