Fostering Knowledge Sharing Through Intrinsic Reward

Rewards, both extrinsic and intrinsic, are often used to encourage and facilitate knowledge sharing within organizations. Research, however, demonstrates the limited effect of extrinsic rewards, because knowledge sharing depends much on individual's attitudes, willingness and ability to contribute his or her knowledge or to absorb it from others. Thus, intrinsic rewards that are associated with the individual's internal feelings (e.g., enjoyment and satisfaction with the process itself, achieved results or the content of the task) have more positive effect on encouraging knowledge sharing than extrinsic one. Prior research has acknowledged the importance of intrinsic reward for knowledge sharing. However, the types of intrinsic rewards associated with knowledge sharing were not yet analysed in detail. This paper provides a theoretical model that identifies the relationship between intrinsic rewards and knowledge sharing behaviour. The paper also focuses on the types of intrinsic rewards that foster knowledge sharing within organizations. The study is based on the review of the newest empirical studies in the field of rewarding, motivating, and recognizing of employees that had found a significant positive impact of intrinsic rewards on knowledge sharing behaviour. Understanding intrinsic rewards for knowledge sharing may be helpful to managers in developing strategies to encourage more effective knowledge sharing within organizations.