Simulation Study on the Effect of Employee Mobility on the Spreading of Tacit Knowledge among Industrial Enterprises Based on the Knowledge Spreading Model
H.M. ZHU, S.T. ZHANG, Y.J. LANG
Journal of Digital Information Management, Vol. 13, No. 6, 2015.
DOI: 
Link: http://dline.info/fpaper/jdim/v13i6/v13i6_5.pdf
Abstract:
In the era of knowledge economy, the success
of industrial commodity production and business
activities in an industrial enterprise mainly depends on
the knowledge level of employees and the effectiveness
of knowledge management. Thus, industrial enterprises
encourage employees to spread and share useful knowledge
and information with others. Tacit knowledge spreads
among industrial enterprises mainly through employee
mobility with such knowledge. We introduce a new approach
to describe the spread of tacit knowledge using
epidemic models. We model and simulate the peculiarities
of tacit knowledge spreading between two industrial
enterprises by considering employee mobility. This model
is compared with the susceptible-infected-susceptible
model. We analyze the effects of employee mobility on
the spreading of tacit knowledge and provide numerical
simulations to support our results. Results show that
employee mobility and the average degree of the knowledge
exchange network in each industrial enterprise significantly
influence the spreading of tacit knowledge among
industrial enterprises. A threshold that governs whether
tacit knowledge can spread among industrial enterprises
exists. The results of the numerical simulations and analyses
can guide industrial enterprises to improve knowledge
and information management with regard to the theoretical
and practical aspects, as well as provide a valuable
platform for further analyzing knowledge and information
management.