Organizations are defined as socio-technical systems, people is essential for
the development and existence of the organizations. People live in the organizations
by communicating and interacting with others. They develop their own methods of
problem-solving approach, behaviors and products depending on their personal
experience, intellectual property, and the explicit knowledge has been learned. This
kind of knowledge is called tacit knowledge and the transformation of tacit
knowledge in explicit knowledge by sharing, teaching and codifying it is crucial for
the competition power and the survival of the organizations. It is observed that
individual who has tacit knowledge; shares it with the other actors of the
organization by means of relationship, communication and interaction, throughout
his organizational life. This situation increases the importance of social capital
existing in the social structure and tissue of the organization. Social capital consists
of structural, relational and cognitive dimensions and plays an important role in
communication and interaction among people.
Structural social capital dimension is conceptualized as a encompassing
network ties, network configuration and network appropriability. Network ties
connect between members of organization these connections influence on
information transfer, organizational learning, and the execution of organizational
activities. For example transformation of information of knowledge occurs when
employees are interconnected. A network configuration factors revolve around such
characteristics as structural holes for example the absence of connections between
employees, centralization for example connections are concentrated among a few
employees, and density, for example total number of potential connections among
all employees. Network appropriability affects the flow of information and
assistance between a network. It relates to the ease with which different types of
relationships in a network. For example, an employee can transfer his or her
knowledge to his or her friend that makes his friend executes his own job easily.
Connections established between individuals relevant both formal and informal
contexts.
Relational social capital is characterized by trust, shared norms and perceived
obligations, and a sense of mutual identification. It is similar to connections between
individuals that are characterized by trust, reciprocity, and emotional intensity. The relational dimension of social capital concerns affective relationships between
employees (i.e. like, trust, and identify). Interpersonal trust includes good
intentions, openness, competence, and reliability of an other party. Trust facilitates
social and resources exchange, increases communication, and enhances
cooperation between individuals. Also trust may increase innovation enhance team
work, and improve organizational functioning.
Cognitive social capital consists of shared language, shared narratives, and
collective mind. Existence of shared language and shared narratives facilitates
transferring ideas, discussing problems, sharing knowledge, and helping to one an
other. Shared language provides effective communication among organizational
members. Common language provides exchange information and assistance to
other employees and enables them to perceive and interpret events in similar ways.
Shared narratives are the myths stories, and the metaphors that enable
communications among organizational members. Collective mind provides shared
perspectives and develops similar organizational behaviors against the same kind of
organizational problems.
Theory of planned behavior investigates the roles of attitudes, norms over
behavior and behavior’s intentions. Also theory of planned behavior is interested in
transformation of behavior intention to behavior action. Locus of control is a main
part of planned behavior theory effecting personnel behaviors. Components of locus
of control are internal and external control which influences the behavior intention
and behavior action. In this context, it is assumed that internal and external control
influence also tacit knowledge sharing intention.
This paper investigates firstly the effect of social capital on the tacit knowledge
sharing intention, secondly the relation of locus of control and tacit knowledge
sharing intention and finally paper aims to find out if the tacit knowledge sharing
intention results in tacit knowledge sharing behavior? Medicine, being the widely
produced, shared and transferred area of tacit knowledge, is chosen as the research
field.
The multi variable regression analysis is used to explore the relations
hypnotized among social capital, locus of control and tacit knowledge sharing
intention. The results of the paper exhibit the positive relation between social capital
and internal control with tacit knowledge sharing intention and expose that tacit
knowledge intention is resulting in tacit knowledge behavior.
