Knowledge sharing issues in Vietnamese higher education institutions

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Business, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

This research investigates the Vietnamese higher education environment to examine knowledge sharing issues in developing countries, especially in transition economies. It reports on barriers to sharing knowledge among Vietnamese academics and managerial colleagues, focusing on five critical factors: people, culture, organization structure, economics, and technology. These are situated within three contextual factors: management capacity, infrastructure, and training issues. The research employed both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods including focus groups and individual interviews for rich data collection and then tested the found constructs using survey methods with 258 participants. Key findings from this research are work overload and economic stress that result in a lack of absorptive capacity for knowledge improvement and knowledge sharing. These factors, together with limited English language skills, poor infrastructure, inability to use technology, lack of access to library databases, and bureaucratic management styles contribute to measurable levels of cheating, and corruption in education that in turn lead to low quality and quantity of international academic publications and of patents. The findings demonstrate strong evidence for the inclusion of Theory of Planned Behaviour together with Existence, Relatedness, and Growth Theory to explain the barriers that prevented knowledge sharing in Vietnamese Higher Education Institutions which is reflected in the quality and quantity of international publications produced by Vietnamese academics.