Trust and Knowledge Sharing: A Critical Combination
Quote: ""How can I encourage people to share what they know?" is a question often posed by mangers in today's knowledge-driven organizations. Much of the academic and business literature, and personal experience, suggests that having employees work together over an extended period of time can lead to successful knowledge sharing. Yet, there exists little systematic evidence about why this actually promotes effective knowledge transfer."
Comment: Nice, easy to read article. Presents trust from two aspects: benevolence-based trust (we don't intentionally harm each other) and competence-based trust (we believe the other person is knowledgeable in a certain area).
One interesting point made: "Trusted weak ties" can be more beneficial for knowledge sharing. Strong ties usually implies similar people, ideas, etc...whereas weak ties generally result in exposure to other social networks and ideas (...in keeping with my post earlier on the need for diversity in creating innovation).
Personally, if I trust a person, I will share virtually anything. If I don't trust, I'll still share...but over time I'll become resentful...and the quality of sharing diminishes to only the minimum needed to still function together.