Indian employees prefer to hoard, not share knowledge

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 04 December 2009, 21:32 IST   |    25 Comments
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Indian employees prefer to hoard, not share knowledge
Hyderabad: After signs of recovery pouring in, corporate India could well be facing another daunting task ahead. Many firms which had recognized that knowledge management is important and necessary, may have to tackle employees who hoard knowledge and thereby do not wish to be an evident part of the company's growth. The Indian School of Business (ISB) which recently conducted a research in this aspect, found out that employees tend to 'hoard knowledge' influenced by factors like bonuses, awards, personality type, and gender among others, reports Economic Times. Many corporates had initiated knowledge management committing investments as they had expected employees to start sharing individual learnings from the outside world themselves. The typical spend on knowledge management infrastructure in India is around 5-10 crore for medium and large corporates. Among this year's most Admired knowledge enterprises are Tata Steel, Wipro Technologies, TCS, Infosys, Eureka Forbes, HCL Technologies, ICICI Bank, L&T, and Mind Tree. A survey conducted by BML consulting suggests that 75 percent of Fortune 100 companies either have KM program or are looking at introducing one. "There are various reasons for which employees tend to keep the information or knowledge to themselves. Most employees feel that by retaining knowledge rather than sharing, they would emerge to be more of a valued asset in the company. Whereas there are others who believe that it can be used at the right time, thereby barring innovations," said Sumit popli, Research Associate, ISB. ISB has based its findings on responses from over 200 employees of average five-year work experience and across a section of corporate India. The findings were mostly spread across industries like software, healthcare, financial and consulting services.