An analysis of faculty perceptions: Attitudes toward knowledge sharing and collaboration in an academic institution

Knowledge-sharing is the process of being aware of knowledge needs and making knowledge available to others by constructing and providing technical and systematic infrastructure. Numerous studies have addressed issues related to knowledge-sharing at various levels within organizations and between types of organizations. This study identifies and analyzes major factors for knowledge-sharing among faculty members in a higher educational institution in order to examine how those factors influence campus wide knowledge-sharing. It also investigates the way in which those factors are interrelated. Data were collected through a survey of full-time university faculty members at one private, four-year research university in South Korea. Results show that perception is the most influential factor and reward systems are the second-most influential factor for faculty knowledge-sharing. Respondents do not consider other factors such as Trust, Openness in Communication, Collaboration, and Communication Channels based on IT Infrastructure to be main factors. These factors do not have a statistically significant effect on faculty knowledge-sharing.