Knowledge Exchange and the Trust Institution: a New Look at the Problem

Abstract

In the knowledge economy, the search and exchange of knowledge is widely recognized as a key factor contributing to the creation and mobilization of company's knowledge resources to maintain its competitive advantage. This study is devoted to identifying the role of interpersonal trust in the process of searching and sharing knowledge. Theoretical analysis shows that previously conducted studies in this research field primarily focus on revealing the relationship between interpersonal trust and willingness to use knowledge. This study is interested in willingness to establish contact between economic actors for the purpose of knowledge exchange, and this becomes important when discontinuities in innovation result from a lack of knowledge exchange and interaction between stakeholders. The effects of two different types of interpersonal trust (cognition-based trust and affect-based trust) surrounding willingness to share explicit and tacit knowledge between individuals is separately examined/tested. This analysis presents data obtained from surveying 295 employees from large organizations in Penza, Russia. To validate the survey, a confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling helped verify advanced causal hypotheses. The hypotheses was tested using multiple correlation-regression analysis, and results reveal both types of interpersonal trust positively correlate with willingness to share both explicit and implicit knowledge. Willingness to share tacit knowledge influenced by affect-based trust between individuals is acknowledged in this study, while cognition-based trust is more significant in explaining willingness to share explicit knowledge. An argument from this study is the need to create favorable conditions within organizations to ensure the recognition of knowledge exchange without constraints.

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