Vital importance of knowledge, as a source for strategic restructuring of organizations, in today's complex and changing environment cannot be denied. Knowledge enables organizations to acquire wisdom more quickly and efficiently than before and apply it; so it provides a basis to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. The present era is the era of technology; the era that its intellectual structure is full of deepening the information and regarding the participation of creative and knowledge-oriented manpower rather than functional ones. Hence, the alert managers strive to use a tool named knowledge to deal with the causes of uncertainty, maintain their own position, and create creativity and innovation in order to expand the competitive arena of their organization (Yousefi et al., 2010).

Studies have shown that lack of knowledge sharing culture and lack of understanding of the myriad benefits of knowledge management among the employees are the most important obstacles to the effective execution of management in organizations (Rahnavard and Sadr, 2009). Knowledge sharing is a set of behaviors that can lead to exchange of information with the help of others (Godarzi et al., 2009). Nowadays, the ability and willingness of individuals to share knowledge is an important issue for any organization, as one of the critical constraints of managers in organizations is the inability or unwillingness of employees to share and distribute the new knowledge. It should be noted that it is not easy to encourage employees to share knowledge voluntarily and many factors affect the willingness of employees to share knowledge (Mohamadi, 2007). However, culture of knowledge sharing in organizations depends on the attitude of those who have created it. If employees are not willing to share their knowledge with other members of an organization, it would be very difficult to promote the culture of knowledge sharing among them through a system of reward or legal obligations. Creation of a culture of knowledge sharing within an organization requires training of managers and staff and change management process. Leaders can play a key role in changing the attitude of employees, successful creation of culture of knowledge sharing, and institutionalizing knowledge management in organizations (Cheng, 2005).

Knowledge sharing is an approach that is rapidly evolving and progressing and emphasizes on increasing the efficiency and improving the effectiveness of organizational processes accompanied with continuous innovation. The need for knowledge sharing stems from the fact that knowledge is regarded as an important element in organizational performance and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage (Lotfimanesh, 2011).

Knowledge sharing behavior is associated with many variables, as it can be stated that today’s organizations require new knowledge to increase the robustness and make a healthy organizational atmosphere, and acquisition of new knowledge is subjected to the presence of a knowledge-based management in organizations. In fact, a knowledge-based management is road to empowerment of employees and increasing organizational trust, efficiency, effectiveness, and organizational health (Ghiasi, 2011).

This is evident in knowledge management that trust is a prerequisite for learning of organizational knowledge sharing (Dyer and Nobeoka, 2000). Trust plays an important role in deeper facilitation of exchange relationship such as knowledge sharing (Moller and Svahn, 2004) and it is also considered as an important factor for knowledge sharing (Ebrahimi, 2012).

Organizational trust is actually a mutual trust between management and employees and without which, an organization has little or no chance to achieve its strategic objectives (Khanifer et al., 2009).

Trust is associated with behaviors such as organizational citizenship behavior, willingness to future interactions, team performance, and sharing of knowledge and information. Trust is one of the basic principles of effective interactions (social relations) and plays a major role in knowledge sharing, because applicators of knowledge and information need to ensure that their colleagues provide them with accurate and useful information and, similarly, providers of knowledge and information should be confident that the shared information is used properly. Without trust, individuals will be reluctant to participate in social relations and consequently knowledge sharing will not happen (Staples and Webster, 2008).

A strategic measure in order to improve the ability of individuals to transfer knowledge to others is to create confidence among people and promote it. Team activities, job rotation, and so on are of factors that create organizational trust in the process of knowledge sharing (Mohammadi et al., 2011).

Accessibility to specified critical sources of knowledge such as political objectives, sensitive information, and organizational rumors require political intelligence and their contingent confidence. Trust can be directed towards both the managers and the staff and become a prerequisite for exchange in knowledge sharing. Know-ledge receiver must be able to trust the accuracy of the information and knowledge sender should also ensure that his/her information is used properly. An environment of trust should be the director knowledge sharing, because without it, an organization has to lay down a set of laws to govern any balance (Rahnavard and Sadr, 2009).

Organizations should create an environment full of trust for knowledge sharing, transfer, and conflict among the members and train the individuals in order to make the interactions meaningful. It is possible to gradually change the pattern of interaction between employees in an organization and get use of knowledge sharing as a competitive advantage only through by studying, changing, and creating an appropriate and flexible organizational culture. Creation, transfer, application, and sharing of knowledge require the presence of an organizational culture in which individuals and groups are willing to collaborate with each other and share their knowledge with each other to the benefit of their own interests. Domination of individualism culture in an organization causes the employees not to share their knowledge. In contrast, presence of trust, cooperation, and knowledge sharing culture among employees increases knowledge creation and sharing (Kouchaki et al., 2012).

Due to the high environmental dynamicity, organizations must adapt themselves to environmental changes. For a more adaptation with the environmental conditions, managers must get use of modern technology and knowledge and move towards a management based on knowledge sharing. This can be the outcome of a strong and positive culture and organizational trust (Rading, 2004). In fact, organizational culture is a requirement for knowledge sharing. Culture represents the beliefs, values, norms, and social customs and rules the behaviors and conducts of employees in an organization. Generally, organizational culture is a supporter of knowledge sharing behavior (Wong, 2005).

Goudarzi et al. (2009) studied the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management in directors of Physical Education Organization and concluded that there is no significant relationship between the culture of knowledge sharing and knowledge creation, but there is a significant relationship between culture of knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. They also found that existence of culture of knowledge sharing and continuous learning and training of managers is an important step towards the creation and transfer of knowledge and application of knowledge management.

The results of studies conducted by Bidokhti et al., (2011) in studying the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management in Education Organization of Semnan showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management and the results of other hypotheses indicate different types of organizational culture have a positive and significant relationship with knowledge management and its components like perception and sharing of knowledge.  

Kouchaki et al. (2012) study the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management in Iranian Gas Transmission Company and came to the conclusion that there is a significant positive relationship between organizational culture and the creation and sharing of knowledge.

Ebrahimi et al. (2012) conducted a study entitled “The role of trust in sharing of job knowledge in employees of Tarbiat Moddares University” and showed that three dimensions of organizational trust (trust in organizational capabilities, trust in organizational integrity, and trust in organizational altruism) have a positive impact on the willingness of employees to share knowledge. The results of a study entitled “The effect of perception of justice and trust on social balking at knowledge sharing by working teams” carried out by Mortazavi et al. (2011) showed that distributive and procedural justice and altruism-based trust have a negative impact on balking at knowledge sharing. This reflects the fact that knowledge sharing behavior is influenced by honest behavior, respecting the interest of others, fair allocation of resources, and setting transparent and discrimination-free procedures. Holotezi (2002) reported that the use of knowledge management is an important factor in the success of large organizations and believed that implementation of knowledge management will lead to the creation of a strong and dynamic   enterprise  culture,  followed  by  organizational empowerment and increased efficiency and effectiveness.

Hong et al. (2008) studied trust and knowledge sharing in green supply chain and concluded that organizational cooperation is maximized by trust and knowledge sharing and showed that the members of green chain of Taiwan have a positive and significant relationship with trust and knowledge sharing behavior.

Lee and Kim (1999) found a positive relationship between trust and knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing suggests that the knowledge of employees is the most valuable resources of any organization. This emphasis and focus are based on increasing acceleration of changes in organizations and society in general. Nowadays, almost all affairs require knowledge-based measures and employees should become knowledge-oriented workers. This means that creation, sharing, and application of knowledge is one of the most important activities of any person in any organization. With a close look at the nature of state organization, it can be found that many of employees of the public organizations and agencies will retire over the next few years. Clearly, many of these people are experts in different fields and sharing and use of knowledge of these people before retiring would be one of the main challenges of governmental organizations. So, the need for execution of knowledge sharing behavior in education organizations is felt more than ever. Hence, the author aims to find the relationship of trust and organizational culture with knowledge sharing behavior among the teachers of Second Intermediate Period in the City of Isfahan and answer to what extent trust and organizational culture can encourage knowledge sharing behavior.

Hypotheses

1. There is a significant relationship between trust (and its components) and knowledge sharing behavior among teachers of Second Intermediate Period.

2. There is a significant relationship between organizational culture (and its components) and knowledge sharing behavior among teachers of Second Intermediate Period.

3. Components of trust and organizational culture are capable of predicting knowledge sharing behavior of high school teachers.

The present study was a correlation research and statistical population included all teachers of Second Intermediate Period in the City of Isfahan in academic year 2013-2014 (N=3016). Sample size was 340 people according to Krejcie and Morgan Table (1970). Sample members were selected by multistage random sampling method. The required data were collected using 5 questionnaire and 300 completely filled out questionnaires were delivered to the authors. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage) and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient, stepwise regression, and regression-enter). Age of the respondents fluctuated between 24 and 50 with a mean of 40 and a standard deviation of 6.17. Among the 300 respondents, 167 people (55.7%) were males and 128 people (42.8%) were females. Also, 16 of them (5.3%) were single and 273 people (91%) were married.

Research tools

 Knowledge sharing behavior questionnaire: The questionnaire used in this study was Wong (2008). This questionnaire contains 7 questions on a Likert’s scale and has been prepared to assess the level of knowledge sharing behavior among teachers. Face and content validity of this questionnaire was evaluated by a number of academics and professionals and its reliability coefficient has been reported to be equal to 0.67 by Cronbach’s alpha.

Organizational trust questionnaire: Based on dimensions of interpersonal trust and organizational trust proposed by Meyer and Davis (1995), this questionnaire measures trust in three levels of horizontal trust (among the staff), vertical trust (among the subordinates), and institutional trust. This questionnaire consists of 48 questions on a Likert’s scale. Because of being standard, the validity of this questionnaire was previously approved and its reliability coefficient was obtained as 0.89 by Elonen et al. (2008) and 0.94 in the present study using Cronbach’s alpha.

Organizational culture questionnaire: Denison Organizational Culture Questionnaire was used to measure organizational culture. The original version of this questionnaire contains 60 questions, but the version used in the present study had 38 questions and included dimensions of engaging in work, consistency, adaptability, and mission. The validity of this questionnaire was already approved and its reliability coefficient was reported to be 0.87 by Alizadeh and Salimi, and it was calculated equal to 0.89 using Cronbach’s alpha in the present study.

1- There is a significant relationship between trust (and its components) and knowledge sharing behavior among teachers of Second Intermediate Period.

2- There is a significant relationship between organizational culture (and its components) and knowledge sharing behavior among teachers of Second Intermediate Period.

Table 1 presents descriptive indices and correlations between variables.

According to Table 1, there is a positive relationship between trust and knowledge sharing behavior (r=0.181). Among the components of trust, trust between employees (r=0.311) and employees’ trust in their manager (r=0.181) have a significant and positive relationship with knowledge sharing behavior (p<0.01). But no significant relationship was found between organizational trust and knowledge sharing behavior (r=0.004). Shared variance of trust, trust between employees, and employees’ trust in their manager with knowledge sharing behavior is equal to 3.24, 9.61, and 3.24%, respectively. Organizational culture has a positive (r=0.218) and significant (p<0.01) relationship with knowledge sharing behavior. It can be seen in Table 1 that four components of organizational culture including engaging in work (r=0.202), consistency (r=0.153), mission (r=0.215), and adaptability (r=0.129) have a positive and significant relationship with knowledge sharing behavior (p<0.01). Shared variance of knowledge sharing behavior and engaging in work, consistency, adaptability, and mission, respectively, is equal to 4.08, 2.25, 1.44, and 4.41.

3- Components of trust and organizational culture are capable of predicting knowledge sharing behavior of high school teachers.

According to Table 2, in stepwise regression analysis, in the first step, trust between employees with a beta coefficient of 0.310, accounts for 9.6% of variance of knowledge sharing behavior. In the second step, organizational culture mission, with a beta coefficient of 0.138, is added to trust between employees and together account for 11.4, 1.8% of which is the share of organizational culture mission. 

In the third step, organizational trust, with beta coefficient of -0.311, is added to two previous components and the explained variance of knowledge sharing behavior reaches 16.9%. Stepwise regression equation for prediction of knowledge sharing behavior is shown in Table 2.

According to the results of the present study, there is a positive relationship between trust and knowledge sharing behavior, which is consistent with findings of Cheng, (2005) and Lee and Kim (1999). Among the components of trust, trust between employees and employees’ trust in their manager have a positive relationship with knowledge sharing behavior. This is consistent with the results of Ebrahimi et al. (2012) and Mortazavi et al. (2011).

Other findings showed that there is a positive relation-ship between organizational culture and knowledge sharing behavior. This result is consistent with the findings of Goudarzi et al. (2009) Kouchaki et al. (2012) and Holotezi (2002). All components of organizational culture (engaging in work, consistency, adaptability, and mission) have a positive relationship with knowledge sharing behavior, which is consistent with the findings of Bidokhti et al. (2011).

In stepwise regression analysis for prediction of knowledge sharing behavior, it was found that trust between employees and organizational trust, of the components of trust, and mission, of the components of organizational culture, are capable of predicting knowledge sharing behavior.

The results of the present study revealed the role of trust and organizational culture in knowledge sharing behavior of teachers. This indicates that existence of trust and organizational culture directly improves knowledge sharing behavior of teachers. By contrast, low level of trust and organizational culture decreases the extent of knowledge sharing behavior in teachers and thereby

increases job reluctance. This issue requires substantial and serious considerations by officials of education organizations. It can be generally stated that managers can increase the level of trust between employees and pave the way for knowledge sharing between them by some measures. In fact, creating a friendly atmosphere based on cooperation rather than competition can promote a more sustainable organizational trust and culture among the employees, enhance their solidarity and consensus, and finally encourage knowledge sharing behavior among them.

Some other issues that are very effective in promoting knowledge sharing behavior and are needed to be specially taken into account by officials and authorities are as follows:

1. Establishment of scientific or professional associations in order to create and share job knowledge and also to learn from successful experiences of working and retired staff.

2. Providing the conditions to increase informal communications between employees. This makes it possible for employees to access information, increase exchange of new knowledge and information, and ultimately cause the emergence of new and creative ideas in an organization.

3. Getting the employees involved in decision-making and using their experiences create the mindset in employees that individual and organizational goals are aligned and achieving each of them is a prerequisite for achieving the other.

4. Increasing the awareness and information of employees about the changes and advantages that knowledge sharing behavior brings about. Creating an environment full of trust in organizations in which individuals can openly talk about and discuss on problems.

The authors would like to thank all teachers of Second Intermediate Period in the City of Isfahan who  helped  us sincerely to carry out this research.

The author(s) have not declared any conflict of interests.