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 Journal of Islamic Marketing
Muslim academics’ knowledge sharing in Malaysian higher learning institutions
Muhammad Ashraf Fauzi, Christine Tan Nya-Ling, Ramayah Thurasamy, Adedapo Oluwaseyi Ojo,
Ibrahim Shogar,
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Knowledge
Muslim academics’ knowledge sharing
sharing in Malaysian higher
learning institutions
Muhammad Ashraf Fauzi
Centre for Foundation Studies, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Gambang, Malaysia and Faculty of Management, Multimedia University, Received 19 October 2017
Revised 10 July 2018
Cyberjaya, Malaysia 31 July 2018
5 August 2018
Christine Tan Nya-Ling Accepted 9 August 2018

Faculty of Management, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia

Ramayah Thurasamy
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Department of Operation Management School of Management,

Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden, Malaysia
Adedapo Oluwaseyi Ojo
Faculty of Management, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia, and
Ibrahim Shogar
Kulliyyah of Science, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan, Malaysia

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate Muslim academics’ knowledge sharing (KS) behavior
and its relating predictors in the context of Malaysia. Academics being the center entity of education in higher
learning institutions (HLI) has the noble obligation in spreading and sharing knowledge. Moreover, in Islamic
teaching, academics having knowledge must let others know that knowledge can be beneficial in everyday life.
Design/methodology/approach – The underpinning theories used in this study are theory of planned
behavior (TPB) and social capital theory (SCT) for assessing the probable factors that can determine
academics’ KS behavior. This study evaluates 398 Muslim academics in Malaysia for KS behavior in
20 public and 5 private HLIs. Structural equation modeling–partial least square was used as the tool for data
analysis.
Findings – It was found that all the variables tested in this study were significant, except for commitment.
Social network, trust, management support, facilitating conditions and social media are significant predictors
in Muslim academics’ KS behavior.
Research limitations/implications – The findings would enable HLIs to inculcate and enhance KS
among academics in terms of theoretical and managerial perspectives.
Originality/value – This study integrates TPB, SCT and other individual, organizational and
technological factors for assessing Muslim academics in Malaysia. Thus, generalization on Muslim academics
can be attained in South Asian countries.
Keywords Malaysia, Theory of planned behavior, Knowledge management, Knowledge sharing,
Social capital theory, Higher learning institution, Muslim academic
Paper type Research paper
Journal of Islamic Marketing
The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Higher Education for funding this research under the © Emerald Publishing Limited
1759-0833
Fundamental Research Grant Scheme. DOI 10.1108/JIMA-10-2017-0111
 JIMA Introduction
Islam is one of the most prominent religions in the world (Alavi, 2008). Islam has significant
and particular views on knowledge and education. One of the entities in knowledge
Islamization is to spread the knowledge within hand and reach to as many people as
possible. Islam promotes that knowledge should be shared from the knower to others so that
everyone can gain benefits. According to the Muslim traditionalists, all forms of knowledge
come from Allah, hence there is no requirement to re-Islamize it (Hashim and Rossidy, 2000).
Since the past few decades, prominent scholars such as Al-Attas and Faruqi have developed
and enhanced the Islamization of modern knowledge worldwide.
In terms of managing knowledge, scholars have developed the knowledge management
aspect in order to properly manage the value of knowledge in organization. In public and
private organizations, knowledge management is required for keeping with the pace of
modernization and technology age, where data are everywhere and easily accessible (Donate
and de Pablo, 2015). These data must be used and interpreted by experts, which in higher
learning institution (HLI) context is academics, into something meaningful as knowledge
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that can be used to benefit the community. Once the knowledge has been developed, it is the
responsibility of the knower to spread it so that it can be beneficial for the human kind in
general and the Islamic society as a whole.
There have been many studies in knowledge sharing (KS) among the academics in the
literature. While many of the studies focused on the general KS mechanism and the
importance of KS in ensuring the excellence of HLIs (Fauzi et al., 2018), there have been no
studies that focus on KS among the Muslim academics. From the Islamic teaching, it is the
duly duty of Muslims to provide the best service to the community, especially the
academics. It is important that Muslim community create a brand in such a way that other
people would see that Islam is a religion that provides the best for the people regardless of
their belief, races and socio-demographic profile (Wilson and Liu, 2011). The gap in this
study therefore to assess how Muslim academics would behave in KS context in HLIs.

Malaysian higher learning institutes

Malaysia is a vast developing country that aims to be a developed nation in the near future.
The research development and education has developed rapidly, where the rankings of
Malaysian HLIs in the global ranking such as the QS and Times Higher Education ranking
have increased significantly (Quacquarelli Symonds, 2018). Since the past decade, many top
students all over the globe have come to Malaysia in pursuit of higher education in the
country. The trust in the Malaysian education around the globe can be seen from the
escalation of few HLIs in the world ranking.
Malaysian education system is multicultural. With Malay as the dominant race, the
Chinese, Indian and foreign students supplement the country’s higher education. The role of
academics, especially Muslims, should embrace this multiculturalism to ensure that
knowledge can be transmitted across culture, especially tacit knowledge (Wilson, 2010).
Each race has its own unique culture that other race can adopt to improve and upgrade
oneself to greater heights.
As of 2016, there are 20 public and 37 private HLIs in Malaysia (MOHE, 2016). Among
the 20 public HLIs, 5 main HLIs are categorized as research universities, i.e. University of
Malaya, University Putra Malaysia, National University of Malaysia, Technological
University of Malaysia and Science University of Malaysia. The other remaining public
HLIs focus more on teaching and learning, while the research component is required for
annual appraisal of academics. Private HLIs generally focus more on teaching, but there are
 several HLIs that serve the research purpose, such as Multimedia University, Petronas Knowledge
Technological University and National Energy University. sharing
Underpinning theories
Theory of planned behavior
Theory of planned behavior (TPB) is used in many fields of studies to understand the
behavior of individuals (Ajzen, 2011). The main behavior is influenced by the intention and
perceived behavioral control (PBC). The intention thus is influenced by the attitude,
subjective norm and the PBC. In literature, there are several other factors tested that might
influence the behavior of individuals in many aspects. TPB has proven in explaining
individual behavior in many contexts and situations. Past studies have shown that TPB
manages to explain individual behavior such as in the banking sector (Chatzoglou and
Vraimaki, 2009), oil industry (Tohidinia and Mosakhani, 2010), teaching profession (Kuo and
Young, 2008), multinational organizations (Lin, 2007) and hospitals (Alhalhouli et al., 2014).
This theory is still relevant in the current context as HLIs are seen as the human-centric place
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where humans communicate with academics, administrative staff and students.

Social capital theory

Social capital theory (SCT) mainly lies in an individual interaction with the community
regarding their relationship of incorporating values of network, trust and affection (Bassani,
2007). The two main variable of SCT incorporated in this study is trust and social network.
For academics to share their knowledge, trust must be developed within the workplace
among academic members, students and the community. Without a strong trust embedded
within academics’ belief, KS would not be able to achieve. A strong networking for
academics is also important as this will facilitate them to share and gain knowledge when
they have many friends and associate inside and outside their own institution. There have
been numerous past studies that incorporated SCT as the underpinning theory and
integrated with theory of reasoned action/TPB (Wu and Zhu, 2012; Lai et al., 2014; Chow and
Chan, 2008; Chang and Chuang, 2011). In most studies, SCT was able to explain on the
significant role of individual interaction with other people in organization. This interaction
is fairly important in the HLI context, where the empirical impact of the variables can be
successful.

Hypothesis development
There are 11 hypotheses outlined in this paper. The following elaborate on the respective
hypothesis.
Commitment. From Islamic perspective, a committed worker is more valued by the
religion. Organization can excel than other competitors in any field with committed
employees. Academics need motivation for them to be able to put commitment in their line
of work. These motivations can be in the form of encouragement, incentives and appraisal
(Davenport and Prusak, 1998). Commitment depends on academics’ willingness, which
should be the main focus for the top management, as academics are the asset for HLIs.
Several factors are related to employees’ commitment, which include efforts, absenteeism
and job turnover (Joiner and Bakalis, 2006). The first hypothesis is then proposed:

H1. Commitment has a positive effect on academics’ attitudes toward KS.

Social network. Islam promotes its believers to have good relationship, despite having
different race, skin colors and beliefs. Muslim academics should have good relationship with
 JIMA other employees, for the flexibility in acquiring knowledge from the knower. Academics
should mingle around and mix with others that have same interest and expertise (Wang and
Noe, 2010). By having many connections and network with other personnel within and
outside the working place of individual academics, lot of information and knowledge can be
gained and shared:

H2. Social networks have a positive effect on academic’s attitude toward KS.

Trust. Trustworthiness is considered as an important variable of being a good Muslim.

For academics to share knowledge, a trust must be built between academics for them to
know that the knowledge that they share will not be exploited or be used for personal
gain. A Muslim academic will have more trust issues before the knowledge is being
shared due to the encouragement in religion that one must trust others when any news or
information is circulated. This is to avoid any misjudgments or slanders. Even more in
HLIs, academics are considered as trusted individuals that one can share and disseminate
information to:
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H3. Trust has a positive effect on academic’s attitude toward KS.

Management support. Having a strong support from the management would not only
encourage academics to share but also willingly disclose any knowledge deemed important
to academics. Islam encourage its worshippers to work together to achieve common goals
and objectives. Academics and top management should work together for KS for HLIs to
succeed. The emotions of academics will be motivated when top management themselves
are involved in academics’ KS programs. For instance, an academic is giving a lecture
among peers in the department, which is attended by the HLI top management; this will
encourage them to give more than what they had planned. It will boost their morale and
enthusiasm. The sharing will be free and voluntary (Kang et al., 2008):

H4. Management support has a positive effect on academics’ subjective norm toward
KS.
Facilitating condition. Academics need to be facilitated and assisted in sharing their
knowledge. The process would be made easier and smoothly. According to Triandis (1980),
a behavior would be executed easier with the availability of facilitating condition
surrounding his or her environment. Information technology as the external factor that can
encourage academics KS intention and behavior is regarded as an efficient predictor for
facilitating condition (Aulawi et al., 2009). With heavy burden of many work and
assignments bestowed upon academics, having a condition where they are supported and
facilitated is very welcoming. It provides a sense of mind and enables the emotions to be in a
better state for KS activities:

H5. Facilitating conditions has a positive effect on academics’ PBC toward KS.

Social media. In the light of the technological advancement, academics should also be
more open to new development of using social media. Having the necessary skills and
knowledge in using and operating social media would enable academics to be closer to
students and other academic members within or outside an HLI. Compared with
conventional method of sharing, as in lecture hall, symposium or any other traditional
method, sharing using social media would ensure knowledge to be disseminated in a
much faster and efficient way, saving time and efforts (Osatuyi, 2013). Using the current
 trends in social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn can reach the younger Knowledge
generation, who are in a need of knowledge (Yates and Paquette, 2011). Therefore, the sharing
next hypothesis is posited as:

H6. Social media use has a positive effect on academics’ PBC toward KS.
Attitude. In numerous studies, attitude has shown to be one of the most significant
predictors of academics’ KS intention (Jolaee et al., 2014; Ramayah et al., 2013; Iqbal et al.,
2011; Bock et al., 2005, Kuo and Young, 2008). It is the degree of a person in perceiving the
behavior that they have to perform (Ajzen, 1991). The religion of Islam taught its followers
to have positive attitude when sharing or giving their belongings, therefore it is encouraged
for Muslim academics to have a favorable positive attitude towards sharing. Academics
having a positive attitude toward KS will be engaged in committing toward the attitude, in
this study, the sharing behavior. This attitude comes from the intrinsic belief of individuals
in how they look on the behavior. Therefore, the next hypothesis is presented as:
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H7. The extent of favorable attitude toward KS has a positive effect on academics’
intention to share knowledge.
Subjective norm. It is known as the perception of others on an individual behavior in
question. In this study context, the perception of other people, including academic peers,
management and even the community, in perceiving that academics should share their
knowledge as it is their core duty in giving and providing knowledge. It is highly dependent
on the normative belief, a belief of what others might think of them (Lai et al., 2014):

H8. The extent of favorable subjective norm toward KS has a positive effect on
academics’ intention to share knowledge.
PBC. PBC is a perception of individuals whether they are able to perform that behavior.
According to Ajzen and Madden (1986), PBC depends on individual difficulty and efforts
needed to engage in that behavior. Academics that perceive that KS takes much efforts and
time, they might perceive that they have less control in performing KS. Several literature
studies have shown that PBC is a good predictor of academics KS behavior (Tohidinia and
Mosakhani, 2010: Wu and Zhu, 2012). Therefore, the next hypothesis is:

H9. The level of PBC has a positive effect on academics’ intention to share knowledge.
Similarly, as justified by Ajzen and Madden (1986), PBC has an indirect effect on the
behavior itself. These two relationships of PBC on intention and behavior play a significant
part in understanding KS among academics, as intention and behavior are closely related.
The next hypothesis based on PBC is:

H10. The level of PBC has a positive effect on academics’ KS behavior.

It is imperative to mold and generate the intention of academics to be inclined toward KS. As
described by TPB, intention has a direct effect on academics’ behavior to share. Numerous
studies have shown that KS intention among academics as a significant factor for KS
behavior (Jeon et al., 2011; Bock et al., 2005; Wu and Zhu, 2012). The final hypothesis is then
presented as:

H11. The intention to share knowledge has a positive effect on academics’ KS behavior.
Figure 1 presents the model framework based on the hypotheses presented
 JIMA Commitment
H1
Social H2 Atude
Network

Trust H3 H7

H4 H8 H11
Management Subjective Norm Knowledge Knowledge
Support sharing Intenon sharing Behavior

H9 H10

Facilitating H5 Perceived
condition Behavioral Control

Figure 1. H6
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Social Media
Model framework Use

Methodology
Data collection
An online survey was distributed to academics in public and private HLIs. A quota sampling
technique was used, targeting only professors, associate professors and senior lecturers. Online
questionnaires were utilized on the Google Form platform as it is convenient in checking the
responses from potential academics. Moreover, this cloud-based platform enables the author to
make reminders for those who did not respond to the request. Within the context of this study,
quota sampling is required and deemed suitable because of its inability to acquire the list of
potential population of this study, who are academics. This is due to the confidentiality of
revealing the information of academics’ details by the HLI and also the non-updated issue of the
current academics who are on permanent contract and also on study leave. A quota of 20:30:50
for professors, associate professors and senior lecturers, respectively, was targeted.

Measurement
A total of nine sources of items were taken from previous studies. The items were adapted
and suited based on the study’s context and conditions. Table I shows the sources of the
original items with the original items adapted from past studies.

Construct No. of items Source adaptation

Commitment 6 Allen and Meyer (1990)

Social network 4 Kim and Lee (2006)
Management support 5 Sveiby and Simons (2002)
Social media 7 Thong et al. (2002)
Facilitating condition 4 Thompson et al. (1991)
Attitude toward KS 5 Bock et al. (2005)
Subjective norm toward KS 6 Bock et al. (2005)
KS intention 5 Bock et al. (2005)
KS behavior 5 Akhavan et al. (2015)
PBC 5 Wu and Chen (2005)
Table I. Trust 4 Mcallister (1995)
Source of items Total 56
 Method of analysis Knowledge
A variance-based structural modeling equation–partial least square (PLS-SEM) was used sharing
for analyzing the data. PLS-SEM provided an efficient platform for assessing an exploratory
study as this study is trying to do. The new additional variables are assembled together
under the underlying TPB to understand the Muslim academics’ KS behavior in Malaysian
HLIs. Other reasons for applying PLS-SEM is that the model applied is rather complex and
the integration of TPB and SCT makes PLS-SEM the most suitable due to its diversification
and flexibility (Boulesteix and Strimmer, 2006).

Result and discussion

Demographic information
A total of 3,670 emails were sent, and a response rate of approximately 10 per cent was
achieved with 540 respondents. Eliminating non-Muslim in the respondents, and statistical
problems such as missing values and straight lining answer, a final of 398 Muslim
academics were obtained. Table II depicts the demographic information of the respondents
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in this study.
The respond shows that male and female respondents is nearly the same, with female
having a slightly higher percentage of 53.5 per cent compared to female with 46.5 per cent.
All respondents are PhD holders, except for one respondent with only master’s degree. For
the quota sampling, professors are the highest (71; 19.8 per cent), followed by associate
professors (117; 29.7 per cent) and senior lecturers (210; 50.5 per cent). These quotas were
close to the anticipated quota sampling of this study at 20:30:50 respectively. The years of
working experience were 1-5 years (17.1 per cent), 6-10 years (16.6 per cent), 11-15 years (25.1
per cent), 16-20 years (18.5 per cent), 21-25 years (8.2 per cent) and 26 years and above (14.5
per cent).

Measurement model
Following the two-step model of the suggested steps as in PLS analysis, a measurement
model is applied (Hair et al., 2014). In the measurement model, there are two aspects that
must be analyzed, the convergent and discriminant validity.
Convergent validity. For convergent validity, the focus is on determining the items’
reliability and validity. Shah and Goldstein (2006) justified that convergent validity is
required in the two stage model in ensuring that the items are grouped together in

Measure Items Frequency (%)

Gender Male 195 53.5

Female 203 46.5
Qualification PhD 377 94.3
Masters 21 5.7
Position Professor 71 19.8
Associate Professor 117 29.7
Senior Lecturer 210 50.5
Years of working 1-5 63 17.1
6-10 65 16.6
11-15 100 25.1
16-20 72 18.5
21-25 37 8.2 Table II.
26 and above 61 14.5 Demographic profiles
 JIMA measuring the same construct. It means whether the items converged in measuring the
construct they are supposed to measure. The aspects inspected in convergent validity are
factor loading (the value must exceed 0.7 for exploratory study), average variance extracted
(AVE) (the value must exceed 0.5) and composite reliability for internal consistency
reliability (value must exceed 0.7) (Chin, 2010; Hair et al., 2014).
For this study, all the item factor loadings exceed the required threshold value of 0.7,
except for ATT2, SM1, SM2 and TR3. All these four items are less than 0.7, which may
affect the reliability of the overall data if considered in the analysis. Eventually, all four
items were dropped. For the AVE, all constructs exceed the required value of 0.5. The lowest
and highest AVE values are 0.599 (subjective norm) and 0.826 (management support),
respectively. For the internal consistency, measured by the composite reliability, the entire
construct values are well above 0.7. The convergent validity is listed in Table III.
Discriminant validity. Discriminant validity test is a requirement for assessing the
measurement model. It is needed to determine whether a construct does discriminated from
other construct within the same model. It means that the research conducted is correct in
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terms of choosing a certain construct over the other.

The first method applied in discriminant validity is using Fornell and Larcker’s (1981)
criterion. In a model, the latent variable should have more variance in its own variables
compared to other variables. It uses squared AVE of every variables and comparing it with
other correlations in a model (Henseler et al., 2015). Fornel and Larcker criterion for
discriminant validity is presented in Table IV.
A relatively new discriminant validity assessment is using heterotrait monotrait
(HTMT) ratio of correlation. This technique is assessed by estimating the upper boundary of
the factor correlation. It can be distinguished by the value of HTMT, which should be
smaller than HTMT0.90 (Teo et al., 2008; Gold et al., 2001). Based on Table V, all values are
lower than HTMT value of 0.80, which indicates that the data do not suffer from
discriminant validity problem.

Structural model
The next step in PLS analysis is assessing the structural model. The structural model is
tested using procedure called bootstrapping with an iteration of 500 samples to assess its
path coefficient (Chin, 2010). There are several criteria that have to be assessed in structural
model. The first is to look at the b value, which shows its path coefficient. A value of more
than 0.2 is considered to be moderate, which signifies the effect of the exogenous variable on
the endogenous variable. Next is the R2 value, which indicates the variance explained on the
endogenous variables only. The effect size or f2 value should also be assessed to know the
effect size of a variable. It indicates the effect of a variable when it is omitted from a model,
showing its significance in the model. Finally, the predictive relevance or Q2, a value that
indicates predictive relevance of an endogenous variable, is used.
Figure 2 presents the structural model of this study while Table VI, shows the result of
the hypotheses testing comprising all the required values in structural analysis. It can F2T6
be seen that from the 11 proposed hypotheses, all are significant, except for H1, commitment
toward attitude, having t-values of 0.239, path coefficient of 0.013 and no effect size. Other
hypotheses are supported, having t-values ranging from 4.121 to 15.503.

Discussions and implications

This study tends to understand the KS behavior among Muslim academics in Malaysian
HLIs. As the teaching of Islam has suggested, knowledge is a virtue that must be shared to
everyone as much as possible. The need of Muslim academics to share what they know is
 Loading Composite reliability AVE
Knowledge
sharing
ATT1 0.853 0.938 0.791
ATT3 0.917
ATT4 0.927
ATT5 0.857
COMM1 0.759 0.914 0.642
COMM2 0.751
COMM3 0.736
COMM4 0.853
COMM5 0.879
COMM6 0.817
FC1 0.796 0.921 0.744
FC2 0.913
FC3 0.919
FC4 0.816
INT1 0.844 0.938 0.752
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INT2 0.86
INT3 0.909
INT4 0.844
INT5 0.877
KS1 0.881 0.914 0.68
KS2 0.867
KS3 0.805
KS4 0.769
KS5 0.797
MS1 0.902 0.96 0.826
MS2 0.907
MS3 0.896
MS4 0.91
MS5 0.929
PBC1 0.823 0.899 0.641
PBC2 0.807
PBC3 0.855
PBC4 0.745
PBC5 0.769
SM3 0.749 0.943 0.768
SM4 0.905
SM5 0.9
SM6 0.905
SM7 0.91
SN1 0.85 0.884 0.658
SN2 0.885
SN3 0.772
SN4 0.727
SNM1 0.759 0.9 0.599
SNM2 0.818
SNM3 0.776
SNM4 0.802
SNM5 0.756
SNM6 0.729
TR1 0.876 0.878 0.706
TR2 0.864 Table III.
TR4 0.777 Convergent validity
 JIMA ATT COMM FC KSB KSI MS PBC SM SN SNM Trust

ATT 0.889
COMM 0.314 0.801
FC 0.295 0.257 0.863
KSB 0.622 0.354 0.344 0.825
KSI 0.66 0.43 0.298 0.649 0.867
MS 0.257 0.656 0.322 0.332 0.319 0.909
PBC 0.592 0.375 0.353 0.634 0.704 0.28 0.801
SM 0.354 0.226 0.254 0.314 0.373 0.218 0.45 0.876
SN 0.525 0.497 0.317 0.558 0.461 0.457 0.498 0.343 0.811
SNM 0.562 0.559 0.342 0.536 0.665 0.603 0.577 0.354 0.537 0.774
Table IV. TR 0.449 0.392 0.468 0.561 0.47 0.421 0.431 0.254 0.456 0.546 0.84
Fornell–Larcker Notes: ATT = Attitude; COMM = commitment; KSB = knowledge sharing behavior; KSI = knowledge
criterion sharing intention; PBC = perceived behavioral control; SM = social media use; SN = social network; SNM =
discriminant validity subjective norm; TR = trust
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imperative as Muslim academics are the mass majority of academics in the Malaysian
education system, especially in public HLIs.
Out of the 11 hypotheses, all were supported, except for H1. Commitment toward attitude
was found to be insignificant with t-value of 0.239 and b value of 0.013, which shows a very
weak relationship. For other path relationship, the strongest path coefficient of b value is
management support with 0.603 and t-value of 15.503. Social network and social media use
also shows a strong significant relationship toward its endogenous variables, having path
coefficient of 0.399 (t-value of 7.059) and 0.385 (t-value of 9.289), respectively. For the TPB
variables, PBC toward KS intention and KS intention have b value of 0.370 (t-value of 6.551)
and 0.401 (t-value of 4.453), respectively.
As for the f2 value, all supported the significant level of the path model. For the
commitment toward attitude, the f2 value of 0.00 shows that this relationship was not
significant even if it is removed from this model, indicating no significant changes. For other
path, the f2 value ranges from weak (from 0.02 to 0.13), intermediate (from 0.13 to 0.26) and
substantial (0.26 and above).

ATT COMM FC KSB KSI MS PBC SM SN SNM TR

ATT
COMM 0.338
FC 0.329 0.289
KSB 0.691 0.398 0.388
KSI 0.718 0.476 0.327 0.717
MS 0.275 0.71 0.354 0.363 0.337
PBC 0.653 0.426 0.408 0.715 0.76 0.304
SM 0.386 0.244 0.281 0.346 0.405 0.233 0.502
SN 0.595 0.555 0.374 0.647 0.522 0.51 0.59 0.402
SNM 0.633 0.633 0.389 0.613 0.746 0.659 0.654 0.396 0.626
TR 0.509 0.464 0.552 0.654 0.539 0.48 0.495 0.291 0.542 0.648
Table V. Notes: ATT = attitude; COMM = commitment; KSB = knowledge sharing behavior; KSI = knowledge
HTMT discriminant sharing intention; PBC = perceived behavioral control; SM = social media use; SN = social network; SNM =
validity subjective norm; TR = trust
 Commitment 0.013
(0.235)
Knowledge
R2= 0.331
sharing
0.399***
Social (7.744) Attude
Network
0.274***
0.262***
(3.803)
(4.225)
Trust
R = 0.64
2 R2= 0.484
R = 0.364
2

0.603*** 0.298*** 0.401***

(14.451)
Management (15.729) Subjective
ubj
b ective Norm
r (4.754) Knowledge Knowledge
l d
Support sharing Intenon sharing Behavior

0.352***
0.370*** (4.792)
(6.891)
0.256***
Facilitating (6.249) R2= 0.263
condition
Perceived
0.385*** Behavioral Control
(9.726)

Social Media
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Use
Figure 2.
Structural model
Notes: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001

The following sections discuss the important finding of this study on the Malaysian
education system, theoretically and from managerial point of view.

Theoretical implication
This study has bridged the gap in the literature on the importance of sharing among Muslim
academics in Malaysia. As Malaysia is one of the best countries in South East Asia in
practicing Islam, it is best to understand the role of Muslim academics in realizing the deeds
and roles of academics in HLIs. With Muslims being the majority in Malaysia, it is expected
that many variables contribute to the significance of KS intention and behavior of academics.
This has contributed in the gap to understand the significant factors of KS among Muslim
academics. Muslim academics should have a better positive degree of KS behavior compared
to other faiths because Islam promotes knowledge acquisition among its followers.
Furthermore, Muslim in Malaysia are given special consideration under the Malaysian
constitution and the specialty of the Malay Muslim is protected. There are zakat centers and
many religious bodies and non-government agencies that provide fund and monetary

Hypotheses b value t-value f2 value Decision

H1. Commitment ! Attitude 0.013 0.239 0.000 Not supported

H2. Social Network ! Attitude 0.399 7.059 0.160 Supported
H3. Trust ! Attitude 0.262 4.586 0.078 Supported
H4. Management Support ! Subjective Norm 0.603 15.503 0.572 Supported
H5. Facilitating Condition ! PBC 0.256 5.876 0.083 Supported
H6. Social Media Use ! PBC 0.385 9.289 0.188 Supported
H7. Attitude ! KS Intention 0.274 4.121 0.120 Supported
H8. Subjective Norm ! KS Intention 0.298 5.029 0.146 Supported
H9. PBC ! KS Intention 0.370 6.551 0.213 Supported Table VI.
H10. PBC ! KS Behavior 0.352 4.735 0.121 Supported Result of hypotheses
H11. KS Intention ! KS Behavior 0.401 4.453 0.157 Supported testing
 JIMA assistance. Some of this assistance provides research funding to Muslim researchers
throughout the country. It just needs the commitment of academics to apply and secure these
funding.
Second, this study has managed to relate the three main categories of factors that can
influence academics to share. Individual factors include commitment, trust and social
networking. Management support is the sole organizational factor. Technological factors
consist of facilitating conditions and social media use. In understanding these three factors,
TPB and SCT were used as the underpinning theories. Results show that all these factors are
significant toward academics’ KS, except for commitment variable. All three main factors are
indeed important in understanding the motivational factors that encouraged KS among
academics. It is a holistic approach with the complete elements as encouraged by the religion.
As for the insignificant result of commitment, it can be said that academics in Malaysia
naturally work alone, rather in group. The low in commitment does not reflect the low
commitment of academics towards sharing, but rather low commitment to work as a group.
Asian are shown to be individualistic in nature compare to the Western countries (Kim and
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Ju, 2008). This is the part within the HLI context that can be improvise, as having a
committed academic would be a precious asset to any employer. Even Islam teaches
Muslims to be cooperative in completing any given task, regardless of the race, gender and
even involving other religions. Effort can be done to initiate the commitment to work
together if it able to lift the spirit and enthusiasm of academics, as Islam teaches that
Muslims should have strenuous efforts in doing a task, regardless the outcome of the result.

Practical implications
Practically, this study has risen up several points, particularly on managerial aspects. First,
this study has provided the guidelines and standard procedure for HLI and the government
in particular in recruiting new academics in joining the academia. Academics having only
certain elements that can contribute in KS activities should be considered, as such having
high trust in other colleagues, high commitment and ability to interact using social media.
Also, academics who that have positive attitudes in KS and perceived that they are in
control in committing to KS behavior are preferable than other candidates who would like to
apply for the academic post. By knowing these traits within the potential candidates, HLIs
will be able to perform KS activities among academics without doing much efforts and
stress in inducing academics out of their comfort zone to share.
Another practical point of view from this study is the role of academics in engaging into
social media for KS. Some academics, the younger generations are actively engaged in social
media with other academic peers and students. The ability and competency of academics in
using social media would enable knowledge being circulated freely and easily via social media.
The masses are currently actively and are familiar with various tools of social media.
Therefore, academics that are competent in using all social media platforms are sought after by
HLIs. TAs for senior academics who are much older than the juniors, might have problems in
adapting to new social media. They are used to conventional method of communicating. They
must be encouraged and to the extend taught to be familiarized with online platform of using
social media. The way to accomplish this is by integrating senior and junior academics within
research groups and teams. Junior academics can help and facilitate the seniors in using the
social media for smooth KS processes.

Limitation
Theoretically, as constituted by the federal constitution, Malays are directly considered as
Muslims in Malaysia. This study had only included Malays as the respondents. The
 sampling has excluded non-Malays as the respondents, despite that there might be also Knowledge
Chinese, Indian and also other races in Sabah and Sarawak being Muslims. But without sharing
prior information on the demographic details, to be uncertain on the respondent’s faith and
religion, this study only included Malay respondents.
Second, this study applied a cross-sectional data collection method. The main
problem in a cross-sectional study is to authenticate the relationship causality and the
temporality (Goehring et al., 2005). The data were collected at only one point of time,
which was to avoid respondents to give considerable time and commitment in
answering the questionnaire. Even more, respondents in Asia, particularly in Malaysia,
are found to have a low response rate, which was shown in this study at 14.31 per cent.
Compared to other studies in this KS area, this study scores a considerably low
response rate. This is a problem in Malaysian respondents who have low empathy and
consideration in answering to help other researchers, even though the respondents are
ironically academics. Nonetheless, having an online platform in collecting the
responses enables data collection to be completed without having to face severe
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problems in data analysis.

Conclusion
Academic is a profession where everyone expects for them to share knowledge without
any hindrance and prejudice. Moreover, Muslim academics should be able to share
knowledge freely and independently. The role and responsibilities of Muslim academics
is heavier than that of non-Muslim counterparts because sharing and delivering
knowledge is one of the commands in religion. The society has to be educated and
nourishes with knowledge that can propel them in realizing a better life. The knowledge
attained will also be useful for the afterlife.
With all the variables tested in this study, management support of the technological
variables exerts the highest significance on academics’ KS behavior. Other significant
variables that have effect on KS behavior and must be heavily considered are social
network, facilitating condition and social media use. All the three TPB original variables are
also significant toward KS intention. All significant variables are deemed important for the
stakeholders to be concerned in achieving excellence for HLI.
Muslim academics in particular should be more enthusiastic in sharing their
knowledge to the mass and community. The role and responsibilities of Muslim
academics in realizing a knowledgeable community is imperative, and steps taken should
be crucial in achieving this objective. Every stakeholders, associate and related bodies
pertaining to management of HLIs including the university’s top management,
government and academic themselves have to play their role in realizing KS can be
enhanced from the grassroots. This is to ensure that knowledge can be shared freely to
the university's community and to the public. The religion has stressed that a
knowledgeable society is the best and most prudent way in attaining peace and harmony
of a country. Hence, initiatives to make HLIs as a ground for knowledge center and viable
for KS must be attained by everyone, as it is the urgency of the Islamic faith. The notion
of KS among Muslim scholars should be enhanced and adopted within every HLI
(Wilson, 2012). This is monumental in marketing the Islamic knowledge as the prominent
sub discipline of marketing within the reach of the global audience. Eventually, the
Islamization of knowledge in HLI would make the global community easier in embracing
the words of Islam as the religion of mercy toward mankind.
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Corresponding author
Muhammad Ashraf Fauzi can be contacted at: ashrafauzi@iium.edu.my

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