Abstract

The literature on knowledge ownership distinguishes two types of ownership: organisational and individual ownership. These two types relate to the way individuals differentiate whether their knowledge belongs to themselves (individual) or their employer (organisational). On the other hand, organisations could utilise Intellectual Property Rights to enforce control over explicit knowledge such as information products. However, employees gain more control over tacit knowledge such as expertise because it is embedded in their mind. This causes the employees to psychologically believe that they own tacit knowledge. Previous research shows that knowledge ownership perceptions affect knowledge sharing intentions. Nevertheless, there is a lack of empirical works to support this argument especially in cross-cultural research. This paper explores individual and organisational knowledge ownership and their effects on knowledge sharing intentions. It reports on a study that was conducted in both UK and Thailand. The results of the study support previous research findings that knowledge workers who perceive organisational ownership will have more propensities to share their knowledge than those who perceive individual ownership.