组织信任与知识共享行为的演化博弈分析

知识是企业最为重要的战略性资源,为了提高知识的价值,企业需要促进员工间知识共享行为以增加其竞争优势。在有限理性的基础上,构建知识共享行为的演化博弈模型,依此分析影响员工间知识共享行为的因素,探究组织信任对知识共享行为的影响。结果表明,知识数量、知识贡献系数、共享奖励系数和共享惩罚系数与知识共享行为正相关而共享风险系数和成本系数与知识共享行为反相关,情感信任促进知识获取而认知信任促进知识贡献。

An analysis of evolutionary game between organizational trust and knowledge sharing

Currently, knowledge sharing among employees become integral for organizational success as the knowledge acquired through the sharing process is considered the main source for managers during decision making as well as a source for better employees′ performance and productivity, hence organizational productivity. In addition, the knowledge captured during the knowledge sharing process become the wealth for both employees and the enterprise. One of the main keys, identified by researchers, to ensure effective knowledge sharing among employees is trust. There is no doubt that employees would engage in sharing what they know if they trust the others, in other words, trust lays the ground for sharing. In practice, organizations and managers would develop policies and programs to improve trust among employees in order to ensure an environment where employees are "happy" to share what they know because they "trust" the others would do the same. Past research demonstrated that employees fear to share what they know because they think they would lose their competitiveness if they share. It is the organization′s/management′s responsibility to build an atmosphere of trust to capture their employees′ know-how. Accordingly, the paper identified and analyzed six variables to construct the proposed evolutionary game model based on knowledge sharing behavior. These six variables are: knowledge quantity, sharing ability coefficient, sharing reward coefficient, sharing penalty coefficient, sharing risk coefficient and sharing cost coefficient. This paper addresses and analyses the role of these variables in knowledge sharing behavior. It also discusses how organizational trust affect the knowledge sharing behavior through these variables. Each of these variables was analyzed to find how it affects the overall knowledge sharing behavior among the enterprise′ employees.  In addition, the analysis also was administered on combinations of these factors and how these combinations affect the enterprise′s knowledge sharing. For example, the results demonstrated that knowledge quantity, knowledge contribution coefficient, sharing reward coefficient and sharing penalty coefficient are positively correlated with knowledge sharing behavior. These variables are integral for the success of sharing knowledge as they insure high levels of trust among them. Sharing risk coefficient and cost coefficient are inversely related to knowledge sharing behavior. Accordingly, employees demonstrated based on the analysis that employees would share regardless of the risk and cost associated with the sharing process. The analysis also showed that emotional trust promotes knowledge acquisition and cognitive trust promotes knowledge contribution. The originality of this research stems from its development of an evolutionary game model based on trust used to ensure effective knowledge sharing among group members participated in the game.