Intellectual Capital and Public University Libraries : a Knowledge Sharing Perspective

Abstract

Knowledge economy is resulting in competition which increases the demand for innovation. The wave has urged libraries which faced no competition before to think of ways to add and show more value to their users and donors. The coming of digital libraries and other information providers challenges traditional libraries to improve their practices before doomed obsolete. This research focuses on establishing the relationships between intellectual capital and knowledge sharing. Given the binary nature of the relationship between the former and the latter, this research emphasizes how intellectual capital can improve knowledge sharing in a value making process. Through triangulating research methods, the research addresses the issue of intangible assets as unseen value in public university libraries. Believing that a well laid infrastructure for knowledge sharing coupled with motivated staff will eventually enable libraries to know what they knows and gain more competitive advantage. Using an explanatory survey, the research administered a questionnaire to establish how knowledge is shared among staff of Tanzania public university libraries. From a postpostivistic point of view the research found out how knowledge is shared and what kind of incentives are in place and used the findings to suggest better infrastructure and staff motivation schemes. Due to time and distance constraints the research focused only on the aspect of human capital and structural capital to suggest how they can help libraries to uplift knowledge sharing. Other aspects of intellectual capital such as customer capital, renewal capital and process capital are left to be covered by other researchers.