Understanding knowledge sharing in organizations: futher questions of research through a social cognitive perspective

Abstract

Enabling knowledge sharing among individuals in organizations is fundamental to innovation and organizational success. Nevertheless, despite receiving great attention among both academics and practitioners, knowledge sharing research is still searching for integrated framework. Recent literature reviews shows that most of the existing research has centered on a macro perspective, attaching less emphasis on the integration of the individual in the process. Being aware of this, an increasing group of scholars have proposed a multi-level integration of the individual and the organizational perspectives. This paper argues that this new approach that is grounded on sociology provides appropriate research questions, but might not be enough to successfully answer them, since is rooted in a sociological vision of the individual. Knowledge sharing literature might pay more attention to the reciprocal interaction of personal factors, individual behavior and organizational environment. A possible way to fill this gap can be by viewing the topic through the lens of the social cognitive theory. This theory permits a better integration of existing research of some psychosocial topics such as vicarious learning, self-efficacy, cognitive biases and schemas.