A study on knowledge sharing practices in the United Arab Emirates banking sector

Abstract

This study examines the status of knowledge sharing within and across banks that operate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It reviews the current practices of knowledge sharing within and across banks to identify their efficiencies and effectiveness and highlight issues that require addressing in order to develop more robust knowledge sharing models. The study aims to identify the correlations between organizational, personal, and technological factors and the effectiveness of inter-bank and intra-bank knowledge sharing. It was motivated by the limited research available on the state of knowledge sharing in UAE banks and attempts to contribute greater insights into the factors that make knowledge sharing in the UAE banking industry more supportive of the bank's business performance and organizational objectives. In doing so, the study also contributes to promoting the UAE government's drive to enhance e-business in order to create a more competitive economy. With time, knowledge has become highly valued as a critical means for attaining competitive advantages for all types of businesses (Alavi & Leidner, 1999). Recognizing this fact, organizations - including banks - have come to pay more attention to knowledge management practices, such as knowledge creation, knowledge storage, and knowledge sharing, which is the ultimate goal of knowledge management endeavors. For knowledge to be useful for an organization, it has to be consistently renewed and shared across all levels of the organization (Nonaka, 2007; Tsai, 2001). The banking industry is no exception in this regard, as its businesses rely heavily on data, information, and knowledge in order to keep up with the competition. The status of knowledge sharing in UAE banks has been investigated in very few studies (Al-Musalli & Ismail, 2012; Alrawi & Elkhatib, 2009); therefore, further research is deemed necessary to augment knowledge sharing practices in banks. The study is comprehensive in two dimensions: First, it targets employees at all levels and divisions in all the banks in the UAE; second, it addresses all the variables that contribute to knowledge sharing practices positively or adversely. A questionnaire survey, which addresses these variables, was distributed online and as hard copies to employees via the bank's training centers and to banking trainees through the Emirates Institute for Banking & Financial Studies as well. The questions covering the study variables were selected from previous studies and adapted for this study. The survey was distributed to 400 bank employees at all levels of the banking structure in all departments. A total of 216 responses were received, and 17 were rejected either because the respondents did not complete all the questions in the survey or because they submitted more than one response for the same question. Ultimately, 199 responses were found to be useful for the analysis. The research findings confirm all the stated hypotheses, which predicted that knowledge sharing was positively related to the independent variables that comprised of organizational, individual, relational, and technological factors. The results also indicated the existence of a significant relationship between knowledge sharing and two dependent variables: organizational knowledge sharing (or transfer) and organizational performance. The implications of this research extend to all banking organizations (local and foreign banks), as it provides a framework for executing robust knowledge sharing practices and paves the way for future studies in this field.