Empirical Exploration of Preferred Collaborative Knowledge-Sharing Practices in Indian Private Academia

The purpose of this study is to empirically explore the best performance indicator pair of collaborative knowledge sharing practices which are segregated on the basis of gender and which are more concerned with organizational effectiveness. These performance indicators are Work culture, Interaction, Willingness to share, Recognition and Information technology.

Methodology/approach/design - This research used a sample of 206 management and technical academicians employed in private technical colleges and universities in NCR (National Capital Region) with the help of simple random sampling. Almost 68% of the respondents were males and 32% of respondents were females with an average tenure of 5.25 years in the present organization. Simple t-test and Levene’s test were used to identify variance and paired Z test was used to find the best performance indicator between the male and female academicians which encouraged collaborative knowledge sharing among them.

Findings - From the analysis, it was observed that out of the five performance indicators, male academicians believed that Recognition indicator was the most appropriate, i.e., they believed that academic institute should symbolically recognize, i.e., either through their websites or various media platforms those academicians who significantly contribute towards collaborative knowledge sharing. In the case of female academicians, Interaction performance indicator was the most significant implying that open and healthy work culture supported a healthy Interaction among the colleagues which promoted innovative ideas for enhancing organizational learning.

Research implications/limitations - The findings were based on data from one country’s specific region. Further exploration of the impact of these performance indicators can be assessed in other set-ups for better understanding. Practical implications - Utilization of knowledge gained through various collaborative knowledge sharing practices can be fruitfully used for increasing organizational effectiveness, which are reflected by the given performance indicators.

Originality/value - In this study, the author tried to bring an original empirical work for better understanding and valuable help to the body of knowledge, which can be further beneficial for organizational effectiveness.