A multi-level perspective on trust, collaboration and knowledge sharing cultures in a highly formalized organization

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate organizational culture’s perceived importance and practice as it unfolds across hierarchal layers of a formalized organization. Organizational culture is important in innovation and change and becomes significant if its importance and practice are shared across all levels of an organization. Highly formalized organizations are not an exception to this. Yet, there is a shortage of empirical evidence on how the organizational culture’s perceived importance and practice unfold across the senior-management, middle-management and operational levels of a formalized organization. Design/methodology/approach Applying a theoretical frame incorporating information asymmetry, knowledge sharing and cultural participation, this paper examined three important facets of culture, namely, trust, collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Using a Jordanian bank’s case study, this paper collected data using a mixed-methods approach; quantitative to identify variations across levels and, subsequently, qualitative to explore the nuanced patterns in the perceived importance and practice of the three facets across different organizational levels in the context of a formalized organization. Findings The findings suggest that the importance and practice of the three cultural facets are shared, as well as differentiated across organizational levels based on purposiveness, person/situation-dependency and nature of work and nature/relevance of knowledge. Originality/value Using a multi-level lens provided insight not yet gained by current work in the field. This allowed us to unearth nuanced differences in the perception of organizational culture across organizational hierarchies. The paper contributes to the scholarship on organizational culture in the context of formalized organizations and to managerial practice by offering insights on how a shared practice of trust, collaboration and knowledge sharing is distributed across organizational levels, not captured before. This paper also suggests propositions related to each of three cultural facets, not spelled out before.

Unleashing the mechanism between affect-based trust and employee creativity: a knowledge sharing perspective

“…Few of the recent studies have suggested examining conditional factors that may strengthen the association between ABT and KS (Lee, 2021; Alshwayat et al , 2021). More specifically, Lee et al (2020) highlighted the importance of organizational factors toward knowledge sharing behavior; therefore, we purpose Perceived Organizational Support (POS henceforth) as one of those organizational factors that may strengthen the association between ABT and KS.…”

Sustainable Development in Higher Engineering Education: A Comparative Study between Private and Public Polytechnics

“…Refs. [10,11] argue that a well-connected organizational structure with required equipment is essential in innovating and achieving an institution's ultimate goal. However, some argue that most private polytechnics in Bangladesh do not have sufficient logistics to produce graduates demanded in the job market.…”

Business incubators vs start-ups: a sustainable way of sharing knowledge

“…The originality of this study reveals the dynamic role of academic incubators and how they play a fundamental role in the development of SMEs and help them overcome difficulties they face in the way of achieving strategic, managerial and financial goals. In particular, present research contributes to the knowledge management (KM) field by analysing the interaction between KM and RC through KS and sustainable innovation topics (Alshwayat et al, 2021;Cabrilo and Dahms, 2018;Del Giudice et al, 2017;Caputo et al, 2016;Kianto et al, 2014) The present work is structured as follows: In Section 2 the literature review of the main area of research is developed; Section 3 describes the methodology chosen. Section 4 is devoted to the case study description.…”

“…After describing the origins of academic BI and their role (Aernoudt, 2004; Romano et al , 2014; Natalicchio et al , 2019; Nicotra et al , 2018; Secundo et al , 2019), the present study follows a theoretical framework based on the relational based view (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Dyer and Singh, 1998; Paoloni, 2021), this paper delves into the characteristics and structure of the relationships that incubators and enterprises must have to achieve the goals of growth through collaboration, KS and innovation (Alshwayat et al , 2021; Lorenzoni and Lipparini, 1999; Del Giudice et al , 2013). Di Fatta et al (2018, p. 602) states: “relational conditions represent the basic point to ensure an effective information sharing among the actors involved in the same process or interested in solving common problems, whilst information and communication technology (ICT) defines the conditions for the emergence of innovation, which ensures efficacy and effectiveness in the management of innovative processes and strategies and supports decision makers in evaluating the suitability of innovation with specific reference to the needs and expectations of the external environment”.…”

“…In the light of the contributions discussed, arises a gap in the literature regarding the observation of how incubators support entrepreneurs in the development of innovative businesses and what is the most suitable relationship structure for the start-up to pursue its goals. Particularly, which are the characteristics and structures of the relationships that incubators and enterprises must have to achieve the goals of growth through collaboration, KS and innovation (Alshwayat et al , 2021; Lorenzoni and Lipparini, 1999; Del Giudice et al , 2013).…”