To Share or Not to Share? Perceptions of University’s Faculty Members Regarding the Sharing of their Teaching-related Knowledge

While the concept of knowledge management (KM) has been widely discussed and implemented in a large number of commercial organizations within the Saudi context, the topic of applying KM to effect in higher education institutions (HEIs) has received limited attention. This is despite the fact that there is a recognition of the importance of managing knowledge in such HEI environments. Thus, this research was designed to identify academics’ perceptions about the sharing of teaching-related knowledge within Saudi universities. An investigative study was conducted by collecting qualitative data via 22 semi-structured interviews with academics from different Saudi universities to capture their perceptions. The qualitative data show that the academics have clear ideas about several potential benefits of managing teaching-related knowledge, despite the challenges they have faced when managing their knowledge using the currently existing KM approaches. This study holds considerable promise in relation to developing an effective web-based KM approach that fits the academics’ needs.