Motivation and Knowledge Exchange to Employees

2.3 Competitive Performance

In high-tech industry, strong competition demands full realization of an organization's potential, resulting in pressure that affects the quality of the employer-employee relationship. On the one hand, there is high investment in creating optimal

working conditions. On the other hand, a complex system operates to track mediocrity

and non-contribution. This is reflected in the trend away from providing employment

on a permanent basis and the trend toward granting differential benefits in keeping

with the level of employees' contribution to the organization. Presumably, in this type

of framework workers are compelled to prove themselves worthy of employment,

unlike workers in traditional industries whose jobs are often assured by virtue of

preexisting arrangements rather than actual performance. In high-tech industry, the

relationship between the organization and the worker thus becomes highly functional,

subject to periodical re-evaluation and even relatively easy liquidation. In an industry

with a more demanding employment relationship and a greater emphasis on workers' ability to prove themselves, we assumed that workers would have lower tendencies toward entitlement norms.

2.3.3. Measuring Competitive Performance

Knowledge exchange is also a good motivator for high-tech employees, -In knowledge dependent organizations, employees must be willing and motivated to share their education and experience with other employees in order to generate innovation (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).

Moreover, firms may increase information sharing among employees by fostering work climates promoting cooperation (Nonaka, 1991). Thus, employee motivation--conceptualized as aggregate willingness and desire to contribute to organizational gain--represents an important aspect of organizational knowledge-creation capability.

Pierce and Delbecq (1977) suggested that employees who are strongly identified with their work and organization may be more likely to contribute to firm innovations. Employees who are committed to their organization are more likely to look for ways to improve conditions and will be more receptive to new ideas and information (Hage & Aiken, 1970).

Because high tech firms operate in dynamic environments that require constant innovation, knowledge-creation capability appears essential for firm survival and growth.

Information combination and exchange. Beyond having capable, motivated

employees, organizations create and leverage new knowledge by providing a social context in which employees interact with one another to exchange and combine ideas (Nonaka, 1991).

Shumpeter (1934) argued that such exchanges create new knowledge by combining previously unconnected ideas or by recombining old ideas in new ways that make them more useful.

Scholars (e.g., Kogut & Zander, 1992; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998) have suggested that

organizations are more efficient than markets at this process because they offer access to stronger, intact social networks in a context that can value and support individual contributions. Thus, when firms create an internal social context that facilitates information combination andn exchange--through access to other employees who are capable of communicating and digesting new ideas and that value this process--they are more adept at creating new knowledge.

Thus, we anticipate that high tech firms, which have higher levels of human capital, employee motivation, and information combination and exchange, should demonstrate stronger firm performance. One critical indicator of performance in high tech firms is sales growth, which reflects the extent to which these