Knowledge workers’ perceptions of potential benefits and challenges of inter-organizational knowledge sharing systems: a Delphi study in the health sector

Abstract

Inter-organizational knowledge sharing systems (IOKSS) can serve as strategic systems for knowledge-based sectors. Most prior research on inter-organizational systems (IOSs) focuses on organizations' adoption of such systems; they reveal little about knowledge workers' adoption of IOS, especially in horizontally linked firms. Knowledge workers' perception is critical to the deployment of IOKSS at all stages. On the basis of a Delphi technique in the health sector, this study demonstrates that IOKSS can benefit individuals, customers, organizations, the sector, and the knowledge sharing process, and that the challenges of IOKSS arise from individuals, peers, IOKSS, organizations, and the sector.

How does the knowledge environment shape procurement practices for orthopaedic medical devices in Mexico?

“…We believe that there is an opportunity in managing knowledge in the field of orthopaedic HRMDs by adequately applied information technology solutions. Studies are concerned with health information management and technology and how it can be utilized to improve important outcomes and overall quality of care in different health care settings [ 51 – 54 ]. The interest in knowledge-related topics in healthcare systems is often focused on clinical informatics to promote patient care and safety like, for example, clinical decision-making.…”

Knowledge management implementation and the tools utilized in healthcare for evidence-based decision making: a systematic review

“…Lack of motivation of employees to share knowledge is one of the barriers to implementation of KM ( 12 , 15 , 33 ). Knowledge sharing provides a connection between people and organization and also creation, dissemination, collaboration, innovation and acquisition of knowledge.…”

“…Inter-organizational knowledge sharing system can serve as a strategic system for knowledge intensive sectors such as healthcare. The benefits of inter-organizational knowledge sharing were found to be enormous of which the top 20 benefits identified were related to individual benefits, knowledge sharing process, customer benefits, organizational benefits and sector benefits ( 12 ). Individual benefits include improved learning, decision making, problem solving, productivity and job satisfaction, whereas knowledge sharing process benefits are related to improved staff collaboration, faster information flow, information availability/accessibility, information quality, creation of new knowledge and social networking.…”

“…Customer benefits include faster services, reduced error/quality problem and organizational benefits include saving time of organization, improved organization learning, reduced duplicated work and saving of staff time. Moreover, there are sector benefits, such as improvement of standardization ( 12 – 14 ). Another study conducted in multinational healthcare companies; namely, pharmaceutical companies in Greece ( 15 ) on stakeholders' assessment with co-workers and managers as participants explored knowledge and insights on what knowledge has been transferred and how.…”

“…A. Barriers : Some of the challenges reported in many of the studies reviewed in the present work are infrastructure (technological) constraints, lack of motivation of employees to share knowledge ( 12 , 15 , 33 ), system unreliability, lack of senior management support, organizational politics patients' privacy issues ( 12 , 33 ), reluctance of clinicians to use ICT tools on daily basis-mainly due to lack of time ( 5 )-, lack of attention to results and use of evidence, lack of incentives for documentation and dissemination, limited document and use of good practices, inadequate awareness about KM systems ( 16 ), expensive initial investment, poor quality of patient data or information ( 18 , 30 , 34 ), inequity in status among practitioners (i.e., inhibitor of knowledge sharing), organizational culture, missing a centralized knowledge-base system and lack of trust ( 19 , 36 ). With respect to EBMP, the existing challenges include lack of fund to implement evidence-based medicine, limited access to modern technologies and up-to-date medical research, the complexity of shared decision making ( 14 , 27 ), perception of low expectation to bring change in target audience, lack of communication between researchers and policy makers, lack of applied research ( 29 , 33 ), difficulty of locating specific information, poor interface usability and problems with access to the health IT applications ( 28 , 34 ).…”