The Role of Knowledge Leaders in Creating a Knowledge-Based Organizational Culture Conducive to Knowledge Sharing: A Theoretical Framework

Authors

Rachel Barker Professor, Department of Communication Science, University of South Africa, South Africa.

Knowledge management, knowledge sharing, knowledge leaders, knowledge-based organizations, organizational culture

Globalized technological and cultural advances changed organizational environments significantly.

In order to stay competitive, organizations need to acknowledge the value of their knowledge assets and the

necessity to become knowledge organizations to transform and adapt to these changes through knowledge

management. Although there are many studies on knowledge sharing, few have examined the role of knowledge

leaders and the combined effect they have on the culture of the organization. The commonality of most recent

research indicates an emphasised focus on the knowledge management of information creation and sharing to

create a knowledge-based organizational culture conducive to knowledge sharing. This emphasizes the role of

and need for knowledge leaders for positive intervention to enhance knowledge sharing for problem solving and

innovation through efforts to develop a culture of trust and commitment. Where knowledge management

focuses on two main theoretical perspectives, namely human capital and knowledge-based theory, the

leadership theories emphasise that leaders should acknowledge the premises of the strategic intent of the

organization through the management of information, creative media strategies and environmental scanning

based on trust, loyalty, integrity and credibility. Hence, it is argued that the role of knowledge leaders in

knowledge management is a combination of continuous enquiry on the systems and processes of an

organization and how the functioning of the organization can be improved through proactively and interactively

managing the intellectual capital (individual and collective knowledge) under its leadership. The need for

further research on these concepts provided impetus for the research problem that there is a lack of existing

studies investigating the role of knowledge leaders in creating a knowledge-based organizational culture.

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