Narrow Results

Different theories have been advanced and tested about the choice of communication media/channels. These theories deal with information richness, task orientation and relevance of social and organisational contexts in developed nations. Communication media are distinctly important to knowledge sharing. This study will investigate the effectiveness of communication channels in the private companies of Kuwait, a developing nation, so as to ascertain whether these theories are valid in the setting of a developing nation. A research instrument was developed with ten communication channels, and 526 participants from nine Kuwaiti companies indicated the perceived degree of effectiveness of ten media for sharing information/knowledge. It was found that the employees of Kuwaiti companies perceived documented knowledge to be more effective than other media. Face-to-face informal communications, the richest medium found in the earlier studies, was perceived to be less effective than memos, letters and written pronouncements. The telephone was perceived to be a significantly less effective medium. Electronic channels were also not perceived to be as effective. Differences in these results have been explained in the sociocultural and organisational context of Kuwait.

The purpose of this research was to further the understanding of knowledge exchange within organisations by examining how the dyadic relationships between individuals, in terms of the channels of communication used (structural capital), knowledge awareness (cognitive capital), and the quality of their relationships (relational capital), influence opportunities for knowledge exchange (access to advice), and ultimately individual performance. data were analysed using social network analysis to determine individual network centralities, and structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses at the individual level. The findings suggest (1) face-to-face channels with trusted sources are the most preferred method for exchanging sensitive knowledge, (2) knowing where expertise resides and source availability is key to research knowledge exchange, and (3) centrality in knowledge network does not result in uniform increases in individual performance. While technology has the potential to increase the efficiency of knowledge exchange by removing the barriers to same-time, same-place interactions, computer-mediated communication may actually inhibit the exchange of tacit knowledge and advice because of the lean medium of the exchange, negatively impacting performance. Using a network perspective, this study adds to the literature on intra-organisational learning networks by examining how an individual’s use of different communication channels to share knowledge is related to centrality in knowledge networks, and how this impacts individual performance.