The Role of Incentives and Information Technologies for Knowledge Transfer in Firms

Knowledge sharing is crucial to the success of knowledge management systems. Information technologies and incentives are important to effectively manage knowledge assets in organizations. In this paper, we study the joint role of incentives and information technologies in enabling knowledge sharing and learning. We investigate two organizational knowledge-transfer policies: mandatory learning and voluntary learning. We demonstrate the role of linear incentive structures from three aspects: truthful report of knowledge levels, knowledge sharing/learning alignment, and full-knowledge transfer. We establish the necessary IT level to facilitate complete-knowledge enablement and provide guidance for a firm to choose an appropriate knowledge-transfer policy with respect to its IT level.