Knowledge sharing within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia large construction organisations

Abstract

An increasing number of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) construction organisations are turning to knowledge sharing as a key to leverage their distinctive core competencies in their pursuit of competitive advantage. However, the construction industry is one of the most challenging environments where managing people effectively is vital to ensure that they contribute their knowledge to organisational success. Knowledge sharing is part of knowledge management process, one of the building blocks for an organisation’s success and acts as a survival strategy in this knowledge era. However, knowledge sharing is an under-researched area in the KSA large construction organisations context, despite several policy transformations announced by the KSA government. Thus, the main aim of this research was to investigate how KSA large construction organisations are knowledge sharing en-route to competitiveness. The findings are based on qualitative methodology adopting semi-structured interviews with 44 professionals. The content analysis revealed five key drivers for knowledge sharing. The single most important driver for knowledge sharing is the integration of knowledge assets. Furthermore, seven key knowledge sharing strategies are implemented in large construction organisations in the KSA. Regular sharing of best practices related to project knowledge is the most widely implemented. The study revealed eight knowledge sharing techniques and technologies that are extensively used in the KSA large construction organisations. The key challenge for knowledge sharing is the lack of communication skills whereas knowledge sharing strategies contribute to the acceleration of construction processes. A framework for knowledge sharing was developed and evaluated for the benefit of KSA large construction organisations, which is the main contribution to the knowledge. The study concludes that knowledge sharing is an integrated and complex process. The results suggest that, for effective implementation of knowledge sharing strategies, there is an urgent need for the KSA large construction organisations to develop and deploy appropriate knowledge sharing related management training programmes. The most estimable contribution of this study is to provide valuable insights that would help the KSA construction industry’s decision makers to implement knowledge sharing strategies to improves the sector’s competitiveness. The findings of this research are limited to the KSA construction industry context only; as such, the generalisability of the results outside this context may be very limited.