The Relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Academic Quality Improvement from the Viewpoints of Faculty Members at Isfahan Selected Universities

Introduction:Today, process of knowledge sharing is one of the most important strategies for the development and deployment of knowledge management in organizations . Universities and centers of higher education as the most important knowledge-based organizations can improve their academic quality by achieving this important capability, i.e. knowledge sharing . The purpose of this research was to evaluate the structural equation modeling of knowledge sharing upon academic quality improvement from the viewpoints of faculty members at Isfahan selected Universities, Iran.Methods: The research method was descriptive and correlational type . The statistical population consisted of 1472 faculty members of Isfahan selected Universities from wich a sample size of 177 was chosen through stratified random sampling . In order to collect data, the 10-item knowledge sharing questionnaire and a 30-item academic quality improvement  questionnaire were used. The questionnaires validity was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis  and  their Cronbach alpha coefficient was estimated 0.87 and 0.95 respectively . The analysis of data with using of SPSS16  and Amos18 software were performed .Results: The findings(correlation coefficient) revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between knowledge sharing and academic quality improvement (p> 0.01) . Also there is positive and significant relationship between knowledge sharing (knowledge donating and knowledge collecting) and academic quality improvement components (p> 0.01). The results from a structural equation modeling approach show that Knowledge sharing has a positive and significant impact on academic quality improvement . In other words, knowledge sharing predicts and explains %35 of academic quality improvement variance.Conclusion: Universities and centers of higher education can assure and advance their academic quality improvement by development and deployment of knowledge sharing culture.Keywords: Knowledge Management; Quality Improvement; Universities.