A multi-industry and cross-country comparison of technology contribution to formal and informal knowledge sharing processes for innovativeness

The study explores the impact of organizational information technology (IT) competency on knowledge sharing, both explicit and tacit, in the context of innovativeness of products and processes. Knowledge sharing is then assessed in terms of tacit-to-explicit conversion and the impact of both types of knowledge on organizational innovation. Both process (internal) and product/service (external) innovation are included. As an extension, this IT competency to innovation framework is evaluated in context, both by nation (Poland and the United States) and by industry (IT, construction, and healthcare). The results obtained through the structural equation modeling method (sample size 2168 cases in total) exposed that IT competency dimensions matter for formal and informal knowledge-sharing processes and vary across countries and industries. For instance, in the US IT industry, IT-infrastructure, IT-knowledge, and IT-operations dimensions equally support explicit (formal) and tacit (informal) knowledge sharing. On the contrary, for the same industry in Poland, all dimensions support explicit knowledge sharing but regarding tacit knowledge sharing, only IT-knowledge supports it. Summing up the general findings, this study exposes that for tacit knowledge sharing, the critical IT-competency dimension is IT-knowledge, whereas for explicit- IT operations. Next, it clarifies that tacit knowledge sharing supports the explicit, and both are needed to introduce external innovations thanks to their significant impact on internal processes improvement.