Exploring the relationships among tacit knowledge sharing, mentoring and employees’ abilities

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to assess the relationships among tacit knowledge sharing, mentoring and employees’ abilities in the areas of solving the work problems, adaptation to environments and creation of new innovative ideas. Design/methodology/approach This study applied quantitative research methods to examine the causal relationships among the key study variables. A questionnaire-based survey developed to evaluate the research model by drawing a convenience sample includes 123 employees working in the selected company headquarters in Jordan. Surveyed data were examined following the structural equation modeling procedures. Findings Results revealed that tacit knowledge sharing had a positive effect on employees’ abilities in the areas of adaptation to the work environments and creation of innovative ideas, while there was no an affirmative effect on employees’ abilities in the area of solving the work problems. In addition, the study showed that mentoring had a positive effect on employees’ abilities in terms of solving work problems, adaptation to work environments and creation of new innovative ideas. Furthermore, mentoring had mediated the relationship between tacit knowledge sharing and employees’ abilities. Research limitations/implications The findings of this study lay a basis for future studies pertain to the effect of tacit knowledge sharing and mentoring on the employees’ abilities as preconditions for improving organizational performance. These findings would be supported by future research studies, the examining of larger samples of pharmaceutical companies to give deeper meanings and more understandings of the relationship, among key study variables. The authors argue that it is useful to expand the current research by conducting future studies, examining the mediating role of other social learning methods such as storytelling and community of practices on relationship between tacit knowledge sharing and employees abilities. Practical implications The current research model will assist knowledge managers and practitioners to take serious decisions pertaining employees’ involvement in the process of tacit knowledge sharing and mentoring as preconditions for superior organizational. As well as, it can be a step forward for conducting further research studies on relationships among tacit knowledge sharing, mentoring and employees abilities. Social implications This suggested model may act as a catalyst for continuous improvements to the Jordan pharmaceutical industry in terms of producing high-quality medicines that improve health of humans and the society at large. Originality/value Although academic studies on knowledge management showed a positive relationship between tacit knowledge sharing and organizational performance, few studies examined the relationships between tacit knowledge sharing and employees’ abilities as preconditions for superior organizational performance. Furthermore, they ignored to examine the effect of the crucial mediating role of mentoring on the relationship between the two constructs. Therefore, this research tries to fill these gaps appropriately.

Preparing for Industry 5.0: a methodology for avoiding corporate amnesia

“…Classical knowledge sharing strategies focus on the knowledge flows that pass from experienced to the less experienced employees. Thus, mentoring is seen as a short-term one-on-one process that is directly associated with increased knowledge sharing (Curtis and Taylor, 2018); the experienced employees provide guidance to newcomers regarding content knowledge, required abilities (Al-Zoubi et al. , 2020; Barnes et al.…”

“…Given the fact that the study of corporate amnesia is still in its infancy (Sumbal et al. , 2020), practitioners and scholars have focused on showing how the classical professional development strategies, such as mentoring (Al-Zoubi et al. , 2020; Curtis and Taylor, 2018; Satterly et al.…”

“…Given the fact that the study of corporate amnesia is still in its infancy (Sumbal et al, 2020), practitioners and scholars have focused on showing how the classical professional development strategies, such as mentoring (Al-Zoubi et al, 2020;Curtis and Taylor, 2018;Satterly et al, 2018), training (Krull et al, 2022;Pauget and Chauvel, 2018), storytelling (Alfrey et al, 2017;Park et al, 2020;Tenorio et al, 2020) and mixed-aged teams (Weijs-Perree et al, 2020), as well as knowledge sharing strategies, such as the use of enterprise social networks for inter-and intra-organizational knowledge sharing (Leon et al, 2017;Sarra et al, 2020), communities of practice (Al-Zoubi et al, 2022;Jia et al, 2022), and serious games (Spanellis et al, 2020;Sprinkle and Urick, 2018) could serve as viable tools for avoiding knowledge loss. There are, however, several pitfalls occur.…”

Exploring the relationships among tacit knowledge sharing, communities of practice and employees’ abilities: the case of KADDB in Jordan

“…Generally, the concept of employees’ abilities refers to the applied skills and knowledge that qualify employees to do things in the right ways (Al-Zoubi et al , 2019). Studies showed that employees’ abilities have been generated from observation, learning and sharing knowledge with others.…”

“…In today’s knowledge-based economy, successful organization depends mainly on managing the knowledge process, especially the human capital as a prime source for performance and competitive advantage (Rahimli, 2012). Knowledge management is basically about acquiring, sharing and using knowledge to create economic and noneconomic values making the organization differentiate itself from competitors (Dalkir, 2011; Al-Zoubi et al , 2019). Knowledge sharing refers to the propagation of knowledge in the organizational context by stimulating the transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge among individuals or groups, or units (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Cyr and Choo, 2010).…”