Effective Organizational Factors in Knowledge Sharing from The Viewpoint of Faculty Members

Effective sharing of knowledge among faculty members is one of the most important prerequisites fo quality in science and research. The purpose of this paper was to examine the organizational factors influencing knowledge sharing (including culture, structure, leadership and strategy) among faculty members in the field of medicine. The present study was based on mixed method and applied research which was conducted in 2012. The study population constituted 423 faculty members of medical universities and research centers in Iran selected by means of stratified sampling using a questionnaire, the face and content validity of which were confirmed bythe experts. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for each scale dimension was more than 0.8; thus, the reliability of the instrument was confirmed. For data analysis, statistical software SPSS15, using Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used. According to the statistical results,. About 13 percent of faculty members perceived the condition of organizational culture favorable and only 6 percent of them evaluated the condition of knowledge sharing appropriate. 16 percent of faculties evaluated leadership and about 12 percent evaluated organizational strategies appropriate. There was a significant relationship between organizational factors and intra- (P value=0.527) and inter- (Pvalue=0.488) organizational knowledge sharing. Due to the importance of organizational factors in educational and research centers, it is recommended that knowledge management in general and knowledge sharing in specific be taken into consideration with a particular attention to the various aspects of this issue from different dimensions in organizations