One might imagine that the virtualisation of many areas of life, especially in the present pandemic climate would have led to a boost to in efficiency of knowledge sharing and thus an improvement in many areas of human endeavour. This may ultimately prove to be true. In a study published in the International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, researchers have found that the benefits of how knowledge sharing might benefit physicians in terms of improving their diagnoses and reducing medical errors are not yet widely understood by physicians.
Anjum Razzaque of Ahlia University in Manama, Bahrain and Tillal Eldabi of the University of Surrey, UK, explain how a physician’s social capital may remedy this situation by promoting the benefits to the individual, to other physicians, and to their patients.
The team asserts that this is the first study of its kind, holistically assessing the role of social capital theory, knowledge sharing, and decision making of physicians who are members of a virtual community. Ultimately, physicians need to trust the virtual community and the concept of knowledge sharing. For such a virtualised environment to work they perhaps also need to understand each other’s social capital and to have confidence in that too.
Razzaque, A. and Eldabi, T. (2020) ‘Physicians social capital aids their medical decisions when they virtually share knowledge’, Int. J. Knowledge Management Studies, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.229–257.