Individual Preferences towards Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Sharing: First Empirical Results from Knowledge-intensive Companies

Both knowledge-creation and knowledge-sharing are viewed as very significant for competitiveness of an organization in modern knowledge economy. Contemporary literature usually treats these two processes as either independent or positively related. However, analyzing various organizational conditions for efficient course of these processes, we proposed that in some cases they may contradict each other. Thus on micro-level of analysis we hypothesized that there were two distinct non-overlapping groups of individuals – those more disposed towards knowledge creation, and those more disposed towards knowledge sharing. This hypothesis was examined with empirical data from employees of 5 knowledge-intensive companies. Author contact information: Tatiana E.Andreeva, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer, Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources Management department, Graduate School of Management, St.Petersburg State University 16, Dekabristov per., St.Petersburg, Russia, 199155 Phone: (7-812) 350-8155 Fax: (7-812) 350-0406 e-mail: [email protected]