الفهرس 
عنوان الرسالهOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
In the new world economy, knowledge is the most important organizational
resource to create and sustain competitive advantage. Therefore, knowledge
management (KM) became one of the main areas of management research.
Recent KM research focuses on individuals and their behaviours as key
determinants of KM success. In particular, knowledge sharing behaviour (KSB) is
considered by many researchers to be the most important KM activity, as it is the
main activity that turns individual knowledge into organizational knowledge.
However, employees are usually not so motivated to share their knowledge with their
colleagues as knowledge sharing (KS) may cause them to lose their power and
eliminate their value to the organization. In consequence, changing people’s
behaviours and making them more willing to share their knowledge is one of the
biggest challenges faced by KM.
Reviewing the KSB literature reveals the existence of many research gaps.
Mainly, there is a huge limitation in explaining KSB in the hospitality industry in both
Egypt and the UK, and in explaining managers KSB. The current research aims at
developing a new theory to fill this research gap.
In general, the researcher has a pragmatic research philosophy and uses a
qualitative research approach to conduct this research. Also depends on the grounded
theory research design.
In general, studying KS on the individual or behavioural level is highly
important for the success of KM. Moreover, using a qualitative research approach and
a grounded theory research design gives a great opportunity for a better understanding
of the KSB phenomena. Most importantly, the academic significance of the present
research is generated from its organizational and cultural context. In addition, the
present research aims at determining the critical factors that can create a major
difference in the KSB. This shortlist of factors can be practically translated into a
knowledge sharing support program that can be used by hotels to promote the KSB.
The present research is conducted at Marriott Hotels in Cairo, Egypt, and
London, the UK at 6 different hotels, two of them are in Cairo and four in London. In
total, the researcher has carried out 35 interviews, 15 interviews in Cairo and 20 in
London. On the organizational level, 15 of the participants are managers and 20 are
staff members.
Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews. Abd was analyzed
through grounded theory analysis techniques.
The main contribution of the current research is the development of a new
theory that helps to close the gap in the KSB literature by explaining KSB in the
hospitality in both Egypt and the UK. Second, the theory developed explains the
difference between managers and staff members in their reasons for KSB.
This theory is presented in two models the first one explains managers’ KSB in
both Egypt and the UK. Results show no difference in factors explaining managers’
KSB in both the Egyptian and the British samples. The other one explains Egyptian
staff members’ KSB. Unfortunately, British staff members’ KSB cannot be explained
by the current research. The present research mainly recommends testing the
presented theory through future quantitative research.
Keywords: Knowledge, Knowledge management, Knowledge sharing, knowledge
sharing behaviour, pragmatism, mixed research approach, qualitative research
approach, grounded theory, hospitality industry, Egypt, the UK.