Effective Factors on Knowledge Sharing among Faculty Members: Ardabil University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Several factors have contributed to the creation and development of knowledge sharing culture. Awareness of these factors and their impact on knowledge sharing seems to be vital for educational organizations. This study was conducted with the aim of determining the factors affecting sharing knowledge among faculty members of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This study was conducted in 2018 by descriptive-survey method. The population consisted of all the 225 faculty members of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences who were surveyed by census of all members of the community. Data collection was done via questionnaire. Validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by the experts. AS to the reliability of the questionnaire, it was calculated through Cronbach's alpha. To analyze the data, descriptive analysis, one-sample T-test and confirmatory factor analysis were used. Results: The findings showed that individual-humanistic, organizational-institutional, cultural, leadership-management and technological infrastructures are factors that affect knowledge sharing. The highest average was of individual-humanistic factors (4.84±0.75) as well as organizational-institutional (4.07±0.66). Also, leadership-management factors (2.68±0.87), cultural (2.29±0.73) and technological infrastructures (1.11±0.99) could be ranked, in lower position respectively. Pearson correlation test (0.78) showed that there is a significant relationship among all the factors of knowledge sharing at the significance level of 0.01. The results of factor analysis confirmed the effect of the five factors studied on knowledge sharing as well. Conclusion: Individual-humanistic, organizational-institutional, cultural, leadership-management and technological infrastructures are factors affecting the sharing of knowledge among the faculty members of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences. In view of these, to develop a process of sharing knowledge, taking into account all five effective factors, attention needs to be paid to individual-humanistic and organizational-institutional factors.