The influence of trust, social network and ict on transactive memory system, knowledge sharing and performance among research-mode graduate students
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Date
2014
Authors
Zaqout, Fahed A. A.
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Abstract
This study examined the influences of trust, social network, and ICT on Transactive Memory System (TMS) and on the sharing of tacit and explicit knowledge among research-mode graduate students, and whether these factors directly and indirectly improved their performance. The survey research method was employed to collect the data. A questionnaire was adapted from previous studies and administered to 429 respondents. Approximately half of the respondents of 48.5% (n = 208) were Malaysian and 51.5% (n = 221) were international full-time research mode graduate students who were enrolled in various research-mode programs at three campuses of a renowned Malaysian research university. Stratified sampling was utilized to identify the sample and data was analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM) in SPSS AMOS employing single and multi-group analysis techniques to test the hypothesized model and the relationships between the study variables. From the structural model obtained from the single group analysis, it was found that ICT, social network, and trust had significant direct effects on TMS and TMS in turn had significant direct effects on tacit knowledge and performance. However, TMS had no significant effect on explicit knowledge, indicating that ICT, social network, and trust improved cognitive partnership that focused on the sharing of tacit knowledge and together directly improved performance. At the social interaction level, ICT, social network, also reported significant direct effects on the sharing of tacit and explicit knowledge and indirectly on performance, indicating that knowledge construction occurred at the social interaction level and that too improved
student performance. The findings of multi-group analysis showed that the path coefficients for Social Network to TMS and Explicit to Tacit Knowledge were smaller for the international students (β = .22, β = .26 respectively) compared to their Malaysian peers (β = .39, β = .43 respectively), and the path coefficients of TMS to Tacit Knowledge and Tacit Knowledge to Performance were smaller for the Malaysian sample (β = .26, β = .45 respectively) compared to the international peers (β = .34, β = .59 respectively). However, there were no significant differences for these and other path coefficients for both Malaysian and International students. These findings showed that research-mode graduate students of all nationalities formed their own teams or study groups that functioned at different levels of reliance for some factors but collectively significantly enhanced their understanding and performance. At the same time the students also shared their knowledge with other students outside their teams that also helped improve their knowledge acquisition and performance.