Page 186 -

Knowledge Sharing and Communities of Practice 169

because in most cases, individuals are most commonly rewarded for what they know,
not what they share. As a result, hoarding of knowledge often leads to negative con-
sequences such as empire building, reinvention of wheels, feelings of isolation, and
resistance to ideas from outside an organization. The best way to address concerns is
to adapt the reward and censure systems that exist in the organization. In other words,
stop rewarding knowledge hoarding and start providing valued incentives for knowl-
edge sharing.
Another common reason given for not sharing knowledge is that either the provider
is unsure that the receiver will understand and correctly use the knowledge and/or
the recipient is unsure about the truth or credibility of the knowledge in question.
Both issues disappear in the context of a community, as it is a self-regulating system
that continually vets and validates both content and membership.
Last but not least, the organizational culture and climate may either help or hinder
knowledge sharing. An organizational culture that encourages discovery and innova-
tion will help, whereas one that nurtures individual genius will hinder. An organiza-
tion that rewards collective work will help create a climate of trust, whereas a culture
that is based on social status will hinder knowledge sharing. Without a receptive
knowledge sharing culture in place, effective knowledge exchanges cannot occur.
Signifi cant organizational changes may need to happen before effective knowledge
sharing can begin to take place.
Another caveat: while the assessment may show that organizational knowledge
sharing is weak due to any or all of the above factors, knowledge sharing may be
fl ourishing quite well — only it has not been detected. This is often referred to as the
phenomenon of the “ undernet. ”

The Undernet
Often, organizations conclude that knowledge sharing does not occur because no one
is using the organizational knowledge repository. The truth may be that there is a lot
of knowledge sharing going on — it is just that many employees choose to circumvent
the offi cial knowledge base — most likely because it is too diffi cult to fi nd what they
are looking for there. Since people are the best source of knowledge, it is no surprise
that knowledge workers are expert knowledge sharers — it is just that they use their
own networks, not the offi cial ones. This is in keeping with the increasingly prevalent
view that KM succeeds when it is a grassroots or demand-driven initiative rather than
a top-down technology push.
Knowledge fl ows appears to fl ow well when members perceive that there is a climate
of trust, that the members with whom they exchange knowledge are credible and that
knowledge exchange is bidirectional. In small organizations, these undernets bring