Towards a model for understanding the influence of the factors that stimulate university students' engagement and performance in knowledge sharing

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that stimulated the sharing of tacit and explicit knowledge and their effects on performance among research-mode graduate students. The findings of this study provided a better understanding of the knowledge-sharing activities among graduate students who were engaged in project-based or individual learning activities. Design/methodology/approach - The survey method was employed to gather data and the resulting data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. A total of 245 valid responses were collected from students enrolled in various graduate programmes at the main and branch campuses of Universiti Sains Malaysia. Findings - The students reported a positive and constructive approach toward knowledge sharing with the exogenous variables, namely, trust, social networks, and information and communications technology (ICT) reporting significant positive direct effects on the mediating variables, namely, tacit and explicit knowledge. Only tacit knowledge had a significant direct effect on performance, the endogenous variable. In addition, the knowledge-sharing activities were localized to the respective campuses. Research limitations/implications - The investigation involved samples from one university. A large sample size that involves other universities is needed in order to generalize the findings. Practical implications - The paper offers a snapshot of the intensity and pattern of knowledge-sharing behaviours that can be used to improve learning and performance among students engaged in individual learning. Originality/value - To the authors' knowledge, no previous studies have investigated knowledge-sharing activities among research-mode students at the Master and Doctoral levels.