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4.3.2. Structural capital perspective.
No matter how willing staff are to share, if there is no infrastructure to facilitate the sharing,
it will be difficult for sharing to happen. This section discuss the issue of structural capital
and proposes how such things as organisational culture, structure, technological infrastructure
and knowledge sharing strategy can help facilitate knowledge sharing. While the previous
section discussed the opportunities, incentives, training, and other aspects pertaining to
enhancing employees ability to participate in knowledge sharing, this section discusses how
we support those who are enhanced and ready to share their knowledge to add value to an
organisation.
4.3.2.1. Organisation culture
Culture has been one of the most well known obstacles to knowledge sharing. The minimal scale
of knowledge sharing revealed by the data collected suggests one of the two things. It either
suggests the absence of a sharing culture or the failure of existing sharing culture. Whether the
answer is A or B, the message is very clear that Tanzania University public Libraries need to
overhaul their organisation culture to support knowledge sharing practices. Trying to promote
knowledge sharing within the same organisation culture may lead to devastating consequences
including waste of time and resources and likely the same efforts in the future even with a right
strategy may receive a negative reception.
Most major change efforts in the past have failed due to ignorance of the importance of
cultural change, see more in 2.4.2.1. This is not exceptional with libraries not either with
knowledge sharing, the demand to rethink our culture to accommodate knowledge sharing
initiatives is important. The burgeoning of knowledge sharing in Tanzania University
libraries relies on cultural changes. The new culture should advocate creating and
maintaining an environment whereby employees are willing and able to collaborate easily. A
cooperative culture should be fostered to allow problems to be solved collaboratively. That
way staff get the opportunity to learn from each other and contribute, and raise the trust level.
Even though responses suggested that 17 of 21 respondents (81%) agreed that staff are
encouraged to share, only 57% (12 of 21) of respondents believed that staff are willing to
share. This suggests that even though sharing is encouraged, the motivation to share needs
more emphasis to achieve better results. The organisation of libraries also needs to be looked
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