THE INHIBITING FACTORS ASSOCIATED TO KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN

MESINIAGA SERVICES SDN. BHD.

Norasikin Abdul Wahab

Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia.
Email: norasikinwahab@yahoo.com

Dang Merduwati Hashim

Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia.
Email: dang@salam.uitm.edu.my

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this qualitative study aims to explore the inhibiting factors associated to knowledge sharing at
Mesiniaga Services Sdn, Bhd. (MSSB). Measuring success of knowledge management in an organization is
very much depending on how the organization cultivate the knowledge sharing activities in their daily
operations and as well as the willingness of employees to share the knowledge that they have. Therefore, the
main objectives of this research are: 1) To determine the inhabiting factors associated to knowledge sharing
among employees in MSSB. 2) To explore the most preferred and convenient ways to share knowledge
through appropriate communication channels and facilities needed to nurture knowledge sharing habit. The
expectation of this study is to improve organizational performance, team spirit, business retention rate, fast
resolution, higher First Call Resolution (FCR) and First Visit Resolution (FVR), employee trust and self-
confidence. A semi-structured interview scripts was designed to gauge the employees’ opinions on the
inhibiting factors in sharing knowledge within the organization. The purposes sampling were selected from
different units for this study and the preliminary study reveals that not all engineers capable to share technical
knowledge in written format, translating tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, ability to internalize the
information into knowledge, insufficiency of engineers, deficiency in long life learning, the absence of proper
incentive system, were found to be the unsettled problems in MSSB. The results of the study are yet to be
announce, data analysis is still in progress.

KEYWORDS: Knowledge sharing, organizational culture & performance, inhibiting factors, knowledge transfer,
Subject Matter Expert (SME)

INTRODUCTION
Knowledge Management (KM) is a set of procedure of creation definition is universally defined at various stages,
because KM simply in every commercial organization is the way companies capture, transfer, create, disseminate,
preserve, and retaining the know-how for current and future references to leverage their intellectual assets as
competitive weapons to become more efficient, effective and profitable. To ensure that KM is made continuous,
activity such as knowledge sharing are made available to all employees.

Research has shown that knowledge sharing is positively related to an increase of employee morale, skills and
knowledge, increase productivity and at the same time reduce travelling cost and shorter resolution time. (Hansen,
2002; Arthur & Huntley, 2005). Many organizations have invested for a development of knowledge management
system (KMS) to facilitate the creation, collaboration, storage and distribution of knowledge. However despite this
investment, the initiative has failed and ends up there is no sharing of knowledge happen in the organization.
Knowledge sharing is also considered to be one of the most challenging processes for a knowledge based enterprise
due to employees’ possible reluctance to share what they know (Handzic, et al, 2004).

In a journal wrote by Mitchell, people like to assume that IT is a major enabler of knowledge management and a
powerful means for sharing knowledge (Mitchell, 2003). A successful KM process is the interaction among systems,
people and corporate culture, but some people or organizations have mistaken KM as solely systems or technologies
(Chau and Ng, 2003). In MSSB, they already have a state of the art of technology that help to facilitate the
knowledge sharing but still the sharing activities are not that encouraging. This symptom has led the development of
a research to study what are the inhibiting factors associated to knowledge sharing in MSSB.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In Malaysia knowledge sharing mostly practices by Multi-National Companies (MNC) and Government-linked
Companies (GLC) like bank Negara Malaysia (BNM). In MSSB, particularly in Mission Control Centre (MCC)
Department, information overloads has resulted in unorganized, unused and inactive databases, some have loads of
information and some employees could not found what they want in the lotus notes (LN) database. It has given the
team an idea to create one-stop knowledge-based (kbased) that could be used to create new knowledge and also
serve as a repository (Leistner, F. 2010, p.122) to support their operations with one of the MNC service provider.

Using this LN Kbased, MSSB long-term objective is to transform the call center agents to technically skillful
helpdesks, and the short-term objective is to improve MSSB country performance in response and resolution time.
As a kick start, one dedicated Technical support (TS) engaged with the call center team to start transmitting
knowledge and start sharing technical knowledge via email. From this initiative, they realized that not all call center
agents capable of sharing their new technical knowledge in the LN kbased. As for the TS engagement, there was a
rotation among them, and not all are capable of sharing and converting their tacit to explicit knowledge. Selected
TS, was not willingly to stay in the office, since they were used to travel from one place to another.

A lack of incentives has been suggested as a major barrier to knowledge sharing across cultures (Yao, Kam, & Chan,
2007). The management of MSSB was once decided to give incentives in a term of monthly allowance to boost
employees motivation, i.e. TS, since they are no longer on field, unfortunately there was almost no sharing activity
in MSSB and this allowance was withheld from TS after one year and half when there was organization
restructuring in 2013, due to the business nature in MSSB, the targeted First Call Resolution (FCR) is not that
significant to the implementation of this collaboration between call center and TS.

Employees who were responsible to contribute to the LN kbased are call center and engineers, appropriate
technology transfer session were provided, form and process were updated in MSSB manuals. In some cases in the
literature, an investment has been estimated that at least $31.5 billion are lost per year by Fortune 500 companies as
a result of failing to share knowledge (Babcock, 2004; Wang, S., & Noe, R. A., 2010).
 Figure 1. Knowledge-based form used to capture knowledge from TS

As a result, the LN kbased contents was almost “freezing”, lack of entries, and employees does not seem want to
share this is also due to the LN kbased is not that friendly and reliable to remote engineers who had limited time,
slower network outside Menara Mesiniaga and unavailability of mobile devices to gain access to LN. A great deal
of knowledge within organizations resides in the minds of its employees (Handzic et al., 2004). Knowledge not only
exists in documents and repositories, but it becomes embedded in employee’s minds overtime and it is demonstrated
through their actions and behaviours (Al-Alawi et al., 2007). When an expert employee leaves, it is hard for the
organization to retain their employees’ knowledge (Leistner, F. 2010, p. 127). Especially employees from capability
management (Network engineer), they are highly diverse role and skillful, with specialty on certain products, their
post can be very demanding due to the better offering from other competitors.

Several studies have shown that individuals who are more confidence in their ability to share useful knowledge are
more likely to express intentions to share knowledge and report higher levels of engagement in knowledge sharing
(Wang, S., & Noe, R. A., 2010). Proper knowledge sharing promotes best decision making among senior
management.

BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW

Knowledge sharing is the process by which individuals exchange tacit and explicit knowledge in order to create new
knowledge (Nonaka, I.,1994; Nonaka, I., & Konno, N., 2005). One of the knowledge management enabler is it
needs supply by information technology (IT) (Yeh, Y. J., Lai, S. Q., & Ho, C. T., 2006). Meanwhile in (Chang, C.
M., Hsu, M. H., & Yen, C. H., 2012) mentioned, that many researchers postulated that information technology (IT)
plays an importance role in KM since IT could be used to broaden and deepen KM activities (Buniyamin and
Barber, 2004). It is not everything but it is something that will help and encourage KM initiative achieves its
success. Mesiniaga has realized that since 2007. There was one initiative to come out with KM portal, but it was
just last for few months with no participation.

In MSSB most of the employees are technical people (Engineers). Each unit have several levels of expertise and
required different knowledge and skills, and they are Subject Matter Experts (SME) and need to understand the
knowledge process, on how to exploit and share it in order to improve competitiveness (Cantú, L.Z. 2009). If
employees in the IT business understand that sharing their knowledge helps them do their jobs more effectively;
helps them retain their business; helps them in their personal development and career progression; rewards them for
getting things done (putting into KPI for measurement); and brings more personal recognition, then knowledge
sharing will become a reality (Gurteen, 1999).

The challenge for many of organization is to plan strategically and have ways to convert tacit knowledge from SME
into explicit knowledge are very crucial. In a case of MSSB, most of engineers are not good at writing technical
report. According to researcher observation and personal experiences, engineers prefers to have a simple chit chat
session or informal discussion to share their tacit knowledge over the coffee with other engineers who has the same
interest and comes from the same groups or was assigned to the same projects. According to one of the research
specifically focused on project team, Knowledge sharing between project teams takes place on two levels, i) Project
team leaders share knowledge primarily about how to organize and administer the project teams; and ii) Project team
members talk to colleagues from the same departments, but from other project teams, about how they have dealt
with similar problems in their project teams (Mueller, J., 2012). This was unintentionally happened in MSSB.

The most influential research studies for this research is the Handzic (2004) and by Al-Alawi (2007). Both of these
studies have influenced this research study. One of the inhibiting factors found in Handzic (2004) is when senior
academics afraid of losing power that knowledge could afford them. Same goes to leaders in MSSB, they seems not
interested to initiate the sharing knowledge activities.

Figure 2. Conceptual Model by Handzic, 2003

The above figure refers to Handzic’s model in 2003. In this study mentioned that knowledge sharing is the most
challenging processes for a knowledge-based enterprise due to employees reluctant to share what they already know.
This study also suggested that the gap between individual and organization knowledge are possibly widen than
expected. As a conclusion from this study, they found that there are strong relationship between knowledge sharing
and organizational culture comparatively to Organizational technology. (Handzic et al., 2004). Therefore, the
conceptual model adopted from Handzic, 2003 seems does not supporting researcher initial studies in MSSB. This
happened because technology is obviously not dependent only on the culture.

Although MSSB initiated a Lunch N Learn session in 2010, there is still lacking in buy-in from the leaders in
MSSB. Only few have taken this opportunity to improve the way they work, but unfortunately there is no follow up
or repetitive success in this Lunch N Learn. Consequently, from the researcher point of view there is still room for
improvement to develop proper communication plan to ensure the success of the Lunch N Learn session. In another
studies done by Handzic and Chaimungkalanont (2003), another ways to encourage the sharing of knowledge
activities is through the informal meeting and discussion over coffee, BBQ chat and even morning teas.
To determine the success of Knowledge Management initiative, the most commonly discussed activity in the process
of knowledge management nowadays is knowledge transfer (knowledge sharing) (Al-Alawi, 2007).

Figure 3: Framework used in Al-Alawi 2007, adopted from Gupta & Govindarajan, 2000

According to Al-Alawi (2007), lack of sharing still exists not in them personally, but rather in their coworkers or the
organizational culture or due to other causes. It should be highlighted that the type of knowledge desired to be
shared between employees is work-related knowledge rather than personal knowledge. This is why it is important to
set what knowledge is critically required in all 4 units in MSSB. On the inhibiting factors associated to knowledge
sharing in MSSB, researcher needs to study the reasons why very few employees continue to share knowledge and
why the other half reluctant to share their knowledge.

There are two major approaches to minimize problem faced in knowledge sharing among MSSB employees:- To
plan for a proper communication & engagement plan for knowledge sharing activities and at the same time create
awareness among stakeholders on the importance and how should MSSB adopt knowledge sharing activities.
According to Gurteen, motivating knowledge sharing is to help people see for themselves that knowledge sharing is
in their personal interest. The old paradigm was “knowledge is power”. Today it needs to be explicitly understood
that “sharing knowledge is power” (Gurteen, 1999).

Factors such as interpersonal trust, effective communication, guiding principles, information systems, rewards and
recognition play an important role (Al-Alawi et al., 2007) in defining and providing possibilities to suggest better
methods/activities for knowledge sharing.

The Proposed research framework for this study was constructed from four main researches. There are by (Handzic,
2004; Al-Alawi, 2007; Wang, S., & Noe, R. A., 2010; Noorazah Md Noor & Juhana Salim., 2011).
 Figure 3: Proposed Research Framework

Based on the proposed research framework, this research will cover four main categories. There are:
Communication & Engagement, Organizational Culture, Organizational Technology & Individual aspects. Most of
the research studies about the organization culture like Al-Alawi, and quite number of research that was found using
the same three element that is, the Organizational, Individual and Technology such as (Riege 2005; Noorazah Md
Noor & Juhana Salim., 2011).

Author Category
Suppiah, V. & Sandhu, M. S. (2011); Organizational Culture
Gerald, Goh G.G., et al. (2006); • Organization Structure & Performance
Cantu´, L.Z., et al. (2009); • Reward & Recognition
Al-Alawi, A.I., et al. (2007); • Management buy-in
Md. Zahidul Islam, et al. (2011); • Goal & Vision
Rivera-Vazquez, J.C., et al. (2009);
Ramlee Abdul Rahman (2011)
Noorazah Md Noor & Juhana Salim (2011)

Suppiah, V. & Sandhu, M. S. (2011); Organizational Technology

Cantu´, L.Z., et al. (2009); • System Readiness
Al-Alawi, A.I., et al. (2007); • K-repository
Ramlee Abdul Rahman (2011); • Equipment readiness **
Noorazah Md Noor & Juhana Salim (2011)
 Suppiah, V. & Sandhu, M. S. (2011);
Gerald, Goh G.G., et al. (2006);
Cantu´, L.Z., et al. (2009);
Al-Alawi, A.I., et al. (2007);
Md. Zahidul Islam, et al. (2011);
Ramlee Abdul Rahman (2011)
Communication & Engagement
• Communication & engagement plans
• Change management & Change Champion **
• KS activities

Suppiah, V. & Sandhu, M. S. (2011); Individual

Gerald, Goh G.G., et al. (2006); • Education level **
Cantu´, L.Z., et al. (2009); • Motivations
Al-Alawi, A.I., et al. (2007); • Attitude & Behaviour
Md. Zahidul Islam, et al. (2011); • Work Experience
Rivera-Vazquez, J.C., et al. (2009);
Noorazah Md Noor & Juhana Salim (2011)

** Newly added by the researcher based on the feedback from preliminary study interview
Figure 4: Summaries of Inhibiting factors associated to knowledge sharing from previous studies

METHODOLOGY AND INSTRUMENTS

This research adopts case study research strategy and the interpretivism paradigm is most appropriate to categorize
this research. Interpretivism defined as a paradigm where researcher has to understand participant world from
participant’s point of view. This paradigm provides continual process of interpreting the social world around us in a
simple words “making sense of the world around us”. Therefore it will be an explanatory and exploratory research
that associated with interpretive philosophy also known as naturalistic. Researcher believes that this method could
explore and discover more authentic responses from the participants and will be able to meet the research objectives.

The qualitative method was found to be realistic to this research because, researcher may utilize the triangulation
methods to obtain answers. The closest study to this research is by Noorazah Md Noor & Juhana Salim, 2011. The
mentioned research used mix method which is the combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods, with
the same context that is in private sector organization. Research paradigm has automatically guided the researcher to
formulate the research design based on the Research question and research objective. During the preliminary study,
researcher has conducted an interview based on the qualitative questions prepared. It was long conversation,
recorded in voice and a lot of invaluable information to improve the research especially the framework. After the
interview session researcher realized that semi-structured questions were too many and it has to prioritize to ensure
that researcher achieve its purpose of study.

All participants for this study have been identified. Participants for this study must be of someone who has been in
the company for more than five years. Although some of team leader have less significant years of services in MSSB
division, a leader who has broad knowledge in one unit will be acceptable and appropriate for this study. The least
criteria of the participant are someone who is proficient in any of the knowledge sharing activities in MSSB.
Moreover, participants must be of someone who able to response and infer more than what will be share and ask by
the researcher. Someone of who able to speak out his/her own idea and opinion, someone who able to spontaneously
reply and offer suggestion for enhancement and at the same time have the consciousness and comprehends the
company directions.

All interviews session will be recorded in an audio format with the approval from interviewee for further analysis.
All details about the employee who agreed to participate in an interview session are strictly classified. There may be
another session of interview until the data has reached its saturation and researcher’s satisfaction level.
 CONCLUSION
This paper presents an overview of a current and ongoing research work. The study hopes to define the importance
of knowledge sharing and as well as to improve ways of engagement and communication channels at all levels in
MSSB. This research is expected to contribute to the importance of knowledge sharing activities in the IT industry
by i) Retaining the knowledge rather than retaining people that is highly demanding in IT business; ii) Knowledge
sharing is more about communicating, socializing (Handzic, M., & Chaimungkalanont, M., 2003; Zaqout, F., &
Abbas, M., 2012). and could increase individual confidence level; iii) extending the current organization
performance and improve relationship with key stakeholders (internal and external); iv) Providing better rewards
and recognition (Al-Alawi, A. I., et al., 2007; Suppiah, V., & Sandhu, M. S., 2011). Proposed research framework is
just another guideline for researcher to assess and experiment the four factors namely Organization Culture,
organizational technology, communication & engagement and individual for Knowledge sharing in MSSB.

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