The Contribution of Technological Factors on Knowledge Sharing Quality among Government Officers in Malaysia

In the following section, we present literature review related to the study.This is followed by the research theoretical framework, research methodology and discussion on the results.As conclusion, we summarize the main findings and discuss the limitations of the research. Literature Review Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing and Information TechnologyKnowledge management is a process that encompasses three main elements: organizational learning, information management and information technology (Stoddart, 2001).Organizational learning is closely related to changing employees' attitude towards knowledge sharing whereas information management focuses on categorization, compilation and access to information and data in computer applications.Stoddart (2001) views information technology as tools to facilitate the flow of information and knowledge sharing.This indicates that information technology is part of knowledge management and it plays an important role in knowledge sharing.Knowledge that is shared by individuals in organizations becomes organizational knowledge and could be described by four modes of knowledge exchange (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995;Sveiby, 1997).These are socialization, externalization, combination and internalization.Based on these modes, Van den Brink (2003) explains the knowledge sharing process that occurs in each mode as shown in Table 1.The process of knowledge sharing could take place either through technology-mediated channel or non-technology mediated channel (Lee & Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).Technologymediated channel could be in the form of video-conferencing, listservs, newsgroup, groupware, virtual team rooms, e-mail, voicemail, etc. (Lee & Al-Hawamdeh, 2002).Thus, the reliability of technology is paramount for knowledge sharing (Lee & Al-Hawamdeh, 2002) because it has become a facilitator for knowledge transfer (Roberts, 2000).