Submitted To: Dr.

NISBAT ALI
Submitted by: HIRA MALIK
Reg No: NUML-S22-34709
Course: Research Methodology
Assignment No. 1
Department: Management Sciences (MS)
Semester: I (MBA1.5)
 LITERATURE REVIEW
H1: Knowledge sharing has a positive impact on innovation.
Knowledge sharing’s impact on innovation:
Knowledge means you know about specific thing you have
awareness about that which include the information, techniques
and ideas through education.
Innovation means that undergoing human and useful resources
with better and significant version of wealth-producing capacity.
(Drucker).
Knowledge sharing is very important in an organization. In an
organization, sharing knowledge not only increases efficiency, but
it also encourages employees to do their jobs effectively and
efficiently. Employee’s speed of work can be increased and they
get smarter by getting better understanding of things within the
organization, they also came to know how to utilize the resources
and expertise effectively.
The main point and noticeable feature of knowledge management
is knowledge-sharing, which is also the basic feature for
innovation activities. The success of a knowledge management
depends on the desire of employees in an organization to
participate in the knowledge sharing activities to facilitate all the
other employees. (Semertzaki, 2011)
Knowledge sharing between employees in any organization leads
to bring innovations in an organization, which confirms the
acceptability and long term success of the business (Lin, 2007).
Knowledge sharing is defined as presenting or making the
knowledge available to large number of audience to use it when
required. It will facilitate many employees in many ways and will
save time. (Lin, 2007). In the competitive business era, this places
put focus on the need of knowledge sharing, which gives
competitive advantages through the employee’s rational
resources.

H2: Diversity due to work related characteristics has

positive influence on knowledge sharing.

Diversity and knowledge sharing:

Diversity is the existence of differences within a given place. That
incorporate gender, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual
induction and place of work. It is the way people are different from
each other and yet similar at individual and group levels.
Organizational diversity requires studding the formation of a group
to make sure that different perspectives are displayed. So that
every perspective of people can be presented. (Purnell, 2011)
Diversity in the workplace is growing very fast with the passage of
time which result in increase in globalization in the world. One
useful effect is that employees belonging to different culture,
place and religion usually have different ways of thinking and can
examine a matter at hand from a different point of views. This is
difficult to achieve when employees belonging to the same culture
are asked to examine the same matter. (Martin, 2014)
 A fundamentally diverse work group is one in which the
members, morality of their different organizational connections,
roles, or posts, can reveal the group to unique sources of
knowledge. It is hypothesized that if members of fundamentally
diverse work groups get tangled in external knowledge sharing,
their performance will get improved with the passage of time and
with the help of efficient exchange of knowledge through unique
external sources. (Cummings, 2004)

H3: Diversity due to work related characteristics has

positive influence on innovation
Diversity and Innovation:
This diversity can be useful because it helps to provide the
potential to obtain a competitive and effective advantage if a firm
is different in many good ways (Barney, 1991). For example, if a
firm has gradually expand more efficient and effective interactions
among its human and technological resources it may be able to
execute more useful and advantageous differentiation strategy or
gain a least cost structure than its competitors. (BLOODGOOD,
2013)
Innovation led not only to superior new goods and services but it
also provide the clarity to the market positions of firms engaged to
old ways of doing business. It also shatter the old monopolies
while creating new economic value. And to enlarge and straighten
that monopoly power going along the value-creating innovations,
its owner had to experience their power both in pricing and
product policy in order to avoid that become effected again to the
changes as organizations are growing very rapidly and
innovations are done rapidly. (Vossen)
H4: Demographic or background diversity i.e age and
gender are negatively related to the knowledge
sharing behavior.
Demographic diversity negatively related to
knowledge sharing:
Diversity on anything, including demographic diversity, is likely to
take away from shared understanding because diversity leads to
different opinions of people of different kind even when the main
and unbiased information remains the same. For example, in our
work with construction teams, we came to know that architects
and construction engineers usually had completely different point
of views on and gave quite different solutions to the same
problem (Gibson, 2003)
 Each demographic diversity variable which are age, gender,
race, group, organization, education, or practical background can
be distinguished according to its level of clarity and job
relatedness. Clarity is the extent to which the variable is easily
examined by group members, and job-relatedness is the extent to
which the variable directly tells the perspectives and skills related
to rational tasks. (Pelled, 1996)
By providing knowledge regarding customers, competitors,
suppliers, procedures, methods etc. to the team members the
impact is reduced, which can guarantee some assurance of work.
As there is this famous saying which states that “Knowledge is the
power” (Bureš, 2003)
Mostly younger and employees with less experience can feel the
risk more, because they cannot argue if their working results be
regard as valuable knowledge for others or not. It may be hard for
lower management staff to tell the worth of their knowledge for
other members of the company as a whole. (Bureš, 2003)
H5: Demographic or background diversity i.e age and
gender are negatively related to innovation
How demographic diversity elated to innovation:

On contrary, diversity is also a main source of misunderstanding,

doubtfulness and disagreement in the workplace that can result in
absentees of the employees, poor quality of work, low morale and
loss of competitiveness among the employees. Firms finding for
competitive advantage therefore more likely to face a paradoxical
situation. If they accept diversity, they risk workplace
disagreement, and if they avoid diversity, they risk loss of
competitiveness. The pros and cons associated with workforce
diversity usually put the organizations in a position of managing a
paradoxical situation. It can also have negative impact on the
company’s innovation as employees within the company will not
be able to understand each other’s ideas leading to more
disagreements. (Jones, 2005)
Diversity can also be at risk for firms, not only because they could
be at a competitive disadvantage because they are less efficient
at workplace, but because they may not be considered legal.
(BLOODGOOD, 2013)
References
BLOODGOOD, J. M. (2013). Benefits and Drawbacks of Innovation and Imitation.

Bureš, V. (2003). CULTURAL BARRIERS IN KNOWLEDGE SHARING.

Cristina B. Gibson Susan G. Cohen. (n.d.).

Cummings, j. N. (2004). Work Groups, Structural Diversity, and Knowledge Sharing in a Global
Organization.

dixton. (2000).

Drucker, P. F. (n.d.).

Gibson, C. B. (2003). Virtual Teams That Work.

Jones, N. B. (2005). The Paradox of Diversity Management, Creativity and Innovation.

Martin, G. C. (2014). The Effects Of Cultural Diversity In The Workplace.

Pelled, L. H. (1996). Demographic Diversity, Conflict, and Work Group Outcomes: An Intervening Process
Theory.

Semertzaki, E. (2011). knowledge management.

Vossen, R. W. (n.d.). COMBINING SMALL AND LARGE FIRM ADVANTAGES.