Psychometric properties of a scale to assess knowledge sharing in a community of practice

Abstract

Knowledge sharing is one of the most relevant stages of knowledge management and is a process in which people exchange tacit and explicit knowledge, which can lead to the creation of new knowledge and competitive advantages. A community of practice is a group that evolves or is created around a common interest in a specific area to disseminate knowledge related to that area. This study aims to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess knowledge sharing in communities of practice. An online questionnaire was developed and applied between December 2020 and February 2021. This was disseminated in a community of practice on bioproducts (199 members) on Facebook and reshared on the social networks of the Faculty of Biotechnology – Universidade Católica Portuguesa as a stakeholder in this field. Questions were included for sociodemographic characterization, as well as assessing attitudes, intentions and knowledge sharing in relation to community of practice. For these, a 5-point Likert scale was used (1- strongly disagree; 5 - strongly agree). Internal consistency and construct validity were analyzed. Cronbach's alpha (α = 0.954) showed good internal consistency. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a good fit of the model (KMO = 0.707). The scree plot analysis reveals a one-factor solution, with the extracted factor explaining 52.9% of the total variance. This study demonstrates and certifies the capabilities of this questionnaire for the assessment of knowledge sharing in communities of practice.