Group Incentives versus Individual Incentives in Knowledge Management System

The existence of an optimal level of knowledge sharing has often been identified as a prime antecedent of effective knowledge management. Organizations often devote much effort towards ensuring an adequate level of knowledge sharing between members of their organization, and tend to rely on incentive systems, also referred to as ‘extrinsic benefits’, to encourage this. While developing incentives is widely used as a strategy to encourage employees to share knowledge, this approach has its potential pitfalls. It may lead to intense competition between members of the same organization, consequently undermine spirit de corps, and thus serve to diminish both knowledge sharing and organizational learning. This study examines whether the cultivation of a collective climate is at odds with the implementation of an incentive system.