How to Extend the ICT Used at Organizations for Transferring and Sharing Knowledge

Nowadays a large number of IT solutions, facilitating Knowledge Management (KM) and Knowledge Sharing (KS) are available in the market, but different studies (KPMG, 2004) prove that they still remain moderately used in practice. KS is recognized as an increasingly important KM problem because it influences the capacity of the organization to absorb and profit from individual knowledge and to transform it to organizational asset. Thus, the present paper aims to review the concepts of KS and Knowledge Transfer (KT). Based on the literature research, a complex model for KS and KT is proposed, combining both aspects of the KS process (knowledge externalization and knowledge internalization). Applying the model, a survey among 200 Hungarian and 157 Bulgarian middle managers was conducted. The analysis of empirical data proves that organizations predominantly understand KS and KT as unilateral process emphasizing knowledge internalization. So in order to benefit from sophisticated IT solutions for KM, organizations have to reassess KS practices and draw attention to the knowledge externalization processes as well