Inter-Organizational Knowledge Sharing System in the Health Sector: Physicians' Perspective

This study aimed to investigate the physicians' attitude toward inter-organizational knowledge sharing system (IOKSS) deployment in the health sector in Oman. IOKSS in the health sector can be very crucial and results in several operational, strategic, social and economic benefits for healthcare providers and physicians. Previous research on inter-organizational systems (IOS) has focused on organizational adoption, particularly on vertically-linked organizations. Identifying major issues that are critical to physicians, the end users and key stakeholders, is crucial for IOKSS deployment. Based on data collected from physicians in Oman, results indicated that peers, the sector and knowledge workers, are critical factors to physicians' attitudes toward IOKSS. The study also indicated that physicians' attitudes were positively associated with their intention to share implicit, explicit, exploratory and exploitive knowledge. These results are valuable for organizational designing, planning and decision-making regarding their adoption of IOKSS in the health sector.