UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Ta Tran Trung KNOWLEDGE SHARING INTENTION AMONG EMPLOYEES IN SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZED ENTERPRISES: A CASE IN HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 1 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Ta Tran Trung KNOWLEDGE SHARING INTENTION AMONG EMPLOYEES IN SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZED ENTERPRISES: A CASE IN HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: Dr. TRAN PHUONG THAO Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Tran Phuong Thao for het patient attitude, valuable comment, helpful advice and continuous encouragement during the time of research and writing this research work. My grateful thanks are also extended to my friends, my lecturers and Research Committee for their valuable time as their insightful comments and meaningful suggestions were contributed significantly for my completion of this research.
3 LIST OF ABBREVIATION WORDS CEO: Chief Executive Officer CFA: Confirmatory Factor Analysis EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis GDP: Gross Domestic Product ITC: Information and communication technology SEM: Structural Equation Modeling SMEs: Small and medium sized enterprises TRA: The Theory of Reasoned Action VND: Vietnamese Dong 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 A summary of prior studies on knowledge sharing. 16 Table 2 Measurement Scale. 19 Table 3 Descriptive statistics. 21 Table 4 Means and Cronbach alpha of items after deleting items results.
25 Table 5 Pattern matrix. 27 Table 6 KMO and Bartlett's Test. 28 Table 7 SEM Hypothesis testing results. 32 Table 8 Multi-group analysis results.
34 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Multi-group analysis model. 33 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Literature review and hypothesis development.
6 Social Exchange Theory. 6 Theory of Reasoned Action. Related review and hypothesis. Sampling and methods.
Data analysis and results. Exploratory Factor Analysis. Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Multi-group analysis results (The moderating effect results).
Conclusions and implications. Limitations and directions for future research. Questionnaire English version. Bảng câu hỏi khảo sát (Questionnaire Vietnamese version).
Cronbach’s alpha results. 59 KMO and Bartlett's Test. Multi-group analysis results. 70 6 Abstract Knowledge is a valuable asset, a creativity, innovation, and potential contribution for the development of business.
That is the reason why knowledge sharing is researched to find out the way to promote knowledge sharing, to take advantage of this core competency. A survey with a convenience sample of about 450 SMEs employees in Ho Chi Minh City was conducted with 18 variables and 429 observations valid samples in order to assess an overview of the opinions of all employees in SMEs on intend to share knowledge. The data were analyzed by Reliability Analysis, EFA, CFA, SEM method and the results indicated factors Image, Subjective norms and Rewards have positive influence on the intention to share knowledge and Individual culture has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between both Image and Subjective norms toward intention to share knowledge. Based on the finding of the research, the organization should respect and listen to the opinions of the employees and create the awareness of knowledge sharing as a must.
As majority of prior researches on enterprise knowledge sharing focus mainly on the public sector, large private companies, these new findings can be investigated in further research, because sharing knowledge in SMEs is still a new concept in developing country as Vietnam. Keywords knowledge sharing intention, small and medium sized enterprises, Subjective norms, Image, Rewards, Intention to share knowledge, Individual culture. Introduction Managing knowledge effectively is believed to be crucial to the achievement of the organization, specifically in those companies that want to maintain their dominance through creativity (Dieng, 2000). As more companies try to increase benefit by widen their knowledge assets, a lot of enterprises have considered knowledge sharing as part of their strategy.
It is believed that knowledge sharing has been concerned by many academics and professionals globally. Zakaria, Amelinckx and Wilemon (2004) confirm that the role of knowledge sharing within a team should be emphasized.