Managing knowledge has become a critical component for organizational success in an increasingly competitive environment. Once generated, knowledge needs to be distributed quickly and be widely used. Academic institutions are confronted with a number of challenges some of which can be mitigated through sound knowledge management and sharing practices. The proliferation of information has transformed competitive success to be based on sound knowledge and intellectual capital management. FET colleges are the cradles of innovative knowledge, and they possess an opulent collection of intangible assets. The study explored the knowledge and information sharing practices of lecturers at False Bay College Muizenberg campus.
The DHET aims at transforming
Knowledge is at the cornerstone for an organization to attain sustainable operational capacity whilst confronted by the rapid industrial and technological shifts (Yu 2013:144). An organization is set to achieve more when tacit and explicit knowledge interact spirally under effective knowledge sharing and transfer. Knowledge management aims to transform personal knowledge into organizational knowledge through innovation, storage, sharing, and exploitation of knowledge, so as to help the organization seek higher performance, and better competitiveness (Cheng 2012:380). Sharing knowledge involves communicating knowledge within a group of people with the aim of utilizing available knowledge to improve group performance. According to Ahmad and Ahmad (2012:19) effective knowledge management processes supported by effective knowledge sharing can greatly improve work quality, efficiency and competency that can benefit the organization positively. There is a general misconception that knowledge management is mainly applicable to enterprises and not existent in an academic space. Knowledge sharing is important when solving complex and interdependent
This represents vast knowledge base that comes through years of experience within an organization. 12 which represent 75% of the respondents indicated their willingness to share knowledge with their colleagues. The use of various knowledge sharing platforms is quite evident at the Muizenberg campus with the most preferred medium being the email. Analysis of the responses showed that a culture of knowledge sharing does exist at the campus. Responses showed that lecturers are free to share knowledge.
Barriers identified to inhibit knowledge sharing were mainly of an organizational nature. The following barriers were identified after the analysis of the results:
• The use of the technology in knowledge sharing and training thereof.
• Lack of rewards for sharing knowledge.
• Employees fear that sharing their knowledge and resources with their colleagues may put their jobs at risk because someone else might benefit from their information.
• Employees think what they know is not valuable or beneficial for others therefore there is no need to share it.
The respondents were asked about the knowledge resources they share among themselves. Table below indicates that the lecturers mainly share books, audio visual materials and their personal