Reciprocity and Trust as Predictors of Technology-Enabled Knowledge Sharing among Library and Information Science Professionals in Public Universities of South-East, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated reciprocity and trust as predictors of technology-enabled knowledge sharing among Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals in public universities of South-East, Nigeria. The purpose of this study is to determine how reciprocity and trust predicts technology-enabled knowledge sharing among the LIS professionals. This is a descriptive survey involving two hundred and thirty-eight (238) LIS professionals. Validated structured questionnaire consisting of 40 items was used to collect the data from the 238 LIS professionals working in the five public universities in South-East Nigeria, without any sampling. The distributed instrument recorded an 82% return rate and all were found usable. Simple and multiple regression analysis were used to answer the research questions while the significance of the prediction for the hypotheses was determined using p-value. The findings revealed that both reciprocity and trust are positive significant predictors of technology-enabled knowledge sharing. Reciprocity however has moderate effect and trust a modest effect as predictors of technology-enabled knowledge sharing among LIS professionals in the public universities. Among the recommendations is the need to organise and closely monitor platforms for technology enabled knowledge sharing to ensure that no knowledge sharer is left unattended at the point of need