Inter-organisational knowledge sharing by owners and managers of tourism and hospitality businesses of the Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch conurbation, United Kingdom: an analysis of the motives, information content and networking.

Abstract

This research study relates to knowledge management within the tourism sector and makes a contribution to the subject matter of inter-organisational knowledge sharing. The tourism sector has been slow to adopt the principles of knowledge management (Cooper, 2006; Cooper and Sheldon, 2010) and there has been focus on knowledge transfer (Shaw and Williams, 2009) rather than on knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing is a social practice. This research study makes a contribution towards understanding the motives, information content and networking practices of inter-organisational knowledge sharing in the tourism sector. Theoretical contributions have been made which include: (1) the choice of a model which can be used to show knowledge sharing activities, the knowledge creation theory (Nonaka and Toyama, 2003) and relating the concept of information richness with the I-Space concept (Boisot, 1998); (2) a review and synthesis of a body of social network related theories in regard to embeddedness, structural influence and the innovative characteristics of social networks; (3) an explanation of the systemic features of shared knowledge through social networks as supported by systems, social systems and structuration theories; (4) the integration of theories and concepts regarding knowledge sharing and social networks with a view to better understanding the inter-organisational knowledge sharing practices of tourism businesses. The research approach combined both attribute and relational data in the same piece of work. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and survey method. Interorganisational knowledge sharing relationships were mapped using social network analytical techniques (Wasserman and Faust, 1994). Data were analysed using frequencies, central tendency, inferential, Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and social network measurements.Empirical contributions were revealed through the discovery of why, how and what business people benefited from, overall and differently, and the examination of the different types of networking practices. As a result, the initial conceptual framework was revised and highlights several knowledge management concepts including: knowledge domain, knowledge specialists, knowledge diffusion, knowledge scanning, knowledge acquisition and knowledge dissemination. Motives were associated with two constructs: Cl) social network; and (2) knowledge sharing, and these components enable and facilitate interorganisational knowledge sharing practices within tourism destinations. Information content and networking were distinguished, network outcomes determined and structural processes measured in terms of embeddedness, structural influence and innovation regarding their potential knowledge sharing capability.