What is Knowledge Sharing?

Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (i.e. information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, or members of a family, a community (e.g. Wikipedia) or an organization.

Organizations have recognized that knowledge constitutes a valuable intangible asset for creating and sustaining competitive advantages. [1] Knowledge sharing activities are generally supported by knowledge management systems. However, technology constitutes only one of the many factors that affect the sharing of knowledge in organizations, such as organizational culture, trust, and incentives.[2] The sharing of knowledge constitutes a major challenge in the field of knowledge management because some employees tend to resist sharing their knowledge with the rest of the organization.[3][4] Since there are a number of obstacles that can hinder knowledge sharing, one of the obstacles stand out. This obstacle is the notion that knowledge is property and ownership is very important.[5] In order to counteract this notion, individuals must be reassured that they will receive credit for a knowledge product that they created.[6] However, there is a risk in knowledge sharing. The risk is that individuals are most commonly rewarded for what they know, not what they share.[7] If knowledge is not shared, negative consequences such as isolation and resistance to ideas occur. To promote knowledge sharing and remove knowledge sharing obstacles, the organizational culture should encourage discovery and innovation.[8] This will result in the creation of organizational culture trust

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Sharing