SHARING OF TACIT KNOWLEDGE AMONG STAFF OF SELECTED FEDERAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN NORTH-EASTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

The paper focused on sharing of tacit knowledge amongst staff of selected Federal University Libraries in North-East, Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted for the study. The study was guided by three (3) objectives and three (3) research questions. Questionnaire was the main instrument used for data collection. The response rate for the senior staff indicated one hundred and four 104 representing (58%) while that of the junior staff is fifty eight 58 representing (33%). The overall response rate is one hundred and sixty two 162 representing (91%), while twelve 12 (7%) and four 4 (2%) totaling to sixteen 16 representing (9%) were the non-response rate. Therefore, the response rate of 162 (91%) is considered to be adequate enough for data analysis for the study. Data collected were presented in tables and frequency counts and percentage were used to analyzed the populations while mean score was used to answer the research questions. The findings of the study concluded that, the strategies adopted for sharing tacit knowledge as well as the level of tacit knowledge sharing amongst staff in the selected federal University libraries in North-Eastern Nigeria were strongly agreed by majority of the respondents with grand mean of 4.5 and 4.4 respectively and agreed by the respondents that, there are challenges associated with the sharing of tacit knowledge with grand mean of 4.0. The findings finally recommended that, the management of the university libraries and other stakeholders to formulate functional policy that will encourage librarians to share knowledge with their colleagues. They should also encourage their staff to attend workshops, conferences, in-house training, public lectures and inaugural lectures to acquire new knowledge and share with colleagues for better performance. Furthermore, the use of incentives should be introduced to motivate and encourage librarians in sharing their knowledge. Finally, trust should be built among colleagues to share the knowledge, employ competence senior staff and use their time judiciously to mentor the junior staff.