Drivers for Sharing Knowledge in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Construction Industry: An Empirical Study

Abstract

An increasing number of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) construction organizations are turning to knowledge management (KM) 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 in which managing people effectively in order to ensure that they contribute their knowledge to organisational success. The construction industry employs an extremely diverse range of people from a wide range of occupational cultures and background, including people in unskilled, craft, managerial, professional and administrative positions. Therefore, the industry increasingly depends on the employees' know-how. Knowledge sharing is one of the building blocks for an organisation's success and acts as a survival strategy in this knowledge era. Sharing project experience and knowledge among project staff will: reduce the cost of problem solving; and decrease the probability of repeat problems. In other words, sharing knowledge leads to faster response times which help firms meet construction requirements with lower operational costs. There is, however, knowledge sharing is an under-researched area in the KSA construction industry context, despite several policy transformations announced by the KSA Government. Thus, the main aim of this research was to explore the drivers for sharing knowledge in the KSA construction industry. The findings are in the main, based on semi-structured interviews with 44 professionals from 30 construction organizations. The data analysis revealed that seven key drivers that have fueled the need for sharing knowledge. They are: to integrate knowledge of different teams through interaction, to set physical and social environment in the organisation for boosting production, to measure the methods and techniques for implementing knowledge sharing strategies, to transfer knowledge in different platforms, to retain knowledge, to reflect on the self-understandings and to create organisational communities for sharing ideas. The paper conclude that there is ample scope for empirical studies to explore and document the issues of organisational care and its impact on the knowledge sharing culture of KSA construction organizations. Further it noted that, managing knowledge is an integrated and complex process. More effective knowledge-sharing within and across construction organizations is required. Therefore, the KSA professional institutions and construction industry should support and participate in the work of knowledge-sharing groups to address perceived risks and opportunities from new technologies (e.g. BIM, mobile applications) and processes (e.g. sustainability issues).