The Effect of Organizational/Technological Factors and the Nature of Knowledge on Knowledge Sharing

This study investigates the dynamics of a knowledge sharing effort in New York State government that involved multiple organizations, divisions, and geographically separated offices in the development of the Multi-Purpose Access for Customer Relations & Operational Support System. Using a case study approach, we address the question of how multiple organizational and technological factors — distributed leadership, alignment of issues and incentives, coordination of a number and variety of groups, trust, technology, and implementation strategy — interact with the nature of knowledge to influence the knowledge sharing process. A major contribution of this study is that it uses a multi-dimensional view of knowledge, examining the interactive impact of the nature of knowledge with multiple organizational and technological factors in public sector knowledge management research.