Sharing of knowledge as a condition of rural area development: Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis approach

One of the common challenges exist throughout Europe is to compiling knowledge ready for practice. A key element for development and progress is distributing and sharing the knowledge. With sharing of knowledge is related a number of issues, such as trust (the not surprising conclusion that people who trust one another are more willing to share information than those who do not), risk taking, well-being (increasing has an incremental effect on knowledge sharing behavior). Knowledge sharing behavior is affected by the complex interplay of well-being, social capital tendency and organizational culture. Authors have been used a fsQCA (fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis) as a methodological concept to examines the impact of identified behavior on the level of knowledge application in local level organization. This type of technique is ideal for this study for two reasons: on the one hand, in order to analyze whether identified behavior in organizations enables knowledge sharing or not. The second aspect regards the size of the sample. The advantage of this method is that it allows researchers to work with medium-sized samples. This type of technique allows a detailed analysis of how causal conditions contribute to a particular result, and is based on a configurational understanding of how a combination of causes leads to the same series of results. Based on a survey and interview of local level organisations in Poland involved in rural areas development, this study has examined the relationship between the impact of identified behavior on the level of knowledge application in local level organization. The findings reveal that the presence of regular meetings and openness, low level of subjective risk of losing position in the organization, presence of platform for sharing information and the care of the young workers determines the level of application of knowledge in organizations and community.