Knowledge Sharing in Workplace: Motivators and Demotivators

This paper gives an overview of knowledge sharing in workplace. Based on the review of critical literaturesby the authors, they infer that knowledge sharing in workplace can be influenced by motivators anddemotivators. Activities of knowledge sharing in organizations may be on organization level or individuallevel. Knowledge sharing of both levels is critical to the success or failure of knowledge management insideand outside of organizations. Age, culture, and industry were all found to affect knowledge sharing amongworkers. A common stereotype is that older workers hoard knowledge because they are more insecure andfeel threatened by younger workers. Since older workers have more valuable knowledge, younger workersneeded to entice their older colleagues to share their valuable knowledge with them. The paper focus onmotivators and demotivators to sharing Knowledge in workplace. Theories and research pertaining to whyworkers share knowledge are reviewed. While all industry need knowledge and innovation, it is also truethat the pace of change and the need to innovate differs from industry to industry. Technology wasacknowledged to have a high important role in increasing productivity of knowledge sharing. It plays acritical role in creating, storing and distributing explicit knowledge in an accessible and expeditiousmanner.