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Knowledge management playing important role in organizations has become very popular in recent years. Darroch (2005) indicate that knowledge management has an important supporting function improving the conversion of resources into capabilities. Based on Nonaka and Konno (1998), knowledge management can be used to improve sharing and understanding company knowledge better. Besides, Jennex, M. E, (2008) believe that knowledge management is using knowledge from previous experience in our future activities in order to improve the organization’s effectiveness. As a matter of fact, Knowledge is considered as an asset which has to be valued, developed, and managed (Bogdanowicz and Bailey, 2002).
Knowledge sharing plays a more important role when it comes to life of people. Since physicians or in more detail staffs participating in patients’ care like nurses are considered as knowledge-intensive and professional groups in hospitals, their knowledge is vital to patient’s care. Thus, knowledge sharing becomes high priority in hospitals for better and innovative methods and elevating the efficiency of medical cares. (Moahi and Bwalya, 2017; Ryu et al., 2003). Given that, Ryu and colleagues (2003) suggested exploring physicians’ knowledge sharing behavior and presenting practical methods in this sense for hospitals’ goal and physicians’ better performance. Chang et al (2012) linked trust and shared vision with knowledge sharing among nurses and its’ importance in patient’s safety. They suggested that nurses should be provided by knowledge and have this chance to share their knowledge in case of seeing error by other health care providers.
With regard to this, it is evident that the main goal of the organizations is succeeding in their aims and since some organizations revealed gaining benefit after implementing knowledge sharing organizations have attracted their attentions toward encouraging knowledge sharing behavior among employees to reach their goals (Alam et al, 2009). It is a common belief to consider knowledge sharing as a process of exchanging knowledge and ideas through discussion in order to create new knowledge and ideas. Hislop (2002) argued that the relationship between attitudes and behaviors of workers to knowledge sharing and the workers who are willing to share their knowledge are a two-way reciprocal process.
Organ (1997) stated that knowledge sharing can improve organizational competitiveness and lack of it can cause serious problems for an organization. Predicting propensity of knowledge sharing must be considered as a major objective of organizational theory. Rather than focusing on rewards, this study utilizes other behaviors For example, it has been confirmed that “a strong corporate culture encouraging behaviors in the form of OCBs may substitute for incentive pay in knowledge sharing activities” (Wasko and Teigland, 2004), suggesting that knowledge sharing may be influenced by antecedent OCBs (Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Niranjana and Pattanayak, 2005), and it is substantially the implicit, invisible, intrinsic, and informal consciousness aspects of the corporate that guides the behavior of employees and simultaneously develop themselves out of their behavior (Scholz, 1987). In other words, corporate culture contains the symbolic side of a corporate, and it shapes the human thought and behavior in the system (Niranjana and Pattanayak, 2005).
In another study conducted by Teh and Sun (2012) analyzing the effects of job attitudes on knowledge sharing behavior, the positive effects of OCB, job involvement and job satisfaction was confirmed. However, it was found that OCB is not a significant mediator between job involvement, job satisfaction organizational commitment and knowledge sharing behavior. Based on Hislop (2003) review study, the influence of employee attitude toward knowledge sharing has been confirmed. In some studies, the likelihood of the impeding effect of employee attitudes on knowledge sharing behavior has been revealed which can be related to individualistic behavior of knowledge sharing (Yang, 2008; Bock and Kim, 2002).