Factors Influencing Expatriate Academics' Knowledge Sharing: A Framework

Abstract

Knowledge is believed to be a strategic asset which contributes to innovation, competency and sustainable development of an organisation. Since the number of expatriate academics in Chinese universities grows unprecedently fast, there is a need to study knowledge sharing issues of this particular group. However, the existing literature fails to provide decision-makers and relevant stakeholders with a clear understanding of what factors motivate foreign academics to share knowledge or prevent them from knowledge sharing behaviours. This paper is aiming at synthesising previous literature on knowledge sharing in the business field, knowledge sharing of academics, and knowledge sharing of expatriates to build the theoretical foundation that underpins future researches on the emerging topic.