Individual Factors Influencing Knowledge Sharing Intentions Among Consulting Engineers in Kenya

Abstract

Knowledge hoarding is a challenge that is contributed to the sparing willingness or absolute lack of it to share knowledge at one's disposal with the colleagues in the departments, teams or organization at large. Since engineering problems and solutions are rarely well documented and valuable lessons learned are confined to the minds, intentions for sharing expertise and knowledge by consulting engineers can be an enabler or disabler of knowledge sharing. Willingness to share knowledge is one of the challenges facing knowledge transfer across engineering projects as well as knowledge sharing amongst engineering experts. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess individual factors influencing knowledge sharing intentions among consulting engineers in Kenya. Specifically, the objectives of the study were to establish how self-efficacy and reputation influence knowledge sharing intentions among consulting engineers in Kenya. To realize this, the researcher reviewed both theoretical and empirical literature and proposed to use the research methodology that addressed the gaps identified in literature as well as answer the stipulated research questions. A descriptive survey design was used. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from the respondents who were selected from 403 consulting engineers in Kenya where a sample size of 80 was drawn through stratified simple random sampling. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 was used for data analysis to generate descriptive (percentages, means, and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (Correlation and regression coefficients) results. The outputs were presented inform of statistical diagrams, tables and figures. The response rate was 72.5% and the findings were such that; self-efficacy (t=3.274, p=0.002) and reputation, (t=2.334, p=0.022) were statistically significant in influencing knowledge sharing intentions among consulting engineers in Kenya, where self-efficacy had the greatest influence on knowledge sharing intentions. Individual factors explained 68.2% (R 2 =0.682, F=28.37, p=0.001) of variation in Knowledge sharing intentions. Based on the findings it was recommended that consulting engineering firms should seek to cultivate improvement of self-efficacy, reputation, deriving satisfaction in helping others and trust through organizational process of professional development and knowledge management.