Knowledge sharing practices: A case study at Malaysia’s healthcare research institutes

The main objective of this study was to investigate the perception of the researchers and officers within the National Institutes of Health Malaysia (NIH) about their understanding of knowledge sharing practices in their respective environment. Questions included: what are the perceptions of the respondents with regard to the knowledge sharing practices in their respective institutions? What are the benefits for knowledge sharing practices as perceived by them? What are their perceived organisational knowledge sharing practices motivating factors? Also, what are the hindering factors? The survey of the researchers and officers of the NIH was distributed to 400 respondents from the six research institutes under NIH: Institute for Medical Research (IMR), Institute for Public Health (IPH), Network for Clinical Research Centres (CRC), Institute for Health Management (IHM), Institute for Health Systems Research (IHSR) and Institute for Health Promotion (IHP). The responses indicated that knowledge sharing depends on the context of encouraging and rewarding the practices of organisational knowledge sharing. The findings suggest four factors – Environment and Infrastructure, Management Support, Culture and Technology – as significant determinants in influencing the organisational knowledge sharing practices among the employees. The study was limited to the perceptual aspect of the issue, specifically from the individuals’ opinions and sentiments.

► Responses to survey of 400 researchers and officers at NIH Malaysia examined view of knowledge sharing (KS) practices.
► Responses indicate KS depends on encouraging and rewarding sharing of organisational knowledge.
► Two key determinants of KS are environment and infrastructure and management support.
► Two additional determinants of KS are culture and technology.