Why should I share my knowledge? A multiple foci of commitment perspective

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12037
• Author: Yvonne Rossenberg,Zeynep Y. Yalabik,Nicholas Kinnie,Juani Swart
• Published date: 01 July 2014
• Date: 01 July 2014

Why should I share my knowledge? A multiple foci

of commitment perspective

Juani Swart,Nicholas Kinnie,Yvonne van Rossenberg and Zeynep Y. Yalabik,

Work and Employment Research Centre, School of Management, University of Bath

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 24, no 3, 2014, pages 269–289

Knowledge-intensive firms need to leverage their individual knowledge assets via knowledge sharing to

create collective knowledge resources. This process is, however, in the control of the knowledge worker.

We explore this personal and emotive quality of knowledge sharing by asking: ‘How does employee

commitment impact on knowledge sharing?’ We study professional service firms operating in

cross-boundary environments and examine the impact of commitment to the organisation, profession,

team and client on knowledge sharing. The article contributes directly to our understanding of the

interrelationship between (a) the types and foci of commitment and (b) bidirectional knowledge sharing.

Contact: Prof Juani Swart, School of Management, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath

BA2 7AY, UK. Email: j.a.swart@bath.ac.uk

INTRODUCTION

Knowledge assets are at the heart of the competitive advantage of knowledge-intensive

firms, such as professional service firms (PSFs) (Drucker, 1993; Alvesson, 2004; Swart,

2007). These knowledge assets can take the form of ‘know-what’ or ‘know-how’.

Individual knowledge on its own is insufficient to create competitive advantage, and it is only

when knowledge is shared at the collective level that the organisation can leverage the

knowledge held by individuals. The process of knowledge sharing is, however, controlled by

the employee. Previous research indicates that employee attitudes, such as their level of

commitment, are central to this individual control and their subsequent knowledge sharing

(Chan and Mauborgne, 1998; Hislop, 2003; Lin, 2007). Professionals are, however, committed

not only to the organisation that employs them but also to the teams in which they work and

the clients for whom they work (Ravishankar and Pan, 2008). An experienced lawyer is, for

example, more likely to share his/her knowledge with his/her team if he/she is committed to

that team. In this article, we examine how the various foci of commitment impact on the

knowledge sharing behaviour of professionals, and therefore ultimately on the competitive

advantage of the firm.

The impact of employee commitment on knowledge sharing behaviour is especially

important in contemporary organisations, such as PSFs. Work within these firms takes place

both within and across organisational boundaries. Professional employees interact with a series

of parties, such as specialist teams, clients and partners, who are outside the firm. Some of these

parties provide additional, and often competing, foci of commitment (Becker, 2009).

Professionals face a series of tensions when their personal control over their knowledge is

combined with cross-boundary working. Their knowledge sharing with colleagues may be

limited when they feel torn between their commitment to different internal and external parties

with whom they interact. The lawyer who is highly committed to his/her clients may develop

such client-specific knowledge that he/she feels little incentive or need to share his/her

knowledge with colleagues.

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12037

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 3, 2014 269

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Swart, J., Kinnie, N., van Rossenberg, Y. and Yalabik,Z.Y. (2014) ‘Why should I share my knowledge? A multiple

foci of commitment perspective’. Human Resource Management Journal 24: 3, 269–289.

This article draws on empirical data from a medium-sized global PSF to ask: ‘How does the

commitment of employees influence their knowledge sharing behaviour within their

organisation?’ In doing so, it makes two contributions to existing literature: first, it examines

the various types of employee commitment to the organisation, and in addition their

commitment to other parties, i.e. their team, profession and client; second, we consider two

types of knowledge sharing: providing and obtaining knowledge within the organisation. We

find that for three of these foci (organisation, team and profession), commitment is positively

related to both types of knowledge sharing, while commitment to the client is negatively

related to knowledge sharing in the organisation.

The article is structured as follows. We begin by outlining the relevant previous research on

employee attitudes, and in particular the multiple foci of commitment and their impact on

knowledge sharing behaviours in order to generate a series of hypotheses. We then present our

case study organisation, its unique characteristics, data collection and analysis methods, and the

measures that we have used. Finally, we discuss and analyse our results before considering the

implications of our work for further research.

PREVIOUS RESEARCH

We build on previous research (Von Nordenflycht, 2010) that categorised PSFs according to

their degree of knowledge intensity, capital intensity and professionalisation of their workforce

to identify four types: classic PSFs, professional campuses, neo-PSFs and technology

developers. Our focus is on neo-PSFs, which possess high knowledge intensity and low capital

intensity and professional regulation as seen in consulting firms and advertising agencies. Like

all PSFs, these firms rely on their knowledge assets to generate competitive advantage

(Alvesson, 2004). It is, therefore, important to be clear about what we mean by knowledge. We

emphasise the know-how and experience of professionals, and therefore differentiate between

knowledge and information (Swart, 2011). This is of particular importance given that we study

PSFs who translate the skills and experience of their employees into client solutions. Our

definition of knowledge is the fluid mix of framed experiences, values, contextual information

and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences

and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organisations, it often

becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories, but also in organisational routines,

processes, practices and norms (Davenport and Prusak, 1998: 5). There are particular aspects of

this definition that are worth noting, i.e. the emphasis on experience and the multilevel nature

of knowledge. That is to say, it exists at the individual and collective levels. It is this very aspect

that emphasises the fact that knowledge (experience) per se is not a valuable strategic resource,

and that it is only once the knowledge is shared (at the collective level) that the organisation

can leverage its knowledge assets.

Knowledge sharing

We define knowledge sharing as a multilevel phenomenon that can be realised at the

individual, intraorganisational and interorganisational levels (Wilkesmann, 2009). In this

process, organisational actors such as individuals, teams and units exchange, receive and are

influenced by the experience of others (Argote and Ingram, 2000). The very act of sharing

knowledge is always controlled by individuals, who may act on behalf of a team, which makes

this a highly interpersonal process (Empson, 2001: 843). That is to say, the sharing of knowledge

cannot be ‘controlled’ by the organisation, and the emphasis should therefore be on facilitating

Why should I share my knowledge?

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© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.