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ISSN 2232-1608 Vol. 19 No. 2, December 2012

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ISSN 2232-1608

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS/SENARAI PENYUMBANG

1. John LipinskiP. O. Box 75Middle Tennessee State UniversityMurfreeboro, TN 37132E-mail: [email protected]

2. Ramlee IsmailFaculty of Management and EconomicsUniversiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris35900 Tanjong MalimPerak Darul RidzuanE-mail: [email protected]

3. Marinah AwangFaculty of Management and EconomicsUniversiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris35900 Tanjong MalimPerak Darul RidzuanE-mail: [email protected]

4. Khatijah Omar

Faculty of Management and EconomicsUniversiti Malaysia Terengganu21030 Kuala TerengganuTerengganuE-mail: [email protected]

5. Marhana Mohamed AnuarFaculty of Management and EconomicsUniversiti Malaysia Terengganu21030 Kuala TerengganuTerengganuE-mail: [email protected]

6. Abdul Halim Abdul MajidSchool of Business ManagementUUM College of BusinessUniversiti Utara Malaysia06010 UUM SintokKedah Darul AmanE-mail: [email protected]


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7. Husna JohariSchool of Business ManagementUUM College of BusinessUniversiti Utara Malaysia06010 UUM SintokKedah Darul AmanE-mail: [email protected]

8. Samsinar Md SidinFaculty of Economics and Management

Universiti Putra Malaysia43400 UPM, SerdangSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]

9. Dahlia ZawawiFaculty of Economics and ManagementUniversiti Putra Malaysia43400 UPM, SerdangSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]

10. Carol Teo Boon HuiFaculty of Business ManagementUniversiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)40450 Shah AlamSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]

11. Mohamed Sharif BashirFaculty of Business and Management SciencesSultan Sharif Ali Islamic UniversityBrunei DarussalamE-mail: [email protected]

12. Nurul Nabilah Haji Ali

Faculty of Business and Management SciencesSultan Sharif Ali Islamic UniversityBrunei DarussalamE-mail:


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13. Hyzulkifli Haji HashimIslamic Business SchoolUUM College of BusinessUniversiti Utara Malaysia06010 UUM SintokKedah Darul AmanE-mail: [email protected]

14. Asmak Ab. RahmanDepartment of Syariah and Economics

Universiti Malaya50603 Kuala LumpurMalaysiaE-mail: [email protected]

15. Norain Mod AsriFaculty of Economics and ManagementUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia43600 UKM, BangiSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]

16. Zulkefly Abd Karim

Faculty of Economics and ManagementUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia43600 UKM, BangiSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]

17. Md Zyadi Md TahirFaculty of Economics and ManagementUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia43600 UKM, BangiSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]

18. Wook EndutFaculty of Economics and ManagementUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia43600 UKM, BangiSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]


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19. Abu Hassan Shaari Mohd NorFaculty of Economics and ManagementUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia43600 UKM, BangiSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]

20. Mori KogidSchool of Business and EconomicsUniversiti Malaysia Sabah

Jalan UMS88400 Kota KinabaluSabahE-mail: [email protected]

21. Tamat SarmidiInstitute of West Asian StudiesUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia43600 UKM, BangiSelangor Darul EhsanE-mail: [email protected]


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KNOWLEDGE STICKINESS, KNOWLEDGEMANAGEMENT, AND THEIR IMPACT ONFIRM LEVEL COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

JOHN LIPINSKIDepartment of Management and Marketing

Middle Tennessee State University

Abstract

This paper explores the areas of Knowledge Stickiness and KnowledgeManagement. In doing so, it develops a set of propositions for considering theStickiness of Knowledge as a construct to be used to understand the impactof knowledge management strategies and firm-level performance within agiven industry. The result of this work builds on previous work in knowledgemanagement and business strategy thus providing a research stream thatlooks at the relationship between a firms knowledge management strategyand how thefirm views its boundaries with otherfirms in the industry.

Keywords: Knowledge management, sticky knowledge, competitive advantage,tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge.

Introduction

Management scholars strive to answer the questions of whyfirms existand why certain firms out-perform others. In the process, multipletheories have been developed. Many of the leading theories suggestthat firms exist to facilitate the development, sharing, and dispersionof knowledge; and the organizations that excel have developedsuperior competencies in managing this process (Li & Hsieh, 2009).This paper adds new dimensions to the theory that discrepanciesin firm performance within an industry can be answered, at least in

part, by knowledge asymmetries among the firms within the industry(Earl, 2001) and how firms manage the flow, or stickiness of thisknowledge. The interpretation and transfer of knowledge requiresmultiple stakeholders (Busch, 2008, 1). Due to its importance, thetopic has been widely explored, but researchers find that knowledgemanagement and stickiness remain a fruitful area for explorationas many key questions remain open for debate and new ideas areformulated (Venkitachalam & Busch, 2012; Collins, 2010).


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Von Hippel (1994,1998) worked to define knowledge stickiness. Themore difficult it is to obtain, transmit, and employ information at anew location, the stickier it is. Management scholars have arguedthat knowledge is the most valuable resource for firms (Lee, 2000;Drucker, 1994). As such, organizations have embarked on numerousprogrammes to increase the availability of knowledge via trainingprogrammes and networks to their employees. Unfortunately,successful knowledge networks represent the occasional islanddoting a sea of failures. While many organizations are eager adoptersof knowledge networks stems, individual users frequently abandonthem, leaving a trail of million-dollar paperweights. To be self-

sustaining, knowledge networks must be sticky, though stickiness isan elusive design objective (Bush & Tiwana, 2005). Knowledge mustflow within an organization, but not right out the door. One approachto address firm advantages is to consider knowledge asymmetries.As such, in seeking a competitive advantage management scholarsargue that firms exist to coordinate the knowledge efforts of diverseindividuals within the marketplace (Conner & Prahalad, 1996).Knowledge management which targets explicit knowledge being ableto identify and codify knowledge makes knowledge transfers moresuccessful (Mooradian, 2005) Under this coordination of knowledge-efforts view, firms exist to facilitate the transfer of knowledge whereappropriate, and combine knowledge types where needed to produce

a higher order good. The firm as knowledge facilitator view assumesthat the firm is a more efficient means to transfer or to bring togetherdiverse units of knowledge than one can achieve in a market dynamic;the transaction costs are less in a firm than in market dynamics(Conner & Prahalad, 1996).

This paper draws from and adds to the stream of literature arguingthat firms exist to facilitate knowledge (Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander,1992). The coordination of the knowledge efforts of diverse individualsand effective knowledge management is paramount for long-termsuccess in organizations. Therefore, developing an effective strategywith respect to both dispersing and protecting their knowledge assets

and processes, given the industry and market position occupied, isnecessary for firms to achieve a long-term competitive advantage.

Given these assumptions, this paper develops a set of propositionsto addres the stickieness of knowledge and the firms knowledge-management strategies as a way to understand firm performancewithin a given industry. The result of this work will build uponprevious work in knowledge management and business strategy and


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provide a pathway to a research stream focusing on the relationshipbetween a firms knowledge-management strategy and how the firmviews its boundaries with other firms in the industry. In order toaccomplish this task, section 2 of this paper consists of a brief literaturereview of knowledge-management and the stickiness of knowledge,key terms, and definitions; section 3 is devoted to the developmentof the propositions suggested by this research; section 4 summarizesthe work presented here, and section 5 suggests future efforts anddirections in relation to the propositions developed.

Literature Review

The field of organizational knowledge research stems from Ryles(1949) distinction between knowing-that and knowing-how Polanyi(1967) later refined this concept into tacit and explicit knowledge.Since the publication of these two works, knowledge issues havepolarized the distinctions made by Ryle and Polanyi and continue tothis day.

Von Hippel (1994) was the first to suggest the term sticky inrelation to business applications. His research concerns technicaldevelopment areas and in particular, he is concerned with the impact

that sticky information has on innovation and problem-solving withinorganizations. He defines sticky information as knowledge that iscostly to move from one location to another. The problem for VonHippel is in the recognition that (a) any monopoly may be brokensince the information, once out, may be reproduced by anyone; and(b) in order to solve a problem, the information necessary to answerthe question must be brought to a single location--either physicallyor virtually (p. 429).

For instance, considering the generalized labourer possessing ahigh degree of gestalt, one is left questioning what type of stickinessthis might be since this type of classification carries litle meaning.

However, one can easily conceptualize a specialized expert witha high degree of gestalt; for instance, an expert carpenter whoseknowledge is not easy to replicate and therefore, the most cost-effective way to transfer the knowledge (or information for VonHippel) is to co-locate the source and the recipient. The problem withknowledge is that it is costly to acquire, transfer, and use in a newlocation. For instance, in the case of the carpenter, not only does onehave to bring in the expert from outside, but the firm also has to pay


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for the non-productive training time. Additionally, there may exista need to later bring the expert back to the location as unanticipatedproblems are encountered. Thus, for Von Hippel, any informationthat is costly because of acquisition or transfer expenses is consideredsticky; moreover, the greater the degree of stickiness, the higher theassociative costs. Knowledge requires a high degree of gestalt suchas Polanyis knowing by doing where there is a long apprenticeshipperiod or a great deal of education required for individual training.

Von Hippel (1994) makes four claims regarding sticky informationand the locus of problem solving:

1. If sticky information is held at one location and the problemmay be addressed at that location, then the problem-solvingactivity will be carried out at this location.

2. If multiple locations of sticky information are called upon inorder to address a problem (i.e., if the resolution to the problemis dependent on multiple sites), then the problem resolutionwill occur through an iterative process passing from location tolocation until the problem is resolved.

3. If the iterative process is cost prohibitive, then the problem willbe partitioned into subproblems so that each location willhandle a specific portion of the problem.

4. Finally, where possible, efforts will be made to reduce the costof stickiness of the information. Von Hippel operationalizes aunit of stickiness as the additional incremental costs necessaryto transfer one unit of information from one location to anotherin a format that is usable by the second location in a giveninstance. This paper adopts Von Hippels operationalization ofa unit of stickiness.

For Szulanski (2003, 1996), information is relatively costless andeasy to transfer; it is simply data. However, knowledge containinga set of expert heuristics, making it more difficult to codifyknowledge gets closer to this papers definition of knowledge as an

actionable heuristic and exemplifi

es Polanyis knowing in action. Heconceptualizes a theory of sticky knowledge as a dyadic exchangeof information between a source and a recipient where the sourceatempts to transfer a firm best-practice to the recipient in a processthat involves four stages: initiation, implementation, ramp-up, andintegration. Szulanski uses the term transfer rather than diffusionfor his theory of sticky knowledge to emphasize that the act of theknowledge transference is discrete and deliberate.


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Although Szulanski and others use the word tacit to speak aboutthe stickiness of knowledge, they do so only to indicate the internalnature of the knowledge. As the literature evolved, scholars havecome to see stickiness as a continuum rather than see knowledge asdichotomously tacit or explicit; there is friction (understood in theliterature as stickiness) in all knowledge transfer. (Chon, 2011; Li& Hsieh, 2009). Tacit knowledge is seen as vague and ambiguous.This ambiguity creates confusion that in turn makes developing andimplementing knowledge strategies more difficult (Mooradian, 2005).Collins (2010: 67) goes so far as to suggest that there is a problemunderstanding what explicit knowledge means. He states that

explicit knowledge is rooted in tacit knowledge and also proclaimsthat tacit knowledge depends on the explicit. He further states thatthe debate goes back, at least, as far as the Greeks.

For Szulanski, tacit is used in the Rylian sense of knowledge heldinternally and not externally verifiable by another human; theknowledge of one individual may only be approximated by another.Recall that Polanyis knowledge is a gestalt knowledge developedover time and therefore, knowledge transferred in a discrete act failsto earn the level of Polanyis gestalt. Knowledge falls on a continuumfrom tacit to explicit or from gestalt to information.

With the preceding foundation established and some of the differencesin the interpretation of information and various types of knowledge,it is now possible to talk about how one might conceptualize anintegrated theory of sticky knowledge and firm strategy in order tofurther explain competitive advantages and knowledge asymmetriesin an industry. The remainder of this paper focuses on the developmentof propositions that suggest how to capture some of the variances infirm performance.

Proposition Development

Much of the research on knowledge management assumes thatknowledge is a dichotomous variable where it is either explicit ortacit. Although this makes the coding of research easy, it does notaccurately reflect the true nature of what knowledge is or how itmight reside in organizations. Rather than the either-or assumptionstemming from Ryle and Polanyi, it is far more likely that knowledgeresides on a continuum between explicit and tacit that reflects variousdegrees of knowing (Albino, Garavelli & Schiuma, 2001). The fact


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that knowledge cannot be labelled dichotomously is reflective of theimperfect nature of the transfer of knowledge between individuals.Hence, a firm exists to manage and coordinate the knowledgeefforts of individuals to produce higher order goods and industryheterogeneity exists because of differences in the abilities of firmsto manage those assets. Therefore, a firm is able to maintain long-term competitive advantages under conditions where the firm eitherinherently reduces the difficulty in the transfer and duplicationof knowledge or when the difficulty is purposively created so thatoutside firms experience difficulty in the capture or duplication ofknowledge. This leads to the following propositions:

P1: A firms long-term competitive advantage is positively correlatedwith the firms ability to maintain or induce knowledge stickinessacrossfirm boundaries relative to competitors in an industry.

P2: There is a direct relationship between a firms atempt to decrease thepermeability of its boundaries and the increase in internal stickiness.

It is important to note that a firm may have an overall strategy for itsknowledge management but in certain circumstances it may optto alter its procedures to achieve specific goals. When managerialknowledge which is difficult to transfer from onefirm to another owingto its sticky characteristics is considered, the possession of absorptivecapacity becomes more important (Park, 2010). This is premised onthe theory of information processing (Galbraith, 1977; Subramaniam,Rosenthal et al., 1998) that views the firm as an information processor.The purpose of the firm under the theory of information processingis to reduce firm uncertainty and lack of knowledge by processinginformation. Given this view of the firm, if information gets stuckat any location--whether that locus is temporal, spatial, or human(Orlikowski, 2002)--then the firm fails to reduce uncertainty andmay even increase it. Firm orientation may be seen as an additionalatempt to mitigate those places where knowledge may get stuck orto stick knowledge where the firm does not want to allow diffusion.Hence, the firm may have two knowledge strategies: strategy one

is for knowledge that must be kept immobile; strategy two is forknowledge that must be mobile. Given that a firm may have severalknowledge strategies, knowledge management then becomes anissue of controlling knowledge practices relative to context.

Firm orientation is defined as the way that thefirm views its boundarieswith other organizations especially within the same or similarindustry. Furthermore, the firms orientation may be selected based


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on a continuum between porous and compartmentalized boundarieswith respect to other firms in the industry. For instance, in the caseof a firm with an extremely porous orientation (PO), the organizationis willing to allow any individual to walk into the organizationand openly inspect all aspects of the operation. A firm that is saidto be absolutely porous might be represented by an organizationthat openly and honestly allows the public and competing firms toinspect every aspect of its operations to include contracts as well asprofit and loss statements. At the other end of the continuum is theorganization that selects a compartmentalized orientation (CO). TheCO is represented by an organization that places each aspect of its

operations into various relatively autonomous departments so thatshould information leak from one unit, it would be useless withoutinformation leaks in other units. In this case, one can make a claimthat what leaks is not knowledge as it has been defined here butinformation; the knowledge comes from the limited number of agentswho possess the ability to synthesize the information. A firm that isabsolutely compartmentalized may be represented by an organizationwhere no individual within the firm has knowledge of what any otherindividual in the firm has knowledge of. In fact, one would onlyexpect to rarely, if ever, see a firm that represents or aspires to be ateither end of the orientation spectrum.

P3: There is a direct positive relationship between a firm with a porous-boundary orientation and the amount of public transparency.

P4: There is a direct negative relationship between a firm with acompartment-boundary orientation and the amount of publictransparency.

Firm Orientation

Knowledge strategy is defined as the course of action that the firmmay elect to take with respect to how it deals with the assets of itsknowledge production. Since the firm is interested in the maintenance

or the development of competitive advantages, the firm must developaction sets that allow it to capture beter than average rents from theproduction of organizational knowledge. This view assumes thatknowledge can, at least to some degree, be objectified. The objectof knowledge does not necessarily have to exist as a codified textthat is saleable, but it can exist in the minds of individuals withinthe organization who may be outsourced as either employees orconsultants to other firms.


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A pure diffused or open-sourced strategy may exist where absenceof stickiness is desired in order to secure long-term rents. One mayexpect to see this type of strategy employed in industries such ashigh tech or emergent areas where a certain critical mass needs tobe achieved for technology acceptance; LINUX system is the primeexample of a near pure diffused strategy employed by a firm (Lee &Cole, 2003). The developers post their code for applications so thatother developers can inspect, critique, and alter.

One might expect that a firm employing a pure patent or licensingstrategy to be represented best by research firms. In this type of

organization, thefirm employs researchers to develop new compoundsor formulae that need litle or no expertise to use, but the knowledgeis easily transferable through the knowledge of the compound itself.The firm then sells the use of its discovery to other firms who mayhave specialized knowledge in the production processes necessary tocapitalize on the new compound. The firm that developed the newcompound may not possess the skills necessary to capitalize on thediscoveries themselves and therefore licenses the production of allintellectual capital. The production of the intellectual capital in thistype of pure strategy must be easily codified for packaging.

The pure protectionist strategy is best represented by the government-

intelligence community. Within the government-intelligencecommunity the production of the intellectual capital is highly guardedsince the release of the information may represent serious threats tosecurity. Additionally, this type of information is extremely tacit andspecific. Often the production of the knowledge is not easily codifiedsince the knowledge must be translated by particular specialists.

There is a direct relationship between the firms orientation andthe strategy that it employs with respect to knowledge. Therefore,if on average, as a firm engages in a protectionist strategy withrespect to internal knowledge, the firm will be represented by amore compartmentalized structure. One would expect to find such

strategies in industries that are R&D intensive and produce theproducts of their own research. This is not to say that all firms willbe found on the central regression line since some firms may findit cost prohibitive to develop a compartmentalized organizationalstructure while others may find that it is more cost beneficial to havea more porous border. However, one would expect that under nocircumstance will it be beneficial to have both a protectionist strategyand a completely porous orientation. This suggests that as firm


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strategy increases toward complete protectionism and as the firmtrends toward complete compartmentalized orientation, the costsassociated with stickiness increase.

The above discussion leads to the following propositions:

P5: The greater the degree of protectionist strategy, the greater the degreeof compartmentalized orientation with respect to organizationalboundaries.

P6: The greater the degree of diffused strategy that the firm adopts, the

greater the degree of permeability in the organizational boundaries.

An industry of type X will compartmentalize information to ameasurable degree represented by a knowledge function that willlimit the diffusion of proprietary knowledge in order for the firmto capitalize on rents. On the same continuum, a firm of type Ywillspend resources to develop a porous internal boundary in orderto facilitate the transfer of best practices despite the diffusionof knowledge outside of the organization in order to minimizeinternal costs and hence maximize revenues from the transfer ofknowledge. In each case, the researcher may develop a stickyfunction that allows him or her to predict both the orientation of the

organization for various types of organizational activities and thefirms expenditures during various parts of the industrys life-cycle.However, in order to accomplish this task, the researcher must have athorough conceptualization of a theory of knowledge stickiness. Thistheory must clearly outline the boundary conditions, units of analysisand system states (Dubin,1978).

In reality, one should not expect that there will be any firms orindustries that employ pure strategies for several reasons. Albino etal. (2001) have demonstrated that in reality there are finer distinctionsfor knowledge metrics than just tacit or implicit knowledge.Additionally, other authors have demonstrated that knowledge does

not exist as a dichotomous polarization between explicit and implicitbut that in reality knowledge more likely exists as a continuumbetween the polar classifications. Moreover, it is unlikely that a firmwill be able to control all aspects of its boundary. Thus one wouldexpect them not to find a firm with either completely porous orpurely compartmentalized boundaries. The question remains: howdoes sticky knowledge relate to the above theory of firm strategy withrespect to firm orientation?


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P7: The more afirm employs a porous orientation and a diffused strategy,the more the firm will make efforts to reduce the stickiness ofknowledge.

P8: The more a firm employs a compartmentalized orientation anda protectionist strategy, the more the firm will atempt to makeknowledge sticky or ensure knowledge remains sticky.

The theory of sticky knowledge presented here is premised on theability of a firm to leverage its knowledge to collect rents whererents are defined as the incremental increase in revenues that the

firm may receive from the application of practices derived from theknowledge obtained or sold. However, also included in this definition,is that savings in operations may be realized from the application ofthe knowledge being leveraged. However, abnormal rents gainedfrom knowledge asymmetries may only be collected if the knowledgeremains tacit to outside organizations (Hayward, 2002; McEvily &Chakravarthy, 2002). In the resource-based view (RBV), knowledge isperceived as an asset that differentiates the firms abilities from otherfirms in an industry and gives it a strategic advantage over otherfirmsin the market (Kearns, 2003; Spender, 1996; Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt,1984). For RBV, rents gained from knowledge advantages are short-lived since knowledge is quickly diffused within an industry throughemployee contact with other individuals outside of their firms,backward engineering, employee turnover, and so forth and hence istoo limited a conceptualization of firm knowledge since some firmsare able to leverage their knowledge base despite the widespreaddiffusion of information. Hence, this paper builds on the premise thatsome organizations are beter able to leverage their knowledge basethan others despite the widespread availability of existing knowledge.

Summary

There remains a great debate in the knowledge management literatureon how best to codify and share or conversely protect knowledge and

in each instance use it to enable organizations to achieve a sustainablecompetitive advantage. The propositions in this paper posit thatfirmswill atempt to induce sticky knowledge under certain circumstancesand reduce sticky knowledge under other circumstances. This is afunction of how the firm atempts to actualize its boundaries withother organizations in the industry. Additionally, this paper suggeststhat firm orientation and knowledge strategy are functions of thenature of the industry in which the organization exists.


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Future Efforts

This paper has suggested several propositions with a potential set oftest metrics for both laboratory testing and data collection. Testingthese propositions will enable organizations to make beter informeddecisions on optimal knowledge-management strategies based onthe organizations individual circumstances. Many propositions inthis paper can be tested in the laboratory with a series of experimentsconducted with MBA-level professionals. Others will requirecollecting data from a diverse sample of organizations and the mostpractical method would be a series of questionnaires and subsequent

analysis of the data to test the propositions. This testing will providea venue for rapid development of the ideas presented here as well asa refinement of the key concepts. The results of the laboratory-testenvironment will also help to clarify the boundary conditions andsystem states for actual data collection. The result will be a morefully-developed theory on the relationship between the stickiness ofknowledge and firm orientation that will help focus time and effort inthe collection and analysis of actual firm data. A research study thatfocuses on the actual collection of firm data will help to elaborate onthe strategic question of why firms exist. In addition, a study of thetype suggested here will help provide insights into firm orientationand strategy that will help the knowledge-management practitioner

focus his or her efforts.

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AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF KNOWLEDGE-MANAGEMENT CONTEXTUAL FACTORIN THE EMERGENCE OF INFORMATION

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGYIN SCHOOLS

RAMLEE ISMAILMARINAH AWANG

Faculty of Management and EconomicsUniversiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris

Abstract

Information technology in schools aggressively emerged in the late 1990sto reinvent the teaching and learning process in Malaysia. Schools nolonger existed merely for the purposes of traditional teaching and learningbut were needed to enhance their knowledge activities so as to be able tocope with the rapid changes that were taking place. The objectives of thisstudy are to determine the contribution of knowledge contextual factorsto the knowledge activities, with particular reference to the emergence of

information technologies in schools, and to evaluate progress with respect toknowledge activities in school education. The research is designed aroundquestionnaires based on a knowledge-management conceptual frameworkadministered to random samples of teachers in information technology-facilitated schools and regular schools so as to be able to make comparisons.Interestingly the findings show that the information technology underthe ICT Facilitated school is not a key factor contributing to knowledgesharing among the teachers. The findings also provide evidence that cultureis the most important factor relating to a knowledge activity. Knowledgefriendly, motivating staff, commited leadership, openness and mutual trustare some examples of positive school culture, whereas management factorremains crucial in facilitating learning and sharing among teachers.

Keywords: Knowledge management, school, culture, management, technology.

Introduction

The last decade of the 20th century saw unprecedented andaccelerating changes in the global market accompanied by advancesin ICT (information communication technology). As part of the global


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player, Malaysia has initiated a mega project called Multimedia SuperCorridor (MSC) which consists of seven flagships; E-Government,Telehealth, Multipurpose Card, Smart School , R&D Cluster,E-Business and Technopeneur Development. It is the intention ofMSC to propel the transfer of technology and become the test bed forresearch and development in high-tech industries.

Information communication technology (ICT) in schools aggressivelyemerged in the late 1990s when the Smart School project was launchedin July 1997. As part of the MSC, the Smart School Project is toengage and reinvent the process of teaching and learning. The major

difference between the ICT- facilitated schools and the regular schoolswas in the technological facilities provided. The ICT infrastructurein the respective schools enabled an integrated management andlearning system, so that administrative and supervisory tasks couldbe streamlined and automated. These new technological challengesled to an explosion of data, information and knowledge; schools nolonger existed merely for the purposes of traditional teaching andlearning but were needed to enhance their knowledge activities so asto be able to cope with the rapid changes that were taking place.

The ICT-facilitated schools and the regular schools

The ICT-facilitated schools in this study refer to the 90 selectedschools which participated in the Smart School Integrated Solution(SSIS) project. The schools were selected from the three school types,namely the regular schools, the fully-residential schools and thereligious schools. The 90 schools were chosen based on the schoolsoverall performance and their strategic locations to be able to functionas an education hub to the surrounding area. The regular schoolsrefer to those other than the 90 selected schools that come from thesame school type. The decision of having ICT-facilitated schools wasto cater for knowledge-driven workers as well as to fulfill the nationalaspiration for Vision 2020.

The major difference between the ICT facilitated schools and theregular schools lies in the facilities supplied to the schools. Forexample, a level A ICT-facilitated school is equipped with 520computers, 5 notebooks and 6 servers per school. A level B, on theother hand, received 81 computers, 2 notebooks and 3 servers. On topof that, they were also supplied with Local and Wide Area Network(LAN & WAN), broadband and wireless facilities at the speed of


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512/256 kilobyte per second (kbps) for a level A school and 128/64kbps for a level B school. Conversely, the regular schools receivedfar fewer computers based on the number of students. For example,schools with 400 or less students received 10 computers, 1 computerlab and a server. Schools with more than 800 students were given aslightly greater number of computers; i.e. 40 computers, 2 computerlabs, 2 servers and 1 LCD projector. Schools with between 400800students enrolments received 20 computers, 1 computer lab, 1 serverand 1 LCD projector. In terms of networking, the regular schools wereonly provided with Local Area Network (LAN) and dial-up internetconnection. The difference does not stop here as they are also operatedwith nine Smart School Integrated Solution components which arecomparable with Smart School models elsewhere such as in Ireland,New Zealand and the USA (Ministry of Education, 2000 & 2004).

Due to the number of computers and the complexity of the ICTinfrastructure, the Ministry of Education set up a centralized help-desk that addresses the maintenance issues relating to the ICTinfrastructure. Generally the help-desk centre will handle queriesrelating to a wide range of hardware, software and communicationsequipment. ICT-facilitated schools are also given priority by receivingan ICT technician and an Information Technology Coordinator toensure the facilities are running smoothly. The IT coordinators are

appointed from among the schools teachers who have an interest inand knowledge of computers. Those who are appointed are trainedin using and handling the equipment. The school IT coordinator hasa very important role as he/she is responsible for supporting all theissues related to the ICT equipment and networking, and conductingperiodic training for teachers and students. In order to be alwaysupdated with the ICT facilities, the school IT coordinators have theirown nationwide Support Group to form a peer-to-peer network forsharing ideas, and experiences and source support. As for the regularschools, the coordinator could be anybody that the schools principalthought to be a computer-savvy person, who had the best interest,commitment, knowledge and skill in computers. The teacher will

have to use his/her own initiative to learn about computers and runthe system. However, sometimes they were also invited for computercourses tailored for the regular schools. In terms of teaching andlearning materials, the regular schools were also using the samesoftware and courseware as their counterparts because the existenceof ICT-facilitated schools does not defeat the purpose of having acentralized curriculum. Therefore, the development of these materialswas not for the ICT-facilitated schools alone but to be used by all


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schools nationwide. Courseware for four subjects (Malay Language,English Language, Science and Mathematics) was developed byexperts in the National Curriculum and classroom setings. However,there seems to be less emphasis on the usage of this courseware in theregular schools as they need to have a more compatible and stablesystem to support the software. To start with, schools need to haveenough computers for each individual student in order to use thecourseware interactively.

Secondly, schools also need to have computers which can supportthe courseware system, for example, computers using 64MB with

the XP2000 operating system. Unfortunately some regular schoolscannot take advantage of having this courseware either due to thelack of appropriate facilities or less enforcement by the authorities.Apart from having developed courseware, teaching and learningis also integrated and interactive with online activities in order tomake learning more interesting. Several websites were developedand teachers and students could access these online, downloadinginformation and sharing knowledge, problem solutions, exam papers,curriculum content, forums and discussions. Again, when it comesto internet connection, ICT-facilitated schools have more advantagesthan the regular schools. As mentioned earlier all 90 ICT-facilitatedschools were connected with LAN, WAN and Wireless broadband.

Unlike them, the regular schools were not so fortunate as theywere only connected with low speed and dial-up internet connectionfacilities.

Another aspect of the ICT-facilitated schools is the deployment of asingle integrated school and learning management system also knownas the Smart School Management System (SSMS). SSMS encompasses32 modules with a whole range of school functions including schoolgovernance, student affairs management, educational resourcesmanagement, financial and technology management. Technically,SSMS should integrate with other departments such as humanresources, accounting and e-commerce, so that administrative and

supervisory tasks could be streamlined and automated. This situationdiffers from the regular schools due to the minimal ICT infrastructurewhich does not support the SSMS. As an alternative they use anumber of individual software suites supplied by the Ministry ofEducation to cater for different purposes, for example, staff records(Employment Management System), students database, disciplinerecords and examination records none of which are integrated.Regardless of whether it is SSMS from ICT-facilitated schools or the


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individual software for the regular schools, each responsible teacherhas to familiarize himself/herself with each of the programmes to beable to enter their data.

Literature Review

The use of technology and computer networks in educationindubitably has grown tremendously. Evidence has shown thatICT is no longer about data mining and warehousing, it is alsoabout expanding networks to other schools and gaining access toadvice from the schools communities of practice (CoP), locallyand internationally. Studies also show how schools are becomingnetworks and how computers had impacted upon their work in termsof distributed leadership, knowledge sharing and professionalization(Bushweller, 2000; Haughey, 2006). The role of ICT in facilitatingknowledge sharing is imperative for a number of reasons. In principle,ICTs would appear to offer individuals and organisations faster,cheaper, broader sources of data and enable information exchangeand the capturing, generating, sharing and storage of knowledge(Walsham, 2001; Huysman & Wulf, 2006). The availability of a rangeof new technologies and tools has been a major catalyst to knowledgemanagement initiatives (Davenport & Prusak, 2000; Alavi & Leidner,2001; Barret, Cappleman, Shoib & Walsham, 2004; Alavi & Tiwana,2005) and some, such as e-mail, video-conferencing and virtualteaching and learning forum, provide valuable learning support tothe schools CoPs. In addition, individuals also believe that the usageof ICT and electronic media contributes to valuable information(Jarvenpaa & Staples, 2000).

However, the importance of face-to-face contact cannot be overlooked,particularly in the dissemination of tacit knowledge (McKinlay,2002), both in terms of one-to-one and one-to-many interactions.Furthermore, one must consider the issue of cost effectiveness on

which ICTs depend (Barret, Cappleman, Shoib & Walsham, 2004) andthe balancing of benefits, such as superior technical performance andquality, with deficits, such as poor infrastructure, outdated systemsand high maintenance budgets. For some, the decision to implementtools is based on the assumption that technology can be the panaceafor knowledge problems, however, most organisations which haveengaged with ICT soon find the leveraging of knowledge through theuse of technology difficult to achieve (McDermot, 1999).


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Studies have claimed that, in fact, technology contributes only 20 percent of the entire success of knowledge management, compared topeople and culture (Davenport & Grover, 2001). Whilst technologyis by no means unnecessary, it must be employed in a culture thatpromotes knowledge sharing. No mater how strong the commitmentand approach to knowledge management, the organisational culturehas a much stronger impact (Fahey & Prusak, 1998). Several studieshave examined the relationship of having ICT in initiating knowledgemanagement in organisations. For example, Basu and Sengupta(2007) and Edvardsson (2008) noted that in the case of an exploitativestrategy against an explorative Human Resources Management

(HRM) strategy, the distinction is merely clear. The exploitative HRMstrategy which has a greater emphasis on explicit knowledge dependsheavily on IT solution. On the other hand, the explorative HRMstrategy which has emphasis on tacit knowledge tends to increasethe transfer of knowledge, innovation and organizational learning.In another study involving knowledge management approachesusing IT solution Haesli and Boxall (2005) suggested that the twoapproaches (with and without IT) should not be treated as mutuallyexclusive but rather as complementing.

Every school has the potential to enhance overall performance byusing a knowledge-based approach to support learning and sharing

(Zhao, 2010). In an era of economic and political globalization, inwhich the world is dependent on primary resource industries andbureaucratic industrialization, schools are seen as fundamental to theprocess of transforming old industrialized systems into knowledge-based societies. As such, schools have become a part of broader policyagendas and need to respond to changes in the economy and to parentaland governmental demands for change (Istance & Kobayashi, 2003;Haughey, 2006). By and large, knowledge management can alwaysbe used to support changes in educational administration. Throughknowledge-management initiatives schools should be able to evolvefrom traditional bureaucracies to a more educational-knowledgeenvironment that is appropriate in an information-technology and

knowledge-economy driven society (Petrides & Guiney, 2002). Thisagenda is trying to address the quality of teaching, restructure theschool management system, and strengthen the teaching professionin order to cater for the changes in educational setings.

Hence, this study is aimed at determining the contribution ofknowledge-contextual factors to the knowledge activities in schoolswith comparisons between ICT-facilitated schools and the regular


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schools. Three main contextual factors were chosen in this study,which are management, culture, and technology. The type of schoolis included as an independent variable to justify the comparisonbetween schools in knowledge activities (capturing, creating, sharing,storing and applying).

The Methods

A conceptual model formed the research framework and essentiallyencompassed the influences of management, culture and technology

on the creation, capture, storage, application and sharing ofknowledge, upon which the survey instrument was based. Stratifiedsampling was used to select 40 ICT-facilitated and regular schoolsacross the four main geographical areas of Peninsular Malaysia.A total of 50 teachers from each school were randomly selectedirrespective of their background profiles to participate in the self-administered surveys.

The questionnaire was divided into two sections. The first section wasmainly on the respondents background profile whereas the secondsection was divided into 5 sub-sections corresponding to the variablesin the research model: the importance of managing knowledge;

facilities and methods of managing knowledge; knowledge-sharingbarriers and knowledge activities. Thefinal section of the questionnairefocused on the contributing factors to managing knowledge,namely management, culture and technology, which are the focus ofthis paper.

A five-point Likert scale was used for each item, ranging fromstrongly disagree to strongly agree. The questionnaire was pilotedamong two groups of 30 participants each from ICT-facilitated andregular schools. Finally, the items were tested using the Cronbachalpha and those with low coefficient values were dropped, therebyincreasing the overall alpha value from 0.908 for 101 items to 0.913

after the removal offi

ve items. Thefi

nal questionnaire consisted of96 items.The data was analysed using the independent sample t-test forcomparison of knowledge-management contextual factors betweenICT-facilitated schools and regular schools. The regression modelwas employed to determine the contributing factors to knowledgeactivities. The model was,


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where, Knowledge Activities capturing, creating, sharing, storing andapplying were the dependent variables; ICT-facilitated school (ICTFS)was a dummy for the type of school. Five (5) model regressions wereused to represent each knowledge activity.

Results

A total of 2000 questionnaires were distributed among the 20 ICT-facilitated schools and 20 regular schools in Peninsular Malaysia. 900respondents in total participated in the survey, where 474 (52.7%)were from the ICT-facilitated schools and 426 (47.3%) were from theregular schools. The result shows that there were more respondentsfrom the rural than the urban areas, which was 494 (54.9%) and 406(45.1%) respectively. 656 (72.9%) respondents were females and 244(27.1%) were males. This was unavoidable due to the fact that theteaching profession in Malaysia is dominated more by women thanmen in which out of the 412,720 teachers nationwide, 285,299 arewomen and 127,421 are men (MOE, 2012). Respondents spanned therange of age categories from below 30 to 50 years or over. This sample

comprised less than 30% of the respondents aged 30 years or below,and roughly 45% from the middle group aged 31 to 40 years old.Meanwhile 21% were from the age group of 41 to 50 years old andonly 4% were above 51 years old. Most of the teachers held degreesin several fields. The sample indicated that 81.8% of the respondentswere degree holders, whereas 10.5% held masters degrees withthe balance of 7.7% being diploma holders. As far as the length ofexperience was concerned, 47.1% of the respondents had 10 years orless teaching experience while 39.0% had between 11 to 20 years ofteaching experience. Only a handful of respondents (13.9%) had morethan 30 years of teaching experience.

Knowledge Activities

The mean scores for these variables were quite high, demonstratingtheir importance in managing knowledge in schools. As forknowledge capture, both respondent groups stressed the importance ofcollaborative relations, with the majority believing the basic sourceof new knowledge to be external, such as the Ministry of Education,Department of Education or other schools. Knowledge creation tended


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to be effected through social discussions, teamwork or work projects,additionally, through individual activities such as reading andself-reflection. Knowledge sharing through informal discussions wasagreeable, with respondents perceiving that their friends were alwaysready to share and contribute new ideas. Mentoring was also a wayof sharing knowledge. Knowledge application in context could increaseindividual experience. Knowledge could also be applied throughproblem solving when people ask for advice, during work tasks setby the management and through rules, procedures and organisationalroutines.

Finally, in terms of knowledge storage, it was regarded as easier toaccess explicit than tacit knowledge. Respondents perceived that theycould access information easily, including important information.However, perceptions were not so clear as to whether it was beterto store knowledge in paper form or electronically. The overall meanscores demonstrated that knowledge management initiatives aregathering pace, albeit at a relatively slow r

Differentiating between ICT-Facilitated Schools and RegularSchools

Table 1 shows the t-test output for differences in knowledge activitiesand contextual factors contributing to managing knowledge reportedby respondents from both types of schools, with a significance testof 0.05 level. The results revealed no statistical significance betweenICT-facilitated schools and regular schools in knowledge activities,except for storage context. As expected, the facilities of technologyused for storage of information showed a significant difference.The t-value was 3.384, p < 0.05, demonstrating the understandabledifference between the facilities provided to ICT-facilitated schools asopposed to regular schools.

In terms of contextual factors, the technology variables wassignificant. This result is consistent with ICT-facilitated schoolshaving beter equipment and facilities and therefore being able to

take greater advantage of technology as an enabler of knowledgemanagement. Nonetheless, technology does not explain all of thevariance in knowledge-related behaviour; the human factor nodoubt was a mediating factor in technological differences betweenthe two types of schools. Unexpectedly, the mean for knowledgecreation among regular school teachers was higher than those inICT-facilitated schools; the former believing they created moreknowledge. However, the 95% interval for the difference in mean is


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not significant. Time might be a factor here, with teachers workloada perennial issue in schools (Lortie, 2002; McDermot & ODell, 2000;Rosenhol, 1989; Louis, 1994). Findings from those studies agreedthat lack of time remains the major barrier in managing knowledge,teachers being increasingly required to teach and perform manytedious administrative duties. The culture factor did not show anysignificant mean difference between the ICT-facilitated schools andthe regular schools, possibly because the sample was relativelyhomogeneous from the same environmental seting. Moreover,school culture across Malaysia tends to be homogeneous under thegovernment and the control of the Ministry of Education with the

resulting top-down style of management.

Table 1

Independent Samples Test (T-Test for Equality of Mean)

Variables t df Sig.(2-tailed)

Meandifference

95% confidence interval ofdifference

Lower Upper

Capture 0.900 898 0.369 .135 0.431 0.160

Creation 1.814 898 0.070 .261 0.544 0.021

Sharing 0.624 898 0.533 0.113 0.241 0.467

Application 0.175 898 0.861 0.029 0.296 0.354

Storage 3.384 898 0.001 0.624 0.262 0.986

Management 1.870 898 0.062 0.434 0.022 0.889

Technology 3.994 898 0.000 1.062 0.540 1.585

Culture 0.814 898 0.416 0.208 0.293 0.709

Regression Results

Knowledge activities constituted the dependent variables forthe regression models, with the predictors, being management,technology, culture, school type, gender and experience. The resultsare shown in Table 2.

The overall result showed that among the three contextual factors,management and culture were seemingly significant for all theknowledge activities; capturing, creating, sharing, applying andstoring. Whereas for the technology factor, only sharing, applyingand storing show evidence of significance. In terms of school types,the coefficient for school type (ICT-facilitated school as a dummyvariable) is significant for knowledge creation, showing that teachersat regular schools experience more knowledge-creation activity as


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compared to teachers from ICT-facilitated schools. Apparently,teachers from ICT-facilitated schools are statistically significant forknowledge-storing activity than their counterparts in regular schools.The result also revealed that there were no significant differencesbetween male and female and, experienced and inexperiencedteachers in all knowledge activities.

Table 2

Regression Results

Independentvariables

Knowledge activities (n=900)Dependent variables

(1)Capture

(2)Create

(3)Share

(4)Apply

(5)Store

Constants 10.51* 13.10* 14.31* 14.76* 10.26*

Management 0.129* 0.080* 0.219* 0.155* 0.077*

Technology 0.034 0.230 0.670* 0.062* 0.103*

Culture 0.114* 0.100* 0.075* 0.103* 0.199*

School type 0.255 0.337* 0.053 0.124 0.439*

Gender 0.105 0.151 0.476 0.050 0.001

Experience 0.017 0.011 0.017 0.005 0.004

F 26.051 15.098 32.288 27.336 37.085

R2

0.149 0.100 0.178 0.155 0.199

Note. *significant at 5 per cent and below.

The beta value for knowledge capture was significantly related tomanagement and culture, with the former being suggested as themost important predictor of the three. The coefficient for schooltype is not significant, showing that there is no difference in theactivity of knowledge capture for both school types. For knowledgecreation two factors were statistically significant, with culture beingthe most important predictor of knowledge creation followed bymanagement. As for knowledge sharing all factors were statistically

signifi

cant, except for school type, gender and experience suggestingthat knowledge-sharing activity occurs beyond time and space.Knowledge application activity has shown that all three contributingfactors were statistically significant with evidence of management asthe most important predictor followed by culture and technology. Forknowledge storage all factors were also statistically significant, withschool culture being the best predictor followed by technology andmanagement.


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In summary, culture was very important in contributing to sharing,applying, creating, capturing and storing knowledge, whiletechnology was less important for knowledge capture and creation.Knowledge storage was perceived to be beter in ICT-facilitatedschools with beter ICT facilities and equipment but technology didnot support knowledge capture and creation. Similarly a study byChu, Wang and Yuan (2011) also shows that people and culture werecritical for promoting knowledge management in schools. Meanwhile,the knowledge capture, sharing and application activities were notsignificantly different between these school types. On the other hand,gender and experience were found to be not statistically significant

with all five knowledge activities possibly suggesting that knowledgeactivities are boundary less.

Discussion and ConclusionKnowledge management contextual factors are vital in schoolsetings. Culture appears to be a significant factor in generatingknowledge activities. Schools need to embrace a positive culture tofoster learning and sharing. Teachers and school leaders need to playa prominent role to ensure that knowledge management initiativescan be accomplished. This study suggested that school cultures were

identified as knowledge-friendly, motivating staff to share knowledgewith a commited leadership, showing openness to change, mutualtrust and learning, appearing along with technology and managementas the important factors in generating knowledge-activities in school.

Management is inevitably essential in supporting the success ofknowledge-management initiatives in schools. The managementfactor defines the chain of command governing communicationand decision-making, as well as encouraging knowledge-sharingand facilitating continuous transformation of ideas. This studypointed out that management encouraged staff-learning, organisedappropriate training and promoted knowledge acquisition both

internally and externally.

There was also evidence for technology as a factor in knowledge-management initiative in schools. As expected schools with morefacilities were able to share, apply and store knowledge but did notnecessarily have an advantage in knowledge capture and creation.Considering the relative difference between ICT-facilitated schoolsand regular schools in terms of funding allocation, facilities and


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bureaucracy, school type is not a determinant factor in knowledgeactivities. ICT-facilitated schools are expected to act as the educationalhub for their surrounding areas and have superior resources in termsof infrastructure, manpower and funding. They could take on theresponsibilities for networking, dissemination and activity generationamongst the group of schools to work with other schools and sharebest practices. Meanwhile, ICT facilities seemed to be widely usedand were functioning well in schools nationwide, with informationand records stored in electronic databases and being accessible to allmembers of staff in those schools.

As far as the contribution of the contextual factors to knowledgeactivities, culture was an important instrument in all the knowledgeactivities, but it was certainly not the only or the most prominent one.

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ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT ANDINTENTION TO LEAVE AMONG NURSES: THEMEDIATING ROLE OF MORAL OBLIGATION

KHATIJAH OMARMARHANA MOHAMED ANUARFaculty of Management and Economics

Universiti Malaysia Terengganu

ABDUL HALIM ABDUL MAJIDHUSNA JOHARI

UUM College of BusinessUniversiti Utara Malaysia

Abstract

In todays fast-paced economic competition, commited and loyal employeesare important for the profit-oriented organizations to gain and sustain theircompetitiveness. Even for non-profit-oriented organizations like hospitalsand universities, these commited and loyal employees will lead to beter

quality service and improved organizational performance. Thus, it is vitalfor the organizations to sustain employees commitment because once theemployees commitments decrease, it would be difficult for organizationsto retain their employees. This study investigated the relationship betweenorganizational commitment and intention to leave among nurses inMalaysian public hospitals, and determined the role of moral obligationas a mediator on the relationship between organizational commitment andintention to leave. The study focused on permanent nurses working in publichospitals in Peninsular Malaysia. The results supported that organizationalcommitment was significantly and negatively related to intention to leave.The macro results also showed that moral obligation was a mediator in therelationships between organizational commitment and the intention to leave.The results were crucial to be looked into so that management and employerscould have ample understanding and guidelines if they were to draftretention strategies. Even though many studies had been conducted on theintention to leave, most of them were conducted in developed countries andthis study is believed to enhance the literature gap since it has an emphasisin the Malaysian context.

Keywords: Intention to leave, organizational commitment, moral obligation.


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Introduction

There have been abundant studies on intention to leave. However,at a time when nursing shortage has become a global issue (Buchan& Calman, 2004) and a serious problem in the vast majority of post-industrialized countries (Galleta, Portoghese & Batistelli, 2011), theissue seems to be relevant and still needs special atention. In manydeveloping countries, the situation is worsening as many trainednurses hop over to the private sector or leave their own countriesto serve in developed countries due to beter salaries and benefits.

The issue of nursing shortage in most parts of the world, having highturnover rate and losing a number of nurses to the private sector andforeign countries also suggests that, instead of looking at the workersturnover itself, it is beter for the organization to detect the feelingof intent to leave among their employees so that retention strategiescould be drafted and implemented. The turnover rate itself couldthus possibly be minimized.

The shortage of nurses has become a critical issue all over the world(Elsevier Foundation, 2010; Khaliq, Broyle & Mwachofi, 2009; Brush,2008; Yearwood, 2007). The situation is worsening, especially in poor-resource countries (Elsevier Foundation, 2010; Pillay, 2007; Yearwood,

2007) where by many trained nurses hop over to the private sector orleave their own countries to serve in foreign countries due to beter offersand benefits. To mitigate the problem of employees turnover in thenursing field, some researchers suggested that it was beter foremployers to examine nurses intention to leave instead of studyingturnover itself.

As revealed by literature, there are many reasons that contributed toworkers intention to leave. However, this paper would only focuson one of the most prominent variables - organizational commitmentand its relationship with intention to leave (Kumar & Koh, 2011;Tatcher, Stepina & Boyle, 2003; Yamada, 2002). This study would also

investigate the role of moral obligation as a mediating variable inthe relationship between organizational commitment and intentionto leave. Even though there have been many researches that relateorganizational commitment and intention to leave, this paperoffers a new perspective for it discusses the relationship betweenorganizational commitment and intention to leave specifically amongnurses in public hospitals in the Malaysian context.


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Overview

In studying turnover and shortage in certain professions, recentdecades have witnessed an increasing interest in understandingwhy employees leave (Van der Heijden, Van Dam & Hasselhorn,2007). However, knowing the reasons for leaving is too late to stopthe actual leaving and detecting the presence of intention to leavefeeling is said to be beter in supporting the effort to prevent orminimize employees leaving. In fact, voluntary turnover is said tobe best predicted by the employees intention to leave (Price, 2001).

Thus, further understanding and investigation of the existence of theintention to leave feeling is crucial. In other words, it is much moreimportant to scrutinize the factors that make them intend to leavetheir organization.

It is important to know the signals to turnover by studying theemployees intention to leave so that necessary preparations andpreventive actions can be taken. Consequently, this study proceedswith the aim to examine the relationship between organizationalcommitment and the intention to leave among Malaysian publichospital nurses and at the same time, this study will also investigatethe role played by moral obligation as a mediating variable.

Intention to Leave

Turnover and intention to leave are two different concepts. Intentionto leave involves an individuals perception towards leaving whileturnover involves the act of an individual actually leaving theorganization or profession (Hinshaw & Atwood, 1984). An employeeis said to have the intention to leave when he or she has seriousconsideration to leave his or her current job (Castle, 2007).

Many studies on intention to leave have been conducted to examinethe intention to leave and the factors relating to intention to leave

in variousfi

elds. Many researchers have atempted to answer thequestions of what really determines the employees intention to leaveby investigating possible antecedents of the employees intention toleave. However, there is no standard reason why employees leavean organization or profession (Ongori, 2007) and there has been litleconsistency in the findings to the question of what really determinesthe employees intention to leave.


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Organizational Commitment and Intention to Leave

Organizational commitment is said to be an important variable in thediscussion of intention to leave since it is a popular belief that themore commited the employee is, the more likely he or she will stayloyal to the organization. In other words, it is less likely that he or shewill leave for another job or organization. The statement is supportedby the study of Slatery and Selvarajan (2005). In their study, theyfound that organizational commitment is negatively associated withturnover intention.

Results of some other studies also showed that more commitedemployees would be less likely to leave an organization (Nogueras,2006; Simmons, 2005; Larkey et al., 1995). This is also supportedby some local researchers (Ishak Ismail, 2006; Zulkifli Kassim,1997; Mohd Fikri , 1997) who found that the higher the degree ofcommitment among employees, the less likely they would expressthe intention to leave. In fact, organizational commitment is foundto be critical (Khatri et al., 2001) and has a negative correlation withturnover intention (Rahman, Naqvi & Ramay, 2008).

The literature review shows that studies on organizationalcommitment have increased and are continuously gaining importanceamong researchers all over the world. This is because more and moreorganizations realize that human resources are their most valuableassets and having loyal and commited employees can ensurethat they stay competitive and survive. In fact, some researchers(Colakoglu, Culha & Atay, 2010; Meyer & Allen, 2004) claimed thatemployees who have higher emotional atachment which is one of themeasures for affective commitment to their organization, show beterperformance and contribute more meaningfully than those withlower emotional atachment. This kind of employees will also enhancethe organizational competitiveness and guarantee the survival ofthe organizations (Ongori, 2007). In short, it is a valuable bonus forthe company to have employees with a high level of organizationalcommitment. These highly-commited employees would feel that

they owe so much to the organization and in return, they would givefull support, effort and cooperation to the organization and would beless likely to leave.

Moral Obligation

There are limited references or past research that really discussedor focused on moral obligation as one of the variables in the study


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of intention to leave. Prestholdt et al. (1987), Sharkey (1994) andLane, Mathews and Prestholdt (1990) have contributed to theunderstanding of the role that moral obligation plays in examiningthe intention to leave. However, the relevance of moral obligation inpredicting intention depends very much on the type of behaviour,profession and the sample being studied (Sharkey, 1994). In nursing,moral obligation and work responsibilities are assumed to be thetwo dimensions that complement each other (Cronqvist et al, 2004).Yearwood (2007) also seemed to agree that moral obligation couldprovide a basis to tackle the problem of internal as well as externalnurse migration.

Problem Statement

Proper staffing and a stable nursing workforce will ensure the qualityof nursing care received by patients and the quality of the healthcaresystem. Thus, having a sufficient number of nurses is important.However, many articles and journals have discussed the nursingshortage, which has become a global issue. The existing and predictednational and global shortage of nurses would surely bring negativeimpact on societys health-care needs. The shortage at the nationaland international levels is exacerbated when nurses, especially fromthe public sector, are lured by offers from private hospitals or even

foreign hospitals (Ministry of Health, 2008; Missourri State NursingBoard, 2008).

Research Objectives

The objectives of this study are:

1. To investigate the relationship between organizationalcommitment and intention to leave among nurses in Malaysianpublic hospitals.

2. To determine the role of moral obligation as a mediator onthe relationship between organizational commitment and

intention to leave.

Hypotheses

Based on literature research, this study hypothesizes that:

H1: Organizational commitment is negatively related to intentionto leave.


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H1a: Affective commitment is negatively related to intention toleave.

H1b: Normative commitment is negatively related to intention toleave.

H1c: Continuance commitment is negatively related to intention toleave.

H2: Moral Obligation mediates the relationship betweenOrganizational Commitment and Intention to Leave amongMalaysian public hospital nurses.

H2a: Moral Obligation mediates the relationship between affectivecommitment and intention to leave among Malaysian public

hospital nurses.H2b: Moral Obligation mediates the relationship between normative

commitment and intention to leave among Malaysian publichospital nurses.

H2c: Moral Obligation mediates the relationship betweencontinuance commitment and intention to leave amongMalaysian public hospital nurses.

Methodology

This quantitative research involves the use of a questionnaire in

collecting the primary data. Most of the questions used in the surveywere based on established existing instruments with some alterationsand modifications to the original questions made to suit the studydue to cultural factors and practice. The questions used in thisstudy applied the multi-item approach where a few questions wereasked under one particular variable. The questions were groupedunder four major sections. Section A measured respondents level oforganizational commitment, section B measured moral obligation,section C measured the respondents intention to leave and Section Drequired the respondents to provide their demographic data.

The survey used was a self-administered survey and 700 sets of these

self-administered questionnaires were sent to selected major hospitalsin Peninsular Malaysia. Prior to that, the ethical approval for the studyand its method was first obtained. Since this study involved nursesworking at public hospitals as respondents, permission and approvalwere obtained from the Malaysian Ministry of Health and a few otherimportant related institutions such as the Malaysian Research EthicalCommitee (MREC), the National Institute of Health (NIH) and therespective hospitals.


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Population, Sample and Sample Size

Nurses who were working permanently in public hospitals were thepopulation sample of this study. They were chosen as the samplesince this group of workers was said to be more likely to opt for offersfrom private health institutions (News Straits Times, 2007) or evenaccept offers to serve overseas (Ministry of Health, 2004, MissouriState Nursing Board, 2008).

This study made use of the systematic proportionate stratifiedrandom sampling, which involves dividing the population intohomogeneous subgroups and then taking a simple random samplein each subgroup. The use of this stratified random sampling wasdecided upon in order to reduce the potential bias as well as toensure that the sample would reflect the general population. Sincein Malaysia nurses are categorized into five main groups - matrons,sisters, staff nurses, community nurses and assistant nurses, using theproportionate stratified random sampling was preferred so that thesample would be able to represent not only the overall population,but also the subgroups of the population.

As of March 2008, there were about 75,000 active nurses in Malaysia(Ministry of Health, 2008). According to Sekaran (2003) if the size ofthe population is 75,000, the sample size (S), should be 382. However,700 sets of questionnaires were delivered to the selected hospitals,considering that the response rate would not be 100 per cent.

Measurements

The existing instruments with established reliability and validitywere used to measure the variables involved in this study. Tomeasure organizational commitment of the respondents, the revisedscale of TCM (Three-Component Model Employee CommitmentSurvey) developed by Meyer, Allen and Smith (1993) was used.

These scales measure the three types of organizational commitmentof the respondents: affective commitment, continuance commitm

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