What Drives Organizations To Share Knowledge With Their Supply Chain Partners?

Based on knowledge based view of the firm ’knowledge’ is an important productive resource. Organizations need to acquire required knowledge not only from internal sources but also from other organizations. If appropriate conditions for knowledge sharing are provided, an organization is able to obtain knowledge from its supply chain partners. One of the fundamental requirements of knowledge sharing is intention to share knowledge which has been widely investigated at individual level. Intention to share knowledge needs to be investigated at organizational levels especially between supply chain partners. The current study aims to identify drivers of the intention of an organization to share knowledge with its supply chain partners. By conducting literature review, three sets of factors have been identified and described in the form of a conceptual model. These are ‘contextual factors’, ‘organizational factors’ and ‘the nature of knowledge’. Both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies are planned to investigate such relationships. However, the present study only reports the conceptual model and results of the qualitative part of the study in automotive industry. The quantitative investigation that complements the current study is the subject of a future stage of the study although overall guidelines for conducting a survey are provided.