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ultimate source of information. Using this capability the learning organisation becomes a
knowledge creating company. They suggest that where knowledge is widely disseminated
throughout the company, the company is using its brainpower or intellectual capital. They
gave an example of Japanese companies which have learned how to create new knowledge by
using available knowledge and linking it to highly subjective information, insights, intuition
and hunches (Rowe & Davis 1996, p.86).
Organisations create new ideas in the learning processes. These ideas are then shared through
the support of an organisation‟s structure and network. According to Goldsmith, Morgan and
Ogg, organisations that learn have more investor value because these organisations not only
create new ideas but also share those ideas throughout their structure, building knowledge
networks, where technology and communities of practice transfer knowledge from one
setting to another (Goldsmith, Morgan & Ogg 2004, p.66).
2.3. The rationale for sharing knowledge.
If we perhaps try to find out how much is written in the subject of knowledge sharing, it will
not come as a surprise that there is so much recently. Even though sharing has been there for
years and years as a normal practice. We have seen teachers sharing slides after their
presentations, researchers sharing the results of their findings. The question we may ask
ourselves is why do we share knowledge That is precisely what this section tries to explore
in the literature to find the answers to.
Davenport and Prusak, two of the outstanding writers in knowledge management, suggest
that global competitiveness among other factors has stimulated the need for sharing.
Davenport and Prusak, as cited by (Kimiz, 2005, p.2), suggest that multiple factors have led to
the current “knowledge boom” the perception and the reality of a new global competitiveness is
one of the driving forces therefore, the only sustainable advance a firm has, comes from what it
collectively knows, how efficiently it uses what it knows and how quickly it acquires and uses
new knowledge. This has led to a strong need for a deliberate and systematic approach to
cultivating and sharing an organization‟s knowledge base (Davenport, 2000).
Ernst Helmstädter suggests that the diffusion of known knowledge can stimulate innovation
because the learning actors, who will share the knowledge already known somewhere in the
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