“Communication tools as drivers of employees’ knowledge sharing: evidence from the Czech Republic”

For many organizations, knowledge sharing is essential to keep their competitive ability. As characteristics of available communication media might influence knowledge flows in the organization, this study examines if the frequency of some communication media usage and their perceived usefulness relate to the extent of knowledge sharing. The study applied a quantitative research design and used opinion-based questionnaires. In total, 178 participants from the Czech Republic were involved, mainly from manufacturing industry. Significant positive correlations between “how often employees use the defined instru- ments for gathering and communicating information in work” and “how useful employees find the defined instruments for gathering and communicating information in work” to “the extent of knowledge sharing in the organization” were identified. Additionally, the frequency of the use of communication media predicted the extent of knowledge sharing in the organization. Specifically, the frequency of the use of meetings significantly predicted the extent of knowledge sharing (β = .54, p < .001). Moreover, perceived usefulness of com- munication media projected the frequency of the use of communication media. The findings confirm that if employees see the offered communication tools as being useful, they are willing to use them more often, and it has a positive effect on the extent of knowledge sharing. Therefore, the design of communication tools should take into account the needs and requirements of the workforce who will use it. Additionally, organizations should organize effective meetings if they want to enhance knowledge sharing in the organization.


INTRODUCTION
Knowledge sharing (KS) among employees is crucial for maintaining organizational competitiveness. Fast-evolving technology, changes in customer and staff lifestyles, diminishing natural resources, globalization, the increasing complexity of work and the speed at which changes take place -these are all elements requiring organizations to use their human capital better, learn more and at a faster rate, and not reinvent the wheel. If employees share knowledge, the organization saves time and resources (Pasher & Ronen, 2011;Wang & Noe, 2010). Additionally, KS is essential for organizational innovativeness (Camelo-Ordaz, García-Cruz, Sousa-Ginel, & Valle-Cabrera, 2011; Chiang, Han, & Chuang, 2011), which is a basic way how to deal with changes in the environment. Finally, most organizational processes require the involvement of several people, each of them adding their expertise (Kock & Davison, 2003). This is why a key question for many organizations is: How to enhance KS in the organization?
One of the factors that influence KS in the organization seems to be the media used for KS and their characteristics. Dalkir (2011) men-tions that the appropriate mix of tools should be considered to optimize KS in the organization, as communication media significantly affect the distribution of knowledge over space and over time (Welch, 2012). It is supposed that media choice is related to effectiveness and can have an effect on communication patterns, organizational structure, and organizational decision-making processes (El-Shinnawy & Markus, 1997). Additionally, the selection of media offered to employees for KS influences the organizational costs.
The growing task complexity, along with the availability of various tools, creates a need, according to Yuan, Zhao, Liao, and Chi (2013), for more research on the issue of how multiple media can be employed in combination to support KS needs, and how the instruments compete with or complement each other in assisting people's needs. Although numerous studies are dealing with the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the frequency of KS, or describing how to effectively use particular tools such as mentoring, storytelling, and communities of practice, only a small number of studies examine media used for KS in a complex way.
One of the main factors, which influence a knowledge provider's motivation for KS, is the perceived usefulness of the tool used (Amidi et al., 2017). This raises a question about which media are useful for KS, according to employees. Such research could be helpful for the design and development of instruments used to enhance KS activities within the organization.
This study examines the use and the usefulness of communication media and asks if they matter in terms of the extent of KS in the organization. In this way, the study contributes to a better understanding of the phenomenon of KS among people in the organizations. The structure of the paper is as follows: section 1 describes the theoretical background. Then the methodology utilized is introduced in section 2. After that, the results and their discussion are presented in section 3. Last section concludes.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES
KS can be described as giving task information and know-how to help others and to cooperate with them, to resolve problems, cultivate ideas, or introduce policies or procedures (Wang & Noe, 2010

Procedure and sample
The study applied quantitative research design and used opinion-based questionnaires. Filling in the questionnaires was completely in the participant's charge, and participation in the survey was voluntary. Organizations were announced about the research and asked for the distribution of the questionnaires between employees. Printed and online questionnaires were used.

Measures
This study measured three variables -the extent of KS in the organization, the frequency of the use of communication media, and perceived usefulness of communication media. All the constructs Source: Author.  were measured using multiple items. The inventories used for evaluating the communication media were defined based on a literature review. In total, 31 items were identified.

The extent of KS in the organization
The inventory for KS described by Matošková (2019) was used. The inventory consists of 15 items, e.g., 'Employees are informed of the turnover, revenue, economic and strategic issues in the company." or 'During decisions, e.g., about investment into company, the proposals of employees are taken into consideration". Participants assessed the items according to their agreement with the particular statement, on a scale from one to five (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree). The scale of KS used had great reliability, Cronbach's α = .86.

The frequency of the use of communication media
This questionnaire finds out how often employees use the defined medium for gathering and communicating work-related information. It is based on employees' evaluations. Participants assessed the items on a scale from zero to five (0 = not at all; 5 = very often).

Perceived usefulness of communication media
This questionnaire finds out how useful employees find the defined medium for gathering and communicating work-related information. The instruments were the same as in the case of the frequency of the use of communication media. A scale from 0 to 5 (0 = not at all; 5 = very useful) was used for evaluating the statements.

Data analysis
IBM® SPSS® statistics software was employed for data analysis. Mean and standard deviations related to the frequency of the media usage in the study and their perceived usefulness were calculated. Then principal axis factor analyses with oblique rotation (direct oblimin) were done on inventories for the frequency of the use and perceived usefulness of communication media to find out similar groups of media and decrease the data set to a more practicable size while keeping as much of the original information as possible. Based on the initial analysis of the inventory, some questions were dismissed, and only 13 items were left for the final exploratory factor analysis related to the frequency of communication media usage and 19 questions in the case of perceived usefulness of communication media. The points on the Likert scale were converted into number scores. The indexes for each identified factor were counted as quotients from the sum of points gained in items related to the factor to the maximum points that could be gained in these items.
Then Pearson's correlation coefficient method, simple linear regressions, and multiple regressions were used to examine the relationship between the variables employed. Additionally, a path analysis in AMOS was used to determine the pathways by which perceived usefulness of communication media influences the extent of KS in the organization. Table 2 presents the basic statistical data related to the KS tools employed in the survey. The most often used media were telephones, e-mails, internet, and informal communication. On the contrary, the least often used media were e-learning, model situations, chats, and social networks. Regarding the usefulness, participants consider internet, telephones, consultations with experts, and meetings (briefings, team meetings, meetings with people solving similar problems) to be the most useful tools for KS. However, social networks, e-learning, and chats were evaluated as only slightly useful for KS.

RESULTS
Regarding the frequency of the use of communication media, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure confirmed the sampling sufficiency for the analysis, KMO = .86, 'meritorious", according to Hutcheson and Sofroniou (1999), and all KMO values for individual items were higher than .75, which is above the standard limit of .5 (Field, 2013). Three factors had eigenvalues over Kaiser's criterion of one and in combination explained 64% of the variance. Table 3 displays the factor loading after rotation. The items that group on the same factor propose that factor 1 represents meetings, factor 2 symbol-izes common information and communications tools, and factor 3 is developmental and training tools. All subscales of the organizational culture had suitable reliabilities (see Table 3) and the total scale has a great reliability too, Cronbach's α = .87.
Next, the inventory of the perceived usefulness of communication media was examined. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure confirmed the sampling sufficiency for the analysis, KMO = .87, and all KMO values for specific items were higher than .78. Five factors retained eigenvalues over Kaiser's criterion of one and together explained 69% of the variance. Table 4 depicts the factor loading after rotation. The items that group on the same factor propose that factor 1 characterizes evaluation and consulting meetings, factor 2 epitomizes classical sources of information, factor 3 exemplifies common information and communication tools, factor 4 stands for socialization tools, and factor 5 is developmental and inspirational tools. All subscales of perceived usefulness of communication media (see Table 4) and the total scale have great reliability too, Cronbach's α = .92. Table 5 presents statistical characteristics of the examined variables and Pearson's correlation coefficients among variables employed. Generally, the mean of the frequency of the use of common information and communications tools signifies that these tools are really quite common. Additionally, the means of perceived usefulness of classical sources of information and common information and communication tools indicate that these tools might be so common because they are useful. Perceived usefulness of communication media was significantly correlated with the extent of KS in the organization, but this correlation was only weak, r = .217 [.014, .408].     Two hypotheses were tested with the following results:     (Hislop, 2013), and the identification with the company (Gottschalg & Zollo, 2007).

Classical sources of information
Regarding the results, it seems that space for improvement is in meetings. They are probably used often for KS in the organizations, but they are probably not as useful as they could be. Complaints about meetings are quite common, and even the most engaged employees often have negative experiences related to meetings (Molaro, 2019; Romney, Smith, & Okhuysen, 2019). Therefore, Molaro (2019) discusses seven strategies to improve meeting effectiveness, namely determine if a meeting is the needed tool, know the meeting objective, determine the needed meeting type, establish who needs to be in attendance, build a powerful agenda, focus the meeting on action items, establish some ground rules and boundaries. To further increase the value of meetings, Romney, Smith, and Okhuysen (2019) recommend to 1) find key learning outcomes that partakers will acquire from their participation in a meeting; 2) connect previous and future meeting incidents to the present meeting that employees are attending; 3) help individuals connect their work tasks to the general strategic aims and intentions of their organization.

CONCLUSION
This study concludes that the usage of communication media offered for KS is important. A persisting question is which characteristics a medium should have to be considered as being useful for KS by different categories of employees. Therefore, a qualitative study dealing with this question might be beneficial. Future research could also examine other aspects of the media user-friendliness, which are described by Amidi  This study has several important limitations. Mostly employees from the manufacturing, construction, and educational sectors partook in the survey. It is possible that employees from other sectors would prefer other KS media. Additionally, the mixture of sectors and categories of participants (manual workers, administrative staff, and managers) might influence the results of the perceived usefulness of media, because the use of media for KS could be diversely important for different work positions. Thus, similar studies to this one aim at a specific category of work position or at a specific business sector to compare the results with this study. Another limitation of this study is that participation was voluntary. This could affect the adequacy of the sample. Besides, the data were self-reported, and such data are predisposed to errors of memory and response bias due to social desirability. However, bootstrapping was used to get 95% confidence intervals, and they give a more fitting idea of the probable significance of the identified correlation coefficients in the whole populace. Still, the findings should not be over-generalized, and using a longitudinal design and a mixed design of self-report and observed data could be beneficial for future research.