In the knowledge era, organizations have to learn faster and better than competition, with the continuous cultivation of a culture of knowledge sharing. Attention should be paid to motivating employees to develop a positive attitude towards knowledge sharing, actively exchanging information and knowledge, continuously participating in learning processes, or putting knowledge sharing activities into everyday routine and habit. The research objectives are identification of the nature of the influence of intrinsic motivation on the knowledge sharing practice in organizations in the Republic of Serbia, determining the presence of a statistically significant difference in the intraorganizational knowledge sharing between multinational and domestic enterprises, and determining a statistically significant difference in the level of intrinsic motivation among employees in multinational companies and employees in domestic enterprises. The obtained results confirm the impact of intrinsic motivation on knowledge sharing.
TopIntorduction
Numerous studies conducted over the past thirty years have shown that human resources represent a significant source of competitive advantage (Wright et al., 1994) and have a positive impact on organizational performance (Lepak, Takeuchi & Snell, 2003; Bowen & Ostroff, 2004). Since tacit knowledge is “placed” in people's heads or individuals employed by the organization, it can be concluded that human resource management plays an important role in the development and implementation of the knowledge management concept in the organization, which is defined as the process of creating, adopting, sharing and the use of knowledge to improve business performance (Bassi, 1997). Relations between employees play a key role in the difussion of tacit and explicit knowledge in an organization, and the identification of motivational mechanisms contributes to a better understanding of individual incentives among employees.
The transition from the industrial to the information era resulted in the adoption of a new production paradigm (Teece, 2003; Aureli, Giampaoli, Ciambotti & Bontis, 2019), where the most important resources are immaterial, and human capital is classified as the most important part of intangible assets. The new industrial revolution, popularly marked as Industry 4.0, has contributed to significant changes in the way the business model works, but also the life of individuals and the whole society (Kravchenko & Kyzymenko, 2019). Automation, robotics, artificial intelligence systems (Google, Siri, etc.), introduction of cyber-physical systems, etc. (Kravchenko & Kyzymenko, 2019), additionally contributed to the emphasis on the importance of intangible assets (Gal, Nicoletti, Renault, Sorbe & Timiliotis, 2019). Since the foundation of human capital is knowledge, it becomes a key factor that enables the creation of a competitive advantage (Nonaka, 1994). Knowledge of employees is based on their experience and abilities to absorb new knowledge (Ognjanović & Simić, 2019). Therefore, knowledge is a factor of vitality, innovation, driving force, which affects the efficient use of other resources in the organization, and it understandable and applicable to problem solving or decision making (Aureli et al., 2019). Moreover, knowledge is the only resource that is not reduced by sharing, but by an effective exchange, the overall knowledge of the organization is increased (Slavković & Simić, 2018).
Recognizing knowledge as the valuable, rare resource, difficult to imitate, the process of knowledge sharing in organisation is considered to be an important process of social interaction (Van den Hooff et al., 2012). Employees have always created and shared knowledge within the organization, and the process of knowledge sharing was considered as natural and mandatory process that inevitably arrives. However, it was found that in the best conditions and in a perfect organizational atmosphere, the sharing of knowledge is complex and multiple processes (Hendriks, 1999).