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Tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge sharing between sharing
IT workers
The role of organizational culture, personality,
and social environment 89
Renata Borges
College of Business, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The transmission of tacit knowledge is crucial to organizations to ensure that individual
expertise will be passed throughout a team or department, rather than centred in one employee. It is
especially important among information technology (IT) professionals because, in addition to
technical knowledge, they deal considerably with a combination of cognition and previous experience
to solve daily problems, and implement and develop new systems. The purpose of this paper is to
examine how organizational, individual, and environmental factors influence tacit knowledge sharing
among IT professionals.
Design/methodology/approach – In this study, the author examines how organizational,
individual, and environmental factors influence tacit knowledge sharing among IT professionals.
To test the hypotheses, the survey method was chosen and a standard questionnaire was applied. The
author obtained a sample of 143 respondents and employed a partial least squares (PLS) analysis to
assess the structural and confirmatory models.
Findings – The results indicate that hardworking, responsible, and introverted employees tend to
share their tacit knowledge when they feel they are in a supportive and team-oriented environment, are
not overly threatened by competitiveness, and experience good social interactions in the workplace.
Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of this study is its small sample size,
which may not capture all relationships. Future research can overcome this limitation and consider the
role of organizational commitment and trust as possible mediators.
Originality/value – To practitioners, this study offers information on how organizations
can encourage employees to share tacit knowledge. This research provides some support for the
assumption that IT professionals should be managed under particular organizational rules by proposing
that IT workers have a strategic role regarding the transmission of tacit knowledge.
Keywords Tacit knowledge sharing, Human resource management, Social environment,
Organizational culture, Personality traits, Information technology
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The survival of modern organizations is commonly associated with the development
and management of knowledge (Wolfe and Loraas, 2008). Knowledge management is
central to achieving organizational effectiveness (Anand et al., 1998) because it is
strategically related to innovation and operationally related to performance quality and
production efficiency (Chen and Edigington, 2005). Some authors claim that knowledge
is the foundation of competitive advantage within an organization, because it is the Management Research Review
Vol. 36 No. 1, 2013
pp. 89-108
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
This research was supported by CAPES/Fulbright fellowship and partially supported by the 2040-8269
Pontikes Research Center. DOI 10.1108/01409171311284602
MRR primary driver of the organization’s value (Gold et al., 2001; Bock et al., 2005). Moreover,
36,1 sustained competitive advantage is to a great extent related to knowledge management
and organizational ability in terms of learning and adapting in particular ways (Chen
and Edigington, 2005).
Knowledge management is described as the process by which information known by
the organization is acquired, stored, and retrieved by its members (Anand et al., 1998).
90 According to Nonaka (1994), knowledge can be characterized as explicit and tacit.
Explicit knowledge is easy to codify and transmit since it is formal and systematic,
whereas tacit knowledge is hard to communicate and formalize due to its personal
quality. Although the transfer of tacit knowledge is critical to knowledge management
creation and organizational performance improvement (Small and Sage, 2006; Reychav
and Weisberg, 2009), organizations often fail to capture what employees know due
to the cognitive nature of tacit knowledge (Pawlowski and Robey, 2004). In fact,
Anand et al. (1998) posit that previous research on knowledge management has also
ignored the role of tacit knowledge because it is difficult to capture and communicate.
These barriers arise when organizations and researchers attempt to create
knowledge through a process of externalization – , i.e. turning tacit knowledge into
explicit knowledge. This mode of knowledge creation may be particularly difficult if
individuals perceive that there is a potential risk of losing power and competitive
advantage (Stenmark, 2001). Another mode of knowledge creation, according to Nonaka
(1994), is through socialization, which centres on the transmission of tacit knowledge
between individuals, without the concern of making it explicit. In this sense, Stenmark
(2001) suggests that information technology (IT) management has a lot to add by
designing solutions that help to exploit tacit knowledge, without making it explicit.
Thus, IT professionals have a central role within an organization regarding tacit
knowledge management. The IT professionals’ importance is related to their role in
activities such as knowledge management, organizational learning, and knowledge
transfer. Pawlowski and Robey (2004), for example, examine the role of IT professional as
knowledge brokers, and conclude that IT professionals play an important strategic role
in the organization by transferring knowledge across the organization in two contexts:
between IT professionals and users, and among users in different business units:
IT professionals are key actors in designing, implementing, and maintaining both the
infrastructures and applications that enable modern business to change focus away from
mundane transaction processing to strategic initiatives (Niederman et al., 2007, p. 332).
Nevertheless, IT professionals are facing peculiar conflicts in organizations due to the
nature of the IT field. Messersmith (2007) points out that IT workers face a work-life
conflict – a disequilibrium between work lives and personal lives – because they
are exposed to extensive projects, aggressive timelines, and crescent demands,
resulting in high turnover rates when compared to other professionals. In addition,
the conditions of the market enable IT professionals to enjoy significant career
mobility. For organizations, the cost of losing an IT professional is particularly high
because it usually involves the loss of tacit knowledge (Droege and Hoobler, 2003).
Therefore, it is important to understand which factors affect the dissemination of tacit
knowledge among IT professionals. A small number of studies on tacit knowledge have
identified the factors that might affect willingness to share tacit knowledge (Nonaka,
1994; Wolfe and Loraas, 2008). For example, Lin (2007) assessed the phenomena from
a business ethics perspective, investigating the influence of distributive and procedural Tacit knowledge
justice on tacit knowledge sharing. His findings suggest that instrumental ties, sharing
expressive ties, and distributive justice affect willingness to share tacit knowledge
indirectly via trust in co-workers. Cabrera et al. (2006) offered a psychological
perspective by investigating how personality traits, reward systems, and autonomy
affect people’s inclination to participate in voluntary knowledge sharing. The authors
report that perceived support from co-workers and supervisors, openness to experience, 91
and self-efficacy are associated with knowledge-sharing behaviours to a larger extent
than are autonomy and reward systems.
However, most previous research has focused on understanding the transmission of
knowledge by identifying the antecedents of knowledge sharing in relation to
knowledge management in general, and not on the tacit features of knowledge. Such
research has also identified social network ties (Hansen, 1999; Reagans and McEvily,
2003), organizational culture (Dyer and Nobeoka, 2000; Stoddart, 2007; Jalal et al., 2010),
and personality traits (Cho et al., 2007) as being accountable for fostering knowledge
sharing, as well as other factors.
Based on the literature, this study explores the link between organizational culture,
personality, and social environment and the transmission of tacit knowledge, which has
previously been ignored in the tacit knowledge literature. Organizational culture
determines whether or not knowledge is a firm asset and how employees are expected to
engage in tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour across the organization. Personality traits
have a direct effect on individual disposition with regards to sharing previous experiences
(Locke and Latham, 2004) and engaging in tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour
(Cabrera et al., 2006). Finally, tacit knowledge sharing is a genuine human interaction;
hence, the ways in which employees perceive their social environment will influence their
decision to engage in tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour. Specifically, the strength of
social ties and the level of competitiveness can result in reciprocity and interpersonal
trust, which should affect employees’ willingness to share their expertise (Nonaka, 1994).
The objective of this study is to investigate how organizational culture, personality
traits, and social environment influence the individual decisions of IT professionals
which regards to engaging in tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour. This study intends
to contribute to knowledge-sharing literature by focusing on the tacit dimension of
knowledge, proposing an analysis centred on the socialization mode of knowledge
creation, recognizing the importance of IT professionals in knowledge management
across the organization, and including a previously unexplored set of variables that
drives employees’ willingness to share tacit knowledge.

2. Literature review
2.1 Tacit knowledge sharing
Tacit knowledge is a kind of knowledge that cannot be codified, because it is
based predominantly on individual experiences. In an organizational context, it is
composed partly of technical skills and partly of cognitive dimensions such as personal
perspectives, beliefs, and mental models (Small and Sage, 2006). Specifically among IT
professionals, the decision to share tacit IT knowledge relies heavily on individual
experience and cognition (Basselier et al., 2001). Just as experience influences the
acquisition of tacit knowledge, so too will it influence the initiative to share information.
The cognitive component is related to an individual’s visions and perceptions, such as
MRR their beliefs, viewpoints, and paradigms, which, in the case of the IT professional, will
36,1 influence their perception of business activities and their professional role, thereby
impacting on their willingness to share tacit knowledge.
Bock et al. (2005) examined the role of extrinsic motivators, social-psychological forces,
and organizational climate in behavioural intention formation in sharing knowledge. The
findings suggest that organizational climate is an important determinant of intention to
92 share knowledge. Interestingly, economic aspects such as rewards were not found to
influence willingness to share knowledge. In addition, Small and Sage (2006) proposed
that good social relationships and a favourable organizational culture might result in
knowledge-sharing behaviours.
The sections below will discuss the influence of organizational culture, personality
traits, and social environment on individual engagement in sharing tacit knowledge.
2.1.1 Organizational culture. The debate surrounding the proper use of the
organizational culture concept has arisen as consequence of selective borrowing of the
concept from anthropology and sociology (Meek, 1988). This diversity of definitions
and measurements is also related to the variety of researchers’ purposes and interests
(Smircich, 1983). Culture is defined by Hosftede and McCrae (2004, p. 58) as “the
collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one group or category of people
from another”. Schein (1986, p. 30) defines culture as:
[A] pattern of basic assumptions that the group has invented, discovered, or developed in
learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, and that
has worked well enough to be considered valid, and, therefore, to be taught to new members
as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems.
Most researchers agree that culture is collective, invisible, and manifested through the
behaviours of a certain community.
In the organizational environment, organizational culture can be determined by
explicit goals and mission, formal behavioural norms and values, managerial
philosophies, and unwritten rules; each of which have a different depth (Kilmann et al.,
1985; Jermier et al., 1991). It dictates the pattern of behaviour that is expected and
accepted from employees. Mild or weak cultures simply suggest the way members
must behave, whereas strong cultures exert pressure on each person’s behaviour
(Kilmann et al., 1985).
Organizational culture has a strong influence on knowledge-sharing behaviour
(Small and Sage, 2006; Suppiah and Sandhu, 2011). Organizations that enforce values
and attitudes toward individual engagement in knowledge sharing are more likely to
achieve higher levels of knowledge-sharing success ( Jalal et al., 2010). Stoddart’s (2007)
findings in the United Nations suggest that effective leadership is essential to
encourage the dissemination of information and knowledge.
However, organizational culture has many dimensions and, depending on the
culture type, knowledge sharing may be influenced positively or negatively (Suppiah
and Sandhu, 2011). Jalal et al.’s (2010) study on IT companies indicates that knowledge
sharing is mainly affected by three cultural values:
(1) a sense of collaboration among organizational members and collaboration in the
organization’s activities;
(2) recognition of employees for sharing knowledge; and
(3) employee trust in team-work and confidence in the team’s abilities.
The effect of collaborative and team-oriented cultures on knowledge sharing was also Tacit knowledge
found to be significant in Stoddart’s (2007) research. The author points out that a sense sharing
of community helps an organization to implement a more collaborative and
team-oriented culture, which in turn helps to encourage knowledge sharing.
Therefore, we expect collaborative and team-oriented organizational cultures to
influence employee engagement in knowledge-sharing behaviour. Regarding the tacit
knowledge component, organizations that value supportive, collaborative, and 93
team-oriented behaviours are more likely to encourage employees to share tacit
knowledge, compared to organizational cultures oriented towards individual results.
Hence, team-oriented and supportive organizational cultures will positively and
significantly affect willingness to share tacit knowledge among IT professionals. The
following hypotheses are therefore proposed:
H1a. Team-oriented culture is positively and significantly related to tacit
knowledge sharing between IT professionals.
H1b. Supportive culture is positively and significantly related to tacit knowledge
sharing between IT professionals.
2.1.2 Personality traits. A personality trait is a relatively stable and enduring
individual tendency to react emotionally or behaviourally in a specific way (Tosi and
Mero, 2003). Such traits have been grouped into higher-level classifications, resulting in
the identification of the “big five” dimensions of personality: extraversion, emotional
stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience (Costa and
McCrae, 1991).
Extraversion is the tendency to be sociable, energetic, and forceful. Emotional
stability is the tendency not to be neurotic, emotional, tense, or insecure; to have low
anxiety levels, to not be easily upset or suspicious, and to have high self-confidence. The
opposite is the tendency to be neurotic, highly emotional, tense, insecure, depressed,
easily upset, and suspicious, with low self-confidence. Agreeableness is the tendency to
be tolerant, trusting, generous, warm, kind, and good-natured, and not likely to be
aggressive, rude, or thoughtless. Conscientiousness is the tendency to be responsible,
dependable, persistent, punctual, hardworking, and work-oriented. Finally, openness to
experience is the tendency to be imaginative, curious, cultured, broad-minded, and
self-sufficient.
Personality traits have been considered as drivers of human behaviour and needs
(Latham and Pinder, 2005). Recent studies have acknowledged that employees who are
responsible, persistent, punctual, work-oriented, self-confident, not overemotional, and
not insecure tend to have the highest levels of motivation at work ( Judge and Ilies,
2002; Barrick et al., 2005; Shaffer et al., 2006).
From the five dimensions of personality, conscientiousness is closely related to
knowledge sharing because when responsible, persistent, and hard-working
individuals perceive that the dissemination of knowledge is part of their duties they
tend to do what is expected of them (Cabrera et al., 2006; Cho et al., 2007). Shaffer et al.
(2006) add that task-oriented behaviour due to conscientiousness results in better work
adjustment and better task performance.
In fact, the literature suggests that conscientiousness and emotional stability
present the most robust and consistent correlations with positive job attitudes ( Judge
and Ilies, 2002; Barrick et al., 2005). The low anxiety levels and high self-confidence
MRR characteristics of emotional stability make it easier for such individuals to engage in
36,1 knowledge-sharing behaviour. Specifically in relation to tacit knowledge sharing, these
characteristics also facilitate human interaction because self-confident employees are
less threatened by competition. Furthermore, individuals that experience low levels of
anxiety are more likely to successfully engage in situations involving the transmission
and acquisition of knowledge, which usually requires patience and empathy.
94 Extraverted employees are more likely to disseminate tacit knowledge due to their
sociable and energetic characteristics. In addition, extraverted employees present
greater confidence in their ability to perform and have a more developed social network
( Judge and Ilies, 2002). Lastly, the remaining traits are considered contingent
predictors in the organizational behaviour literature, because they can influence
individual behaviour depending on the job task and situation (Barrick et al., 2005).
Therefore, we expect conscientious and emotionally stable employees to engage in
tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour. Since extraversion is the third-most influential
personality trait relative to positive employee outcomes, we also expect extroverted IT
professionals to share tacit knowledge. Thus, the following hypotheses are stated:
H2a. A high level of conscientiousness is positively and significantly related to
tacit knowledge sharing between IT professionals.
H2b. A high level of emotional stability is positively and significantly related to
tacit knowledge sharing between IT professionals.
H2c. A high level of extraversion is positively and significantly related to tacit
knowledge sharing between IT professionals.
2.1.3 Social environment. Social environment refers to the social relationships in which
individuals are embedded (Boissevan, 1974). It is important to study social
relationships in organizational contexts because employees might exert pressure on
co-workers’ behaviour, and employees might also be influenced by pressure from other
employees. The concept of social environment fundamentally differs to that of
organizational culture because the latter refers to formal patterns of behaviour that are
dictated by the organization that guides employees’ attitudes, while the former refers to
how employees perceive their relationships with other employees.
Social environments or informal interpersonal networks play a critical role in the
knowledge transfer process (Reagans and McEvily, 2003). In particular, the strength of
interactions between organizational members is expected to influence
knowledge-sharing behaviour. The strength of the social network can be measured
by determining strong ties and weak ties. According to Nelson (1989), strong ties have
affective and friendly characteristics. They are also frequent and may include reciprocal
favours. On the other hand, weak ties are less frequent and are not necessarily affective.
Strong ties are expected to facilitate knowledge sharing, because they involve trust
among co-workers by providing mutual support and the exchange of information
(Lin, 2007; Wong and Boh, 2010). An individual is more likely to be influenced by
another when the information provided is viewed as credible. Strong ties are also
related to emotional attachment and frequency of communication (Reagans and
McEvily, 2003). Employees with weak social networks are reluctant to share
knowledge and experiences, whereas employees with good relationships share
knowledge voluntary and unconditionally (Small and Sage, 2006).
 Chen et al. (2009) examined the factors influencing knowledge sharing from the Tacit knowledge
human behaviour perspective among college and MBA students in a virtual learning sharing
community. The authors found that social network ties are positively and significantly
associated with knowledge-sharing intention. This implies that virtual learning
community members feel comfortable sharing ideas, thoughts, and experiences when
they establish relationships with other members.
Hansen et al. (2005) drew attention to possible subsets of social networks or multiple 95
networks, and willingness to share tacit knowledge. The authors argued that the extent
of a network’s size, strength of relations, and degree of perceived competition inherent
in relations affect desire to share tacit knowledge. Therefore, we expect IT
professionals who are part of a social environment with strong network ties to engage
in tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour because they feel more comfortable and less
threatened when compared to those with weak network ties. Thus, strong network ties
between IT professionals will be positively and significantly related to willingness to
share tacit knowledge. The following hypothesis is therefore presented:
H3a. Strong network ties are positively and significantly associated with tacit
knowledge sharing between IT professionals.
Figure 1 shows the relationship between organizational culture, personality traits, and
social environment and tacit knowledge sharing, along with the proposed hypotheses.

3. Methodology
3.1 Instrument development
The survey method was selected to test the hypotheses and a questionnaire was
developed to collect data, based on previously tested instruments. The first part of the
questionnaire assessed demographic data, while the second measured tacit knowledge

Organizational Culture
TO1
TO2
:. Team Oriented
H1a TK1
TO9
Tacit TK2
SP1 H1b Knowledge
SP2 TK3
Supportive Sharing
:.
TK4
SP5

H2a H2c
H3
H2b
Social Network

NT1
NT2 Emotional
NT3 NT4 NT5 Conscientiousness Extraversion
Stability

CO1 CO2 … CO10 ES1 ES2 … ES10 EX1 EX2 … EX10 Figure 1.
Research model
Personality traits
MRR sharing between IT professionals. The items are the same as those utilized by Lin
36,1 (2007) and developed by Bock and Kim (2002) and Daft (2001). Lin (2007) reports a
Cronbach’s a of 0.88 and an average variance extracted (AVE) of 0.65. Bock and Kim
(2002) report a Cronbach’s a of 0.82 for knowledge-sharing behaviour measure.
The personality trait items, which were addressed in the third part of the
questionnaire, were obtained from the international personality item pool (IPIP). The
96 IPIP was designed to develop and continually refine a set of personality inventories,
whose items are in the public domain and whose scales present a satisfactory statistical
reliability and validity (Goldberg et al., 2006). Goldberg (1992) reports a Cronbach’s a of
0.79 for conscientiousness, 0.86 for emotional stability, and 0.87 for extraversion.
The fourth part of the questionnaire focused on measurements of social
environment, and these were drawn from the existing literature. The items are a
combination of Lin’s (2007) questions about instrumental and expressive ties, and
Nelson’s (1989) assessment of the strength of social network ties.
The final part of the questionnaire is composed of items that assess organizational
culture. The items were drawn from the organizational culture profile (OCP) instrument
developed by O’Reilly et al. (1991). The OCP contains 54 value statements that can
generically capture individual and organizational values: the respondents are asked to sort
the 54 statements into a row of nine categories, placing at one end of the row those cards
that they consider to be the most characteristic aspects of the culture of their organization,
and at the other end those cards that they believe to be the least characteristic. As result,
eight factors defined by at least three items emerge to represent the organizational culture.
O’Reilly et al. (1991) concluded that an organization’s culture can be characterized
by innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, orientation toward outcomes or
results, aggressiveness and competitiveness, supportiveness, emphasis on growth and
rewards, collaboration and team orientation, and decisiveness. The authors posit that
“good support for seven of the eight factors can be seen in the form of easily
interpretable patterns of personality and cultural preferences” (p. 502). The instrument
has demonstrated a substantial reliability and validity, with a median scale a of 0.76.
In this research, we assessed the dimensions related to team-oriented, and supportive
cultures, as posed in the literature review.
All items in the questionnaire were measured using a five-point Likert scale, which
varied from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” to assess tacit knowledge-sharing
behaviour and social network ties; “very inaccurate” to “very accurate” to assess
personality traits; and “not at all” to “very much” to assess organizational culture. The
Appendix contains the measurement items of each construct.
Self-reported questionnaires can introduce systematic errors into the measure as
result of social desirability, negative affectivity, and acquiescence. We attempted to
reduce the likelihood of common method variance, by counterbalancing the order of the
questions, using well established measures available in the literature, employing
different scales to assess the constructs, and assuring the respondents confidentiality
and anonymity, that there are no right or wrong answers, and that they should answer
each item honestly (Malhotra et al., 2006).

3.2 Sample
A web-based survey was developed utilizing QuestionPro Survey Software, which is
appropriate with respect to the targeted respondents – IT professionals. An e-mail was sent
to several IT managers containing the research link, a brief explanation of the objectives Tacit knowledge
of the research, and a solicitation to forward the e-mail to the manager’s team. The sample sharing
size was significantly boosted due to the voluntary support of an IT consultant firm.
From 370 individuals who viewed the research link, 255 started the questionnaire.
This equates to a response rate of 69 per cent based on the responses received. One
question assessed the respondent’s occupation/activity in order to ensure that he/she is
an IT professional. From the 225 respondents, 158 individuals reported to be an IT 97
professional, leading to a final sample size of 143 respondents, after checking for
missing data and influential observations.
We utilized the SPSS Statistics 18 software to assess the descriptive statistics of the
demographic data. Table I represents the characteristics of the sample.
The last question of the first part of the questionnaire measured the intention to leave
the organization. Only 2 per cent of the respondents reported always thinking of quitting

Characteristics n ¼ 143

Gender
Male 108 76%
Female 32 22%
Age
25 years or less 11 8%
26-30 years 32 22%
31-35 years 43 30%
36-40 years 18 13%
41 years or above 37 26%
Marital status
Single 40 28%
Married 88 62%
Educational level
High school 3 2%
Bachelor 42 29%
Professional master 80 56%
Academic master 14 10%
Tenure
5 years or less 75 53%
6-10 years 30 21%
11-15 years 9 6%
16 years or above 27 19%
Position
Technician/programmer 13 9%
Analyst 55 38%
Engineer 14 10%
Consultant 7 5%
Manager 30 21%
CEO 10 7%
Salary level
U$10,000.00 a year or less 6 4%
10-25K a year 24 17%
25-35K a year 19 13% Table I.
35-70K a year 55 39% Characteristics
U$70,000.00 a year or above 35 25% of the sample
MRR their jobs; 27 per cent sometimes; 33 per cent rarely; and 37 per cent of respondents
36,1 reported that they never think about quitting their jobs. Despite the low turnover
intention rate, it was noticed that 53 per cent of the professionals had worked for their
organization for less than five years, which might be an indicator of high turnover rates.
This is consistent with the literature, which suggests that IT professionals enjoy
significant career mobility due to favourable market conditions.
98
4. Findings
4.1 Analysis method
The partial least squares (PLS) method was utilized to test the relationships between the
constructs. PLS was chosen because it is suitable for estimating relationships between
latent variables when the sample size is small (Chin, 1998). Additionally, PLS does not
require normal distribution of the variables, and it is suitable for highly complex
predictive models (Lohmöller, 1984). To analyze the measurement and structural model,
the SmartPLS software version 2.0M3 was used along with the bootstrap resampling
method to determine the significance of the paths within the model.

4.2 Measurement model

The measurement model was tested based on internal consistency and convergent
validity. Table II shows the PLS standardized loadings, AVE, and Cronbach’s a-values
for the constructs.
According to Hair et al. (2006), factor loadings greater than ^ 0.50 are generally
considered necessary for practical significance, although values of ^ 0.30 to ^ 0.40 are
minimally acceptable. Except for the first indicator (ES1) of emotional stability, which
scored 0.45, all indicators exceed 0.60. The convergent validity, which is the extent to
which indicators of a specific construct converge or share a high proportion of variance
in common, is adequate when the construct has an AVE of at least 0.50. All constructs
score greater than 0.65. The reliability, that is an assessment of the degree of
consistency between multiple measurements of a variable, was measured using
Cronbach’s a. Hair et al. (2006) posits that Cronbach’s a should exceed a threshold of
0.70, although a 0.60 level can be used in exploratory research. All constructs scored
greater than 0.90, indicating a good internal consistency.

4.3 Structural model

The estimation of the path coefficients and the amount of variance explained by the
independent variables (R 2) indicate how well the data supports the hypothesized model.
The measurement R 2 ¼ 0.85 for the model implies that 85 per cent of the dependent
variable – tacit knowledge sharing – is explained by reference to the variation of
independent variable levels. Figure 2 shows the PLS results for the standardized path
coefficients, with the standard errors in parentheses.
H1a and H1b were supported, indicating that supportive, l ¼ 0.51, t (143) ¼ 3.82,
p , 0.01, and team oriented, l ¼ 0.38, t (143) ¼ 2.63, p , 0.05, organizational cultures
positively influence tacit knowledge sharing between IT professionals. H2a, which
posits that a high level of conscientiousness is positively and significantly related to tacit
knowledge sharing between IT professionals, was supported; l ¼ 0.40, t (143) ¼ 6.32,
p , 0.01. H2b was not supported; l ¼ 0.05, t (143) ¼ 0.99, p . 0.05. This result suggests
that, at least for this data, the level of emotional stability does not influence tacit
 Tacit knowledge
Construct Indicators Loadings t-value * AVE Cronbach’s a
sharing
Conscientiousness Con1 0.92 21.50 0.69 0.95
Con2 0.95 21.16
Con3 0.91 21.63
Con4 0.94 20.90
Con5 0.89 24.46 99
Con6 0.93 22.79
Con7 0.69 12.68
Con8 0.68 14.10
Con9 0.67 16.28
Con10 0.62 14.52
Emotional stability ES1 0.45 12.28 0.73 0.96
ES2 0.82 19.54
ES3 0.84 22.72
ES4 0.93 30.99
ES5 0.85 20.70
ES6 0.87 20.71
ES7 0.93 27.97
ES8 0.93 26.27
ES9 0.93 27.73
ES10 0.90 27.97
Extraversion EX1 0.86 21.23 0.69 0.95
EX2 0.94 18.00
EX3 0.90 19.66
EX4 0.88 23.01
EX5 0.83 21.95
EX6 0.74 23.24
EX7 0.77 22.80
EX8 0.79 22.70
EX9 0.77 24.17
EX10 0.82 24.22
Supportiveness SP1 0.96 31.63 0.83 0.95
SP2 0.95 32.04
SP3 0.91 30.44
SP4 0.89 37.83
SP5 0.85 29.31
Team oriented TO1 0.89 19.67 0.77 0.96
TO2 0.89 29.71
TO3 0.88 34.42
TO4 0.87 19.45
TO5 0.84 23.32
TO6 0.82 23.37
TO7 0.90 22.04
TO8 0.89 32.09
TO9 0.92 26.70
Social environment NT1 0.92 28.79 0.81 0.94 Table II.
NT2 0.90 31.67 Standardized loadings
NT3 0.91 38.58 and reliabilities for the
(continued) measurement model
MRR Construct Indicators Loadings t-value * AVE Cronbach’s a
36,1
NT4 0.85 33.14
NT5 0.90 22.71
Tacit knowledge TK1 0.97 91.17 0.94 0.98
TK2 0.97 67.62
100 TK3 0.97 80.06
TK4 0.96 58.06
Table II. Note: *t-statistics greater than 2.61 are significant at 0.01 a-level

Organizational Culture

Team Oriented
0.38* (0.15)

Tacit
0.51** (0.13) Knowledge
Supportive Sharing

0.40** (0.06)
–0.21* (0.06)
0.56** (0.07)
Social Network 0.05 (0.05)

Emotional
Conscientiousness Extraversion
Stability

Figure 2. Personality traits

Results of path analysis
Note: Significant at: *0.05 and **0.01 Levels

knowledge sharing. H2c was partially supported, l ¼ 2 0.21, t (143) ¼ 3.77, p , 0.05,
indicating that extraversion is significantly, but not positively, related to tacit
knowledge sharing. According to the results, introverted IT professionals tend to
engage more in knowledge-sharing behaviours compared to extraverted IT
professionals. Finally, H3, which proposes that strong network ties are positively and
significantly associated with tacit knowledge sharing between IT professionals, was
also supported, l ¼ 0.56, t (143) ¼ 7.17, p , 0.01.

5. Discussion and conclusions

The main finding of this research is related to the influence of personality traits on tacit
knowledge sharing. In particular, the extraversion trait was found to be negatively related
to tacit knowledge sharing. We hypothesized that extraverted IT professionals would be
more likely to engage in tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour because they usually have a
more developed network, enjoy frequent human interaction, feel comfortable in social
gatherings, and exercise their communication skills more often. However, the results Tacit knowledge
suggest the opposite: introverted IT professionals are more likely to engage in sharing
knowledge-sharing behaviours. The fact that introverted IT professionals do better in tacit
knowledge sharing may be because they listen to ideas, and are able to discuss them
objectively and internalize them. On the other hand, extroverted individuals have the
tendency to drive conversations and because of this they may be less receptive to new ideas.
Another finding of this study is that emotional stability is not related to tacit 101
knowledge sharing. It suggests that anxiety levels and self-confidence characteristics do
not influence the individual decisions of IT professionals to share their experiences and
knowledge. The results also indicate that, of the three personality traits, conscientiousness
is the trait that is most influential with regards to tacit knowledge sharing. Finally,
supportive and team-oriented organizational cultures, along with strong social ties, exert a
positive influence on IT professionals’ decisions to disseminate tacit knowledge.

5.1 Limitations
Overall, the results provide support for the assumption that organizational culture,
personality traits, and social environment influence tacit knowledge sharing among IT
professionals. However, there are certain important limitations to this study. The small
sample size used may not capture all relationships. Although the PLS has the ability to
model constructs under conditions of small sample sizes and non-normality, a hard
modelling method such as structural equation modelling would need to be employed to
confirm the results. In this sense, future research could address this limitation by
obtaining more respondents in order to run a more robust analysis.
This research is also limited by the variables that represent the concepts.
Organizational culture is represented by the team-oriented and supportive dimensions
identified by the OCP instrument. Future research could expand the organizational culture
construct by including all seven dimensions of the OCP instrument, or even choosing other
instruments from the more than 150 instruments available in the literature for quantifying
organizational culture (Taras, 2010). Future research could also enhance the link between
personality traits and tacit knowledge sharing by including in the analysis the two
contingent traits neglected in this research: openness to experience, and agreeableness.
This study also fails to control for organizational membership as well as for the
number of organizations assessed. We believe that most of the respondents are
employed in the manufacturing industry, since the consulting firm that voluntarily
distributed the questionnaires is part of this market segment. However, our data does
not offer a definitive idea of the effect of organizational culture due to the lack of
identification given by the questionnaires. Future research could overcome this
limitation by matching the respondents to the researched organizations in order to
evaluate the effect of organizational culture.
Our measurement of social environment was limited to the strength of social ties.
Given the complexity of the phenomenon, other dimensions such as size and density
could be included. Finally, the generalizability of the results is constrained to IT
professionals. Other research could replicate this study using different job roles.

5.2 Implications
This research was motivated by a genuine interest in understanding the factors that
might influence the transmission of tacit knowledge. Nonetheless, the focus was on the
MRR transmission of tacit knowledge from one individual to another through social
36,1 interaction, instead of focusing on the usual approach which centres on the codification
of tacit knowledge in the effort to turn it into explicit knowledge. Another feature of
this study is to draw attention to the importance of IT professionals, not only with
respect to the dissemination of tacit knowledge, but also knowledge management in
general within organizations.
102 Kaplan and Lerouge (2007) point out that because IT professionals are at the
vanguard of changes, looking at this segment will provide organizations and managers
effective ways to address similar issues with non-IT workers. The uniqueness of IT
environment is appropriate for investigating tacit knowledge-sharing phenomena
because IT professionals are constantly exposed to new knowledge. Previous research
supports the assumption that it is the combination of individual characteristics and the
work environment that makes IT workers unique (Basselier et al., 2001; Glen, 2003; Janz
and Prasarnphanich, 2003; Messersmith, 2007; Niederman et al., 2007). In this sense, Witt
and Burke (2002) propose that personality might explain some aspects of IT worker’s job
performance. The authors found that conscientiousness influences the level of IT
technical proficiency while extraversion is related to interpersonal interaction between
IT professionals. The technological work intrinsic to IT activities seems to attract
work-oriented individuals who also lack of social interaction skills (Glen, 2003).
The findings of this study provide empirical evidence that the personality trait
“conscientiousness” is influential on individuals’ decisions to share knowledge
(Cabrera et al., 2006; Cho et al., 2007). Indeed, the literature on motivation has reported
that conscientiousness positively affects knowledge, effectiveness, and performance of
teams (Morgeson et al., 2005; Halfhill et al., 2008). The dependability component of
conscientiousness might play an important role in establishing trustful relationships,
which facilitates the transmission of tacit knowledge.
Surprisingly, emotional stability was not found to be related to tacit knowledge
sharing among IT professionals. This result contradicts the organizational behaviour
literature which has identified emotional stability as the second-most influential
personality trait on job attitudes (Judge and Ilies, 2002; Barrick et al., 2005). Cabrera et al.
(2006) and Cho et al.’s (2007) research investigating the influence of personality traits on
knowledge sharing did not consider the influence of emotional stability, taking into
account agreeableness and openness to experience instead. Hence, our finding supports
the argument that emotional stability might not be an influential variable.
The study’s major implication is related to the personality trait “extraversion” and its
influence on tacit knowledge sharing. We expected extraverted employees to have a
tendency to share their own experiences or acquire knowledge from others because of
their sociable characteristics. However, our data suggests that extraverted employees
are less likely to share tacit knowledge, compared to introverted employees. Our
assumption relies on the leadership literature, which states that extroverted employees
are more successful because the majority of top executives and managers display
extroverted personalities (Grant et al., 2010). Our results indicate that extroverted
employees are less effective in passing along their experience and knowledge, and this
has implications not only for knowledge-sharing literature, but also leadership literature.
We also feel that position might exert some effect on the willingness to share tacit
knowledge, since the higher employees go in an organizational hierarchy, the more likely
they are to become afraid of losing power and competitive advantage (Stenmark, 2010).
 On the other hand, in line with our results, Grant et al. (2010) argue that introverted Tacit knowledge
employees tend to show greater receptivity to suggestions, listen more carefully, and sharing
value other employees. For these reasons, introverted employees are more effective in
disseminating and acquiring tacit knowledge, resulting in a positive relationship
between introversion and tacit knowledge sharing.
Organizational culture also plays an important role on individuals’ decisions to share
tacit knowledge. Team-oriented and supportive cultures create a propitious 103
organizational environment that eases the transmission of knowledge, as found in
previous research (Bock et al., 2005; Small and Sage, 2006; Jalal et al., 2010; Suppiah and
Sandhu, 2011). Our data also supports the findings of Janz and Prasarnphanich (2003)
that organizational culture plays a significant role on the individual decision of IT
professionals to engage in knowledge-sharing behaviour. Since IT projects often require
a team approach to enable different problem-solving behaviours, team-oriented and
supportive environments provide opportunities for IT workers to learn from colleagues
and pass along their experiences. However, we recognize that changing an
organizational culture requires a considerable amount of time and effort that
organizations might not be willing to invest. In certain cultures, such as those in eastern
countries, for example, emphasizing tacit knowledge sharing through organizational
strategies can be less complicated, whereas in Western cultures – which usually focus
on individual results – such strategies are hard to implement.
It seems that the most effective way (and maybe the best short-term solution) is to
work on creating a social environment wherein employees feel more comfortable and
less threatened by competitiveness. However, managers must find a balance in terms
of social networks because previous research has pointed out that there are some
negative effects of cohesive ties, such as favouritism and facilitation of corruption
(Nelson, 1989; Hansen, 1999).
The main contribution of this research for practitioners is the empirical evidence it
provides on how organizations and leaders can create conditions to enhance the
likelihood that individual experiences will be passed along to other employees or
teams, reducing the loss of tacit knowledge among IT professionals due to turnover.
The results imply that hardworking, responsible, and introverted employees tend to
share their tacit knowledge when they feel they are in a supportive and team-oriented
organizational culture; are less threatened by competitiveness; and are in a friendly
environment within the organization.

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Appendix. Measurement items Tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge sharing:
sharing
TK1 I share my job experience with my co-workers.
TK2 I share my expertise at the request of my co-workers.
TK3 I share my ideas about jobs with my co-workers.
TK4 I talk about my tips on jobs with my co-workers.
107
Personality traits:
CO1 Am always prepared.
CO2 Pay attention to details.
CO3 Get chores done right away.
CO4 Like order.
CO5 Follow a schedule.
CO6 Am exacting in my worka.
CO7 Leave my belongings arounda.
CO8 Make a mess of thingsa.
CO9 Often forget to put things back in their proper placea.
CO10 Shirk my dutiesa.
ES1 Am relaxed most of the time.
ES2 Seldom feel blue.
ES3 Get stressed out easilya.
ES4 Worry about thingsa.
ES5 Am easily disturbeda.
ES6 Get upset easilya.
ES7 Change my mood a lota.
ES8 Have frequent mood swingsa.
ES9 Get irritated easilya.
ES10 Often feel bluea.
EX1 Am the life of the party.
EX2 Feel comfortable around people.
EX3 Start conversations.
EX4 Talk to a lot of different people at parties.
EX5 Don’t mind being the centre of attention.
EX6 Don’t talk a lota.
MRR EX7 Keep in the backgrounda.
36,1 EX8 Have little to saya.
EX9 Don’t like to draw attention to myselfa.
EX10 Am quiet around strangersa.
Strength of social network ties:
108
NT1 I have friends at work.
NT2 I meet my co-workers outside the company for social gatherings.
NT3 I share my personal life with my co-workers.
NT4 My co-workers help me to solve personal problems.
NT5 Me and my co-workers celebrate important work achievements.
Organizational culture:
TO1 Being team oriented.
TO2 Sharing information freely.
TO3 Emphasizing a single culture throughout the organization.
TO4 Informality.
TO5 Low level of conflict.
TO6 Developing friends at work.
TO7 Fitting in.
TO8 Working in collaboration with others.
SP1 Being people oriented.
SP2 Fairness.
SP3 Respect for the individual’s right.
SP4 Tolerance.
SP5 Being supportive.
a
Note: Inverted items.

About the author

Renata Borges received her PhD in Business Administration from Southern Illinois University,
supported by Fulbright fellowship. Her research interests are in organizational behaviour and
human resource management. She is currently working in Brazil as a postdoctoral researcher at
the NECOM, which is a federally-funded research group of UFMG (Minas Gerais State
University) focused in organizational behaviour, managerial training, and consulting.
Renata Borges can be contacted at: renatasg@face.ufmg.br

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