This chapter aims to provide a general understanding of the research. This chapter also contains an introduction to the background of the study, research purposes, research questions and the delimitations and limitations of this study. The definitions of terms are defined in this chapter.
Background of the Study
In the era of technology development, it has become increasingly important for organizations to create an environment of innovation and creativity. Knowledge sharing and knowledge creation are key competencies to help the preservation and transfer of knowledge across an organization. The preservation and dissemination of knowledge was not a critical issue in earlier times when people used to stay with their employers during their entire career. However, nowadays the loss of knowledge can be a major factor in reducing an organization’s productivity and effectiveness, especially considering that we are moving towards a knowledge and service economy (Debowsky, 2006).
Organizational culture influences the way an organization responds to the changing demands of the business environment (Denison & Neale, 1999). Therefore, it is a determinant that influences knowledge sharing in the organization. As the business environment changes, organizations’ leaders must constantly anticipate the pertinent changes and actively monitor the relationship between the demands of the environment and the capabilities of the organization.
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Knowledge not only exists in documents, computers and other repositories, but is also embedded in people’s minds. It’s demonstrated through their actions and behaviors in daily and working life. The theory of knowledge management is one of the hottest topics in information technology and management literature since the growing use of knowledge in business is becoming ever more frequent (Al-Alawi, Al-Marzooqi, &
Mohammed, 2007).
As civilizations are moving forward, transferring and creating knowledge have become a priority for many organizations (Chee Tan, So, & Yeo, 2014). The influence of knowledge creation is also a new priority in the education field, where it has become paramount to prepare the students for the new challenges of the changing era. It is important for teachers and university staff not only to transfer knowledge to students in theory but also in practice, and to be a role model for students.
Knowledge sharing and knowledge creation are keys to success for an organization (Faisal, Rasheedb, Habibac, & Shahzad, 2013). It’s therefore of interest to study students’
abilities in these areas, as it gives an indication of their future success in an organization.
In the globalized world, the new generation of students wants to learn languages that are widely spoken. Chinese language is therefore a priority for many students. Since the language has a distinguished features that sets it apart from other languages (Chinese is a tonal language), it’s important for many students to be in an environment that lets them practice Chinese on a daily basis to be able to reach proficiency. Chinese speaking nations are therefore attractive to international students.
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Taiwan is a popular destination among students seeking a degree in the Chinese language or a better education. According to the Ministry of Education of Taiwan, there are more than 92,000 international students in the island by the year of 2014 (including degree-level, exchange students, and language students and others). If the trend continues into the future, this means that every year more than 3,000 new international students will arrive in Taiwan. Taiwan has a wide range of benefits for students: universities offer fee waivers and scholarships for international students and the Taiwanese government and other NGO’s offer full scholarships to attract students from countries that have good relationships with the Taiwanese government. Taiwan is also a popular destination because of its good living standard, universities that enjoy worldwide recognition, friendly people, liberties, and safety (Taiwan is one of the world’s safest countries).
The students who come to Taiwan bring with them perspectives, ideas and experiences. This knowledge is valuable to Taiwan as it can help the country become more competitive. Taiwan is currently working to change the rote learning model of education that has been in use for a long time. In this technology and innovation era, rote learning is problematic since it doesn’t encourage or stimulate innovation. It’s therefore important that the country finds a way to absorb and transmit the international students’
knowledge to its own students in order to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking. These people are students, so their environments are universities. Universities are therefore the ideal places for knowledge absorption and transmission. What is needed is that the universities in Taiwan manage to bring out the knowledge from the international students and share
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it with and apply it on Taiwanese students who after graduation will bring their new knowledge out into society and business.
In this knowledge era, learning institutions should function as knowledge creation organizations, where knowledge work infiltrates all levels of the institutions (Chee Tan, So, & Yeo, 2014). Knowledge should be transmitted not only from teacher to student, or from student to student, but bidirectionally at all levels of the institution, embracing administrative staff, academic staff, and students. The knowledge should flow between all levels.
Researchers have stated that organizational commitment reflects people’s attitudes towards their organizations’ values and goals. This also expresses a force that compels people to stay in their organization and confidently perform several tasks to help the organization achieve its goal (Nosratabadi, Khedry, & Parvaneh, 2015). In this study, we will measure the types of commitment in students with their school or university by using the Organizational Commitment questionnaire by Mowday, Steers and Porter in 1979.
The questionnaire will be adapted to fit the academic context.
Purposes of the Study
Following the consideration from the literature review, the purposes and objectives of this study are:
1. To determine the degree of influence between factors of universities’ culture, knowledge sharing’s and knowledge creation’s influence on the commitment of international students in universities in Taiwan.
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2. To provide a first insight into the relationship between university culture, knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, and commitment of international students in Taiwan and to provide suggestions for how to improve the commitment.
Research Questions
In order to better understand the relationship between knowledge sharing and knowledge creation in the Taiwanese universities and the effects on the commitment of international students, this study aims to answer the following research questions:
RQ1. To what extent does a university’s culture affect knowledge sharing among international students in Taiwanese universities?
RQ2. To what extent does knowledge sharing affect knowledge creation among international students in Taiwanese universities?
RQ3. To what extent does knowledge creation affect the commitment of international students in Taiwanese universities?
Significance of the Study
Many studies have been conducted about the nature of Asians students. While studies are still inconclusive, researchers in general agree that the most significant difference between Western and Asian learners is that Western students try to relate newly acquired information to previous knowledge in order to make sense of the new knowledge or understand it in light of personal or real life experiences. Asian students
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seem to primarily understand new information in the context provided by the lecturer (Hong Thanh, 2010).
This study aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how Taiwanese universities’ cultures for knowledge sharing and knowledge creation processes influence the commitment of international students to their university. Commitment is an influential factor in determining the student’s desire to share their knowledge with their learning institution. Taiwan helps many countries through cooperation programs that provide students with scholarships for coming to study in Taiwan, and many Taiwanese universities also provide tuition waivers for international students. However, simply having an international student in a class does not mean that their knowledge is being transferred to the other students. Therefore, it’s paramount that their university or school provides the appropriate environment to foster knowledge sharing and knowledge creation between students. First, this study aims to expose the importance of exploring ways of encouraging knowledge creation and knowledge sharing among international students. Second, the study also explores the organizational culture in universities and how it influences international students’ willingness to share knowledge, and how this relates to the students’ levels of commitment with their universities. This will help the universities become more aware of the influences of their organizational culture on international students willingness to share knowledge, and also help create more suitable environments that promote knowledge sharing and knowledge creations among international students to increase their levels of commitment. Finally, international and
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local students, will benefit from the future improvements that universities may implement.
Limitations and Delimitations of the Study Limitations
The study’s findings and results should not be generalized to other populations than international students in Taiwan. The study is also limited to the factors university culture, knowledge sharing, knowledge creation and commitment. It is however noted that there are many other factors that can also influence the commitment of students. This study focuses mostly on students from universities in the north part of Taiwan, due to the relatively large concentration of international students in the zone and to corresponding convenience of collecting samples.
Delimitations
The study is delimited exclusively to international students in Taiwan.
The study is delimited to students enrolled in higher education institutions in Taiwan.
This is an exploratory study of the university culture, knowledge sharing, knowledge creation and commitment.
The study will not provide any solutions to knowledge sharing and knowledge creation issues in universities.
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Definitions of Key Terms
In this section, we provide theoretical definitions of key terms that will be used in the study. The theoretical definitions are important as they determine how the variables will be measured in the study.
International students.
International students are persons admitted by a country other than their own, usually under special permits or visas, for the specific purpose of following a particular course of study in an accredited institution of the receiving country (OECD, 2015). In this study, international students will be considered as those students in Taiwan who do not hold Taiwanese citizenship. The focus of the study will be those foreign nationals who study at a Taiwanese university, college, graduate school and/or any other learning institution.
Organizational Culture.
It is defined as a pattern of basic assumptions that a given group in the organization has discovered or developed in learning to deal with the problems of adaptation and integration their specific organization and that are considered valid enough to be transmitted to all the members in the organization as the correct way to behave inside the organization (Schein, 1984).
Knowledge sharing.
It’s defined as an activity through which people share their ideas openly, help to teach and mentor others, where ideas can be freely challenged, and where knowledge gained from other sources is used (Smith & McKeen, 2005).
9 Knowledge creation.
Knowledge creation is a continuous, self-transcending process through which one transcends the boundary of the old self into a new self by acquiring a new context, a new view of the world, and new knowledge (Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2000).
Commitment.
“It’s the relative strength of an individual’s identification with, and involvement in a particular organization” (Van den Hooff & Ridder, 2004).
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