Knowledge Sharing in Sharif University of Technology: Social Capital Approach

The purpose of this research is to predict knowledge sharing through dimensions of social capital. Knowledge sharing occurrence depends directly upon tendency of knowledge holder to sharing as well as knowledge receiver to take it from holders. In other side, social capital is defined as linkage among people and their unifying factors such as trust. In this research, social capital is conceptualized into three dimensions and six elements as following: structural (organizational caring and rewards); agency or cognitive (pro-social behavior and impression management); and relational (competency and open-mindedness). Main question is: Can social capital elements predict and explain variances of knowledge sharing? This research is conducted on 179 randomly employees from Iranian leading university, Sharif University of technology. Employees are asked to express their attitudes toward questionnaire items in form of self-report. Using Structural equation modeling as an analysis strategy, results showed that tow elements of structural (organizational caring and rewards); one element of relational (competency); and one element of agency (impression management) dimensions have significant impacts on knowledge sharing behavior. Those elements of social capital can predict 27 percent of knowledge sharing variances in Sharif University of technology. Also, Open-mindedness and pro-social behavior have no significant effect on knowledge sharing. Practical and theoretical implications of current research are discussed at the end of report.