Research On The Influence Of Time Factor On Knowledge Sharing Strategy

In the process of knowledge sharing among employees, the value of knowledge could vary over time. In this paper, the knowledge timeliness is defined as the value of knowledge could decrease over time. When the employees realize it, it would affect employees' choices of knowledge sharing strategies(codification and personalization). The existing researches on knowledge sharing strategies mostly are static studies, while ignoring the time factor, so that they would be unable to react to the dynamic change. Based on the existing research, we introduce the time factor into this paper to study the knowledge sharing behavior of employees, and analyze the knowledge management strategies of organizations.The time factor in this paper includes: timeliness of knowledge and knowledge sharing circle(the average time interval of knowledge sharing between employees). If employees' knowledge haven't been fully shared before the data, that would be a waste of organization knowledge resources, and would affect the knowledge level of organization. In order to make the knowledge be fully shared, organizations would always encourage their employees share knowledge, so as to improve the utilization of knowledge resources. This paper would take the timeliness of knowledge and the knowledge sharing circle into consideration, and join the employee heterogeneity into that(divide the employees into experts, ordinary employees and the new employees according to the size of utility of knowledge). We focus on two important questions: ?1how the timeliness of knowledge, staff heterogeneity and the knowledge sharing circle affect employees' knowledge sharing strategy choices; ?2 how the timeliness of knowledge and staff heterogeneity affect the relationship between knowledge sharing approaches timeliness of knowledge and organization knowledge level.Based on the theory of knowledge sharing strategy and the theory of rational man hypothesis, this paper uses mathematical modeling and simulation analysis for the two researches: ?1 explore different employees' knowledge sharing choices by establishing the mathematical model; Specifically, this paper builds the cost benefit function of employees share knowledge by two knowledge sharing strategies, compare and analyze the influence of employees' cost and benefit caused by the timeliness of knowledge, staff heterogeneity and the knowledge sharing circle. ?2 use simulation software to analyze how time factor affect the relation between knowledge sharing strategy and organization knowledge level. Then build the function of organization knowledge level and the function of staffs update knowledge by different knowledge sharing strategies, and set the related parameters for simulation analysis.The study found that:1. The employees' choice of knowledge sharing strategy is affected by the timeliness of knowledge, the size of utility knowledge and the organization knowledge sharing circle: ?1 the staffs who have strong knowledge timeliness would choose codification, while the others would choose personalization; ?2 the new staffs who have the fewest size of utility knowledge are only likely to choose codification; ?3 the longer the organization knowledge sharing circle is, the staffs who have strong knowledge timeliness would be more likely to choose codification.2. The organization' choice of knowledge sharing strategy is affected by the timeliness of knowledge and heterogeneity of employees: ?1 the codification would improve organization knowledge level in short time, the personalization improves organization knowledge level in long run. ?2 under codification, the speed of improvement of new staffs' knowledge level would be the fastest, while the speed of expert would be the slowest; ?3 the knowledge timeliness would decrease organization knowledge level, and some experts who have strong knowledge timeliness might lose their status as an expert.3. The company should consider the timeliness of knowledge before it choose knowledge sharing strategy. Companies with strong timeliness knowledge should choose codification, companies that have weak timeliness knowledge should choose personalization. In order to guide the staff to choose codification, we can increase the organization's knowledge sharing cycle, reduce the potential of knowledge sharing, improve the degree of knowledge dominance or increase the organization code reward. In order to guide the staff to choose coding strategy, we can reduce the organization's knowledge sharing cycle, improve the potential of knowledge sharing, or reduce the organization code reward.