Impact of public space utilization frequencies on tacit knowledge sharing

KAYODE OLORUNTOBA, MOHD HISYAM RASIDI, ISMAIL SAID

Abstract— Public space influence on knowledge sharing acquisition has become an interesting issue among knowledge management, urban land- scaper, and knowledge based development researchers. Thus, this study aim to investigate the contributing influences of the degree of public space usages on tacit knowledge sharing. Cyberjaya Malaysia was considered as the study area having been adjudged as a high technology park that foot- hold in knowledge sharing for its knowledge based development. A total of 384 survey questionnaires were administered by the residents of the study area in various public spaces within the city to collate the respondent’s perception on their degree of public space utilization in relation to tacit knowledge sharing behaviour. Validated variables were adapted to measure knowledge sharing while the frequencies of public space utilization were measure with the user’s degree of visits to public spaces. Data collated were analysed with statistical packages for social science “SPSS” to access the differences and similarities in respondents perception. Our findings revealed that the frequencies at which people utilized public spaces exhibited similarity differ- ences in their tacit knowledge sharing tendencies. Human attitudes towards sharing their knowledge indicated to require much social interactions and public space utilization.

Index Terms— Cyberjaya, Human attitudes, Knowledge based development, Knowledge sharing, Public space, social interactions

Tacit knowledge

1 INTRODUCTION

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ublic space can be considered as all social spaces that is easily accessible to users on non-conditional basis [1]. Pub-
lic spaces are not just open spaces. Public space is character- ised by the facilities, and infrastructures that geared towards providing comfortable natural environment for the users. The forms and settings of public space provide a defined demarca- tion from other surrounding of the city. Public space consists of numerous social spaces within the realm of a city. In the context of science or technological city, public space encom- pass majorly the communal spaces, public squares and urban courtyards, and the extended public parks that characterised in high tech amenities and facilities. It’s served as a natural area that accord users the common sense of environmental appreciation [2]. In a landscape perspective, Public space is a tool that capable of attracting human mind and patronages. It provides avenue for human contact and togetherness. Human social discussion and interaction is foothold in the availability of natural environment [3]. When people visited public spac- es, they meet others public space users which set a good plat- form for human contacts. However, human contact encour- ages interaction while social cohesion is an offshoot of the in- tegration [4]. Thus, Informal study does occur when there’s a group interaction. The meaningfulness of an area can be link with the public space standard. When a city has well main- tained and high quality public spaces, users continue to in- crease and more people continue to visit the city and develop good idea about the area. Therefore such users psychologically developed good sense of association and images for the city. The potential of public space to facilitate social cohesion ne- cessitates that it has an association with knowledge sharing. It has been argued that experiences sharing occur through hu- man interactions [5] and public spaces provide an effective avenue for human social interactions [3], [5]. Therefore public
space can be considered as an important tool for knowledge sharing. Human frequents contact develop social interaction that gives rise to social cohesion and social capital needed for sharing.

1.1 Study area

Cyberjaya is a modern science city that was designed to es- tablish and sustained the Malaysia multimedia super corridor center. The conception of Cyberjaya originates from a study by management consultancy McKinsey towards Malaysia multi- media super corridor. The city was commissioned by the Fed- eral Government of Malaysia in 1995 [24]. Cyberjaya is situat- ed in Sepang, Selangor and about 50 km south of Kuala Lum- pur Malaysia. It occupied about 28.94 square kilometers of land with population of around 45,000 that comprises of
19,000 of workforces, 16,000 of students, and 10,000 that are residents [25].

2 TACIT KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge involved the act of exchanging the know-how among people for the purpose of rendering assistance or by way of solving problem [6). Its involve getting to know about untold fact and skills. Validated information becomes knowledge [7]. Thus, knowledge can either be explicit or tacit. Explicit knowledge is obtained through analytical or scientific reasoning via the course of formal training. Tacit knowledge encompasses the act if gaining knowledge through experienc- es and interaction that occur among group of people. It’s of- ten informal and subjective [8] as it hinged on the social cogni- tive of people. However, tacit knowledge has held the power for innovation and technology productivity. Tangible knowledge can be obtained through group discussion and
experience exchange [9]. It’s strongly rooted in human action as in difficult to be coded or store in explicit form. Human social environment is required for effective tacit knowledge development since individual or group of people can acquire tacit knowledge through social interactions [9]. Therefore, so- cial interactions constitute a major factor that facilitates tacit knowledge.

3 KNOWLEDGE SHARING

Knowledge sharing encompasses the transfer of rele- vant ideas among people. It’s a process that involve individual or groups of people sharing there know- how, experiences and skills among others that were in need [10]. In recent time, nu- merous researches have emphases on the significant of knowledge sharing in innovation [11], [12]. Valuable part of knowledge resides in the tacit knowledge [13]. Knowledge without sharing retards development and limit the develop- ment of such knowledge itself. It’s through sharing that knowledge expanded and becomes productive. One of the easier channels for firms and organizational innovation and technological development is through knowledge sharing [14]. Knowledge sharing provides conducive avenue for competi- tive advantage [15] and refined professionalism. In the context of science city, knowledge sharing can be defined as exchang- es or transfer on individual or group know – how among oth- ers that exhibits social bond and cohesiveness within a defined environment.

4 METHODOLOGY AND MEASURES

In this study, 384 questionnaires were administered to collate the regularity of respondent frequencies of visit to public space. The regularity of respondent utilization of public space were categorized on everyday visit; twice a week visit; week- ly visit; monthly visit; and occasional visit graded with Likert- scale ratings of 5 point to 1 point for everyday visit to the oc- casional visits to public space respectively. Knowledge- sharing was measured by three constructs (subjective norms to share knowledge, attitude to share knowledge, and intention to share knowledge), adopted from [16], and [17]. The collated data were analyzed using ‚ANOVA‛ analysis of variance to obtain the data average mean, and the groups mean discrep- ancies. Attitude toward sharing encompasses transferring knowledge and experience that arising from individual de- sires to share. Subjective norms to share are as influence by others friends or community associates to share. Intention to share can be define as the degree of human belief that will be engaged in the knowledge sharing behavior. Hence, the test of data reliability was done using Cronbarch’s Alpha while data collated consistency was tested using factor analysis.

5 ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

5.1 Demographical survey

Demographical influences of resident’s status of age, and gender were used to explore their effects on public space utilization. The finding consisted with literature that hypothe- sized knowledge city as a community of advanced literacy residents [18], [19]. Higher fractions of respondent were uni- versity degree and post graduate degree holders having 66.1% and 17.7% respectively as showed in Table 1. The population percentages of the male and female respondents recorded
65.3% and 34.7% respectively thereby reflecting a gender justi- fication.

Table 1. Demographical valuation

N =384

6 ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Cronbarch’s Aphal of the variables exceeded 0.700 which demonstrating reliable value [20]. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) applied to check the measurement mod- el variables as recommended [21]. The indicators factor load- ings were all significant at 0.01 which is considered as good model [22]. One-Way ANOVA (Analysis of variance) applied to measure collated data. Thus, statistically significant differ- ent was establish between the five levels of public space visita- tions indicators in relation to knowledge sharing measuring constructs (subjective norm to share knowledge, intention to share knowledge, and attitude to share knowledge).
The analysis of variance showed that; subjective norm to share knowledge exhibited F (4, 379)= 636.864, p = .000. In- tention to share knowledge exhibited F (4, 379)=13.412, p =
.000. Attitude to share knowledge exhibited F (4, 379) =459.009,
p = .000 as showed in Table 2.

Table 2. One-Way Analysis of Variance Summary Table Comparing respondents

Public space visitation on Knowledge sharing

In Table 3, all the public space degree of usages indi- cators exhibited statically significant on knowledge sharing constructs except the subjective norm to share knowledge that exhibited non-significant mean of 1.9 to respondents that visits public space on occasional basis. Also, attitudes to share
knowledge exhibited non-significant to those respondents that
visit public spaces on monthly and occasional basis (See Fig- ure 3). People’s intention to share knowledge exhibited aver- age mean of 4.2 to 4.5 that indicates high significant to occa- sionally visit, monthly visit, weekly visit, twice a week visit, and daily visits to public.

Table 3. Means and Standard Deviations Comparing public space visitation indicators

The Post hoc HSD Test was used to compare mean difference of verified variables. It was shown that the signifi- cant mean differences occur among respondents that visited public space on daily basis and those respondents that do vis- its public space on weekly, twice a week, monthly, and occa- sionally basis (See Table 4). Table 4 reflect the Post Hoc HSD summary of the respondent’s knowledge sharing behaviour. It
indicates that the respondents perceptions defers on their un- derstanding and responses to knowledge sharing in the con-
text of the degree on public space visitation. On the basis of occasional visits to public space, the respondents demonstrat- ed no significant differences with those that do visit public space monthly, weekly, twice a week, and on daily basis.

Table 4. Post Hoc table of group differences

Table 5: Summary of significant relationships among tested variables

7 DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSION

This study indicates that knowledge sharing is ob- tainable in public spaces as primary social place. Human in- tention to share knowledge as part of the knowledge sharing
determinants can be obtained through public space usage. The respondents in the study area demonstrated that occasional usage of public space is capable of trigger their intention to- wards sharing of knowledge among friends and co- workers. However, intention to share knowledge cannot independently determined people actual knowledge sharing behaviour. As such, attitudes towards sharing of knowledge and the subjec- tive norm towards sharing knowledge should be considered as well. In this study, people’s attitudes to share knowledge reflect no significant relationship with monthly visit, and oc- casional visit to public space. Daily visit, weekly visit, and twice a week visit are the minimum requirement exhibited by human attitude towards sharing of knowledge in the study area. Subjective norm to share knowledge exhibited significant relationship with daily visit, twice a week visit, weekly visits, and monthly visits to public space but demonstrated poor sig- nificant relationship with occasional visits to public space. Therefore, it’s of importance to argue that the respondents in this study area needed to be utilizing public spaces at the min- imum visits of monthly basis to develop subjective norms among others towards sharing of their knowledge.
Visiting social places and engaging in social activities in public space provides opportunity to meet others and facili- tates trust and confidence among neighbours. Constant rela- tionship can facilitates social bonds and close familiarity [26]. Familiarity refines human minds and ideas of others about life and taught. Therefore, it implies that much of time is needed for people to develop habit that capable of shaping their sub- jective norms. The result of this study supported the afore- mentioned as it indicates that subjective norms prove unat- tainable in the situation where the people choose to visit social places (public space) only on occasional basis. More so, indi- vidual attitudes to share knowledge demonstrated to be more time demanding to acquire among the respondents. Attitudes associated with human personal ways of reacting to issues, it’s has much to do with the state of human minds. Therefore, so- cial contacts and mutual relationship are required in reshap- ing human inborn characters and attitudes. The frequency in human interaction and friendship possess the potential to in- fluence their attitudes. Monthly and occasional visits to public spaces proved not sufficient to facilitate human attitudes to- wards sharing their know-how among others (See Figure 5). Therefore, our findings revealed that human attitudes is need- ed more social engagement. Thus, public space remains a freely accessible social arena in every community and urban centres. Regular visits to public space can develop sharing habit among neighbourhood and groups of users. The study area has been adjudged as a high technology park that foot- hold in knowledge sharing for its knowledge based develop- ment [23]. Its advised that knowledge community and techno- logical oriented cities that foothold in knowledge sharing should imbibes in public space frequent utilization culture as a functioning tools towards knowledge sharing actualisation
while public space should be accord outstanding considera- tion in the urban and rural dwellers community.

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Kayode OLORUNTOBA received Masters Degrees in Architecture from Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria. He is currently a Doctoral Candidate in the Depart. of Architecture, Universiti Teknologi

Malaysia. +60102117988 kayodetoba@yahoo.com

Mohd Hisyam RASIDI received PhD in Regional Environment Systems, Shibaura Institute of Technology .He is a Senior Lecturer, Depart. Landscape Architecture, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia b-hisham@utm.my

Ismail Said received PhD in Architecture from Universiti Teknologi Malay- sia. He is an Associate Professor at Depart. Landscape Architecture, Universi- ti. Teknologi Malaysia. b-ismail@utm.my