Knowledge sharing initiatives in quantity surveying firms in Malaysia: Promoting, inhibiting and challenge factors

Knowledge sharing in an organisation is often regarded as the act of making knowledge available to others within the organisation. It is also seen as the process by which knowledge held by an individual is converted into a medium that can be understood, absorbed, and used by other individuals. Knowledge sharing is important as it provides a link between the individual and the organisation, by moving knowledge that resides within individuals to the organisational level, where it is converted into economic and competitive value for the organisation. This degree of importance attached to knowledge sharing is heightened in a knowledge economy, where knowledge is seen as a valuable resource for innovation and for gaining competitive advantage. However, increasing evidence points to a paucity of research that has investigated the nature of the different approaches to improving the effectiveness of knowledge sharing initiatives, and the appropriate organisational factors at play for knowledge sharing to be fully exploited, and the benefits gained by Quantity Surveying (QS) firms in Malaysia. This paper is based on a survey conducted among 282 respondents and interviews with 20 interviewees in 13 QS firms in Malaysia to explore and document promoting factors, inhibiting factors and challenges that organisation face with regard to knowledge sharing. The findings show that there are promoting factors associated with the effective at knowledge sharing initiatives: business strategy; organisational resources; reward; organisational culture and organisational infrastructure. Inhibiting factors are time constraint, lack of adequate resources for KM development; lack of communication skills and social network; lack of knowledge about KM and attitude of staffs. The main challenges pertain to KM strategy, training, business strategy, adequate resources and organisational culture.