Investigating the Effects of Knowledge Sharing on Innovation among Managers of Business Organizations

Nowadays, knowledge sharing as one of the components of knowledge management process, has a significant role in organization success. Knowledge causes organizations to be able to acquire knowledge faster and more effective than before, and also apply it which therefore cause them to create competitive advantage. This research is an attempt to investigate the effects of knowledge sharing on innovation. In the present study, two aspects of knowledge sharing are taken into account: knowledge dissemination and knowledge accumulation, then the effects of knowledge dissemination and knowledge accumulation on exploratory and extractive innovation is considered. The primary data are gathered through a questionnaire which was designed to evaluate the relationship between knowledge sharing and innovation. Sample population of the study is consisted of junior and senior managers in Karaj city, among whom 185 managers were chosen, based on cluster sampling which were analyzed through soft wares of SPSS and Amos. The results indicated that, knowledge accumulation has a significant influence on the two above-mentioned aspects of innovation, while knowledge dissemination which includes disseminating knowledge inside and outside the group, does not have any effect on exploratory innovation. Moreover, it was observed that, disseminating knowledge inside the group has an effect on extractive innovation.