A Cross-sectional Study to Determine the Effect of Organizational Memory on Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

, a global health crisis, has affected all sectors of the economy at the macro level and all functional areas of the enterprises at the micro level. In this process, the importance of information sharing has been understood in hospitals, which are at the center of the crisis, as in all institutions. The knowledge and skills used in hospitals are very diverse and complex, so the interaction of health personnel is a prerequisite for success. While carrying out their daily responsibilities, hospitals can strengthen and develop existing knowledge by learning from similar situations in the past. Thus, they can easily overcome many problems and crises. In this direction, it was decided to deal with organizational memory and information sharing issues, which became more important with the Covid-19 process, and a study was conducted to determine the effect of organizational memory and its sub-dimensions on information sharing in the 600-bed State Hospital serving in Afyonkarahisar/Turkey. It has been tried to reveal the differences between the perspectives of 110 health personnel employed before the pandemic process (March 2020) and 85 (mostly newly graduated) health personnel employed due to the pandemic. Statistical techniques such as t-test, Anova, correlation analysis, and simple and multiple linear regression analysis were used in the analysis of the data. According to the research findings (in both sample groups employed before and during the pandemic), a moderate positive correlation was determined between organizational memory and knowledge sharing. The results of the regression analysis (in both sample groups employed before and during the pandemic) show that organizational memory has a positive effect on knowledge sharing. According to this result, the socio-political knowledge, occupational (job) knowledge, occupational networks, industrial knowledge and the knowledge levels of the employees about the history of the organization affect their knowledge sharing positively. In addition, according to T-Test and Anova analyzes, when comparing organizational memory and demographic characteristics, there is a difference in the variables of "age of the participants, working time in the profession, working time in the institution, title and time of employment"; no difference was found in the comparison of knowledge sharing and demographic characteristics.