An Explorative Study of Knowledge-Transfer Mechanism

The practice of the healthcare including treatment, policy planning and decisions, should be based on evidences (explicit) and experience (tacit) whenever possible. This might be achieved through investment in studying knowledge management (KM) in the healthcare practice. However, the studies of KM in practice and specifically in the healthcare are still limited, because literature keeps looking at KM from the angle of technological solution without considering KM functions from the social aspects. Thus, this chapter tries to provide an in-depth framework to a specific and fundamental function of the KM, which is knowledge transfer. This chapter proposes a conceptual framework of a multilevel process-based on enablers and barriers of KT mechanism. This chapter moderates the KT mechanism into five main elements related to characteristics of knowledge: source, recipient, relationships between them, tools, and context of the actual transfer. This model is conducted to notify the design and implementation of KT systems and mechanisms for public organizations, including healthcare.