MULTI FOCI OF COMMITMENT’S IMPACT ON KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN PAKISTAN’S ADVERTISING AGENCIES

...................................................................................................................... Introduction:“Knowledge” and “Knowledge Management” is considered as key ingredient of success in today‟s business organizations such as Professional Service Firms (PSF) (Alvesson 2004). If a PSF wants to flourish it has to work upon the mantra of knowledge acquisition and sharing among the people of an organization. Knowledge-intensive organizations should influence their separate knowledge assets through knowledge distribution to generate shared knowledge possessions. Knowledgeable employees have the power to control Knowledge sharing. Knowledge economies are emerging phenomenon, in this scenario attaining and sustaining knowledge is key to gain a competitive edge (Neuman, 2000). Regrettably, knowledge management is difficult job due to multi-faceted form of the borders, cultures, procedures and firm structures involved (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. Res. 5(2), 25-32 26 commitment is higher will be the positive results. Advertising agencies cannot deliver a successful project to its client unless its project team is committed. No idea will be successful until or unless it is shared by its team members. No research has been done on the influence of different kinds and multi foci of commitment on knowledge sharing and project success in Pakistan.
It is to express here this study is previously conducted by Swart et al in 2014 in different work setting where this study is conducted in Pakistan which will assist in generalizing the findings of previous study.
There is no work or literature or industrial analysis of advertising agencies has been done before by any researcher in Pakistan. This research has been done on above mentioned phenomenon on advertising agencies.

Literature Review:-
There are numerous definitions of project, in 2012 Schwalbe defined project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. Whereas, number of researches being conducted on the subject of "Project success". Baccarini (1999) emphasized the subsequent features of project success as under: a) The success of project management is a measure of time; cost and quality are secondary to the higher product success objectives of goal and purpose. Therefore, a project that is a project management disappointment is supposed as a successful project because the greater-level goal of product accomplishment is happened. b) Project management success can affect the accomplishment of victory of the project. Worthy project management promise project success and is capable stop project failure. Good project management techniques find out the loopholes and try to fix it as they occur. However, poor project management cost a lot by decrease market shares, profitability etc. c) Success of the project can also be affected by time. We can only get to know about this when project final product has been utilized after numerous years of completion of the project. We can get to know about the project management success on longtime basis.
Professional Service Firms are defined as Knowledge concentrated firms (Alvesson,2004). Whereas, knowledge could be defined as "know-how" based on surrounded experiences, standards, info and professional instinct that offers an outline for assessing and combining new know-how and information. In organizations, it commonly goes into inserted in papers or warehouse and also in firm"s agendas, schedules, and duties" . Knowledge could be classified into two main categories a) explicit knowledge; that could be readily codified and expressed in words and b) tacit knowledge; it is based on experience that cannot be readily translated into words. PSFs" competitive advantage is based on tacit knowledge and knowledge workers of firm (Sewart, 2011). Tacit knowledge of knowledge workers assists PSFs in client services and solution. Knowledge exists at both individual and collective level of the firm; it is only beneficial for the firm if it being shared among the members of the firm .
Knowledge sharing plays a crucial role in planned management arena, where know-how is considered for example "the supreme strategically-important resource which [organizations] possess," and a primary basis of worth making, (Spender, 1996;Teece, 1997). A phenomenon of knowledge sharing is directed by the employees; which makes it interpersonal communication trend (Empson,2011).
Various investigators propose that the present economic scenery is surely finest well-defined as a "knowledge economy". In today"s economy, Knowledge, or know-how, is the foundation of acquisition and upholding a competitive advantage. Knowledge resources have been extensively known to be the main carters of organization reasonable benefit. Specialists have proposed that the capability to continuously form, abolish, and reconstruct new resource mixtures that are cherished by clients/Clients and secure against definite competitors is serious and critical. This capability has been well-defined as a dynamic competency/capability (Teece, 1994).
Previous researches suggest employee commitment towards the organization plays a substantial role in willingness to share tacit knowledge with team members (Hislop, 2003). This attitude of willingness is dependent on element of trust among the members and commitment of an employee. It is interpreted that lower level of trust and commitment may lead to the reluctance to share tacit knowledge (Lin,2007). "Organizational commitment may significantly impact the enthusiasm of employees to share their know-how" (Scarbrough, 2000). It is repetitively stated that organization"s biggest asset is "Knowledge" it possess but it"s not individual level based collective level know-how creates a difference (Alvesson, 2005).
Knowledge sharing is bi-directional phenomenon; knowledge gaining and providing. This transition of providing and gaining is based on interpersonal activity; in this transition shared knowledge could be interpreted differently by the receiver and provider as per the their own knowledge and context in which knowledge is shared (Watzlawick,1976). An individual integrate his new knowledge with the one he already has, this process of integration is referred as representational re-description (Karmiloff-Smith,1992).
Previous research suggests that when knowledge is shared within the firm it triggers synergy among the resources which assist in gaining competitive advantage and maximizing human capital of the firm. Firm is dependent on human capital; knowledge workers in delighting firm"s clients and it helps firm in securing success ( Swart,2014). Recent studies have reveals that employee commitment is not within the organization attitude it could go beyond boundaries of organization. Previous researches have classified employees commitment into two levels; micro and macro level. Micro level of commitment"s foci includes; commitment towards management, team and customers Becker, 2009). Whereas, macro level"s foci include organization, profession, unions and employees career (Vandenberghe, 2009).
Organizational Commitment (OC) is not a latest subject of study; excessive research has been done in this area. There are three types of organizational commitment; a) Affective commitment; where employee"s feelings are attached with an organization and there is an emotional bond. b) Continuance commitment; employee is attached with the organization because of economic reasons as organization is paying him well. c) Normative Commitment; in this case employee feels his moral obligation to stay with the organization and perform his chores (Meyer & Allen, 1991). d) The second significant focus of commitment is Team commitment (TC). Research suggests that team commitment plays an adequate role in PSFs context, by creating synergy among the members in order to transfer and integrate up to date knowledge to satisfy clients at its best (Swart,2007). There is no doubt in an organization employees interact more with their team members in comparison to the other colleagues (Redman and Snape, 2005).
Past research has examined the correlated relationship between commitment and employees" profession. Employees having high professional commitment are the one who invest more on their knowledge base and career development to stay competitive (Greenwood &Empson, 2003). In PSFs, employees have to share knowledge to polish their skills and maintaining the external professional networks.
In relevance to the other foci of commitments a little less is done in the field of client commitment (Vandenberghe, 2009). In PSFs context employees interaction with clients is frequent and they have to satisfy them through knowledge they posses.
An individual who is having high commitment towards any particular focus, there is possibility his willingness to knowledge sharing towards other focus may decrease; if his have high commitment towards clients he could be unwilling to share knowledge within the organization.
This study explores how employee commitment towards different foci has impact on the willingness of knowledge sharing at work? Previous research suggest that organizational commitment is positively correlate to the willingness attitude to share knowledge ( Hislop,2003). It leads to first hypothesis of the study: H1: Different types of employee commitment to the firm/organization are positively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects). An employee who is devoted to their professional development and committed towards that is likely to reluctant to share their knowledge with members of the organization (Alvesson, 2004).
H2: Different types of employee commitment to the Occupation/Profession are positively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects).
Prior research states that trust and commitment among the team members leveraged the willingness behavior of members to share knowledge with each other but limit it to share with rest of the members of the organization (Newell & Swan, 2000), it leads to third hypothesis of the study; H3: Different types of employee commitment to the project team are positively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects). In general, prior research in this domain says that synergy between all foci of commitment; organization, profession, team and client can play a positive role to share knowledge and in gaining a competitive edge (Vandenberghe, 2009). This prompt to the last hypothesis of the study; H4: Different types of employee commitment to the Client are negatively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects).
Research Methodology:-This is a hypothesis testing based correlation study. The research is designed with an aim to study the impact of employee commitment with the organization, team, profession and client to knowledge sharing, as they apply in the Advertising Agencies of Pakistan. To gather the data survey methodology was used on the basis of questionnaire. Details of questionnaire adaptation are mentioned in a table 1 below. 223 respondents were surveyed from different advertising agencies" project teams in the three major cities of Pakistan which include; Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. This paper has used SPSS and applies (frequency, alpha, correlation, and regression).   The regression results show that the explained variation in the knowledge sharing is 58.4% explained by the given variables i.e. R square is 0.584 Unstandardized β value .787 (p<0.000) signifies that for every unit change in the independent variables (Organizational Commitment), the dependent variable is positively affected by .787 units. Hence we will reject the null hypothesis. H1 is accepted; organization commitment affects the Knowledge Sharing and ultimately affects project success Result against the H2; Different types of employee commitment to the Occupation/Profession are positively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects) is depicted below: The regression results show that the explained variation in the knowledge sharing is 52.1% explained by the given variables i.e. R square is 0.521 Unstandardized β value .746 (p<0.000) signifies that for every unit change in the independent variables (Professional Commitment), the dependent variable is positively affected by .746 units. Hence H2 is accepted; Professional commitment affects the Knowledge Sharing and ultimately affects project success. Result against the H3; Different types of employee commitment to the project team are positively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects). The regression results show that the explained variation in the knowledge sharing is 62.7% explained by the given variables i.e. R square is 0.627 Unstandardized β value .936 (p<0.000) signifies that for every unit change in the independent variables (Team Commitment), the dependent variable is positively affected by .936 units. Hence H3 is accepted; team commitment affects the Knowledge Sharing and ultimately affects project success. Results of H4; Different types of employee commitment to the Client are negatively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects) are depicted in table below; The regression results show that the explained variation in the knowledge sharing is 18.8% explained by the given variables i.e. R square is 0.188 Unstandardized β value .714 (p<0.000) signifies that for every unit change in the independent variables (Client Commitment), the dependent variable is affected by .714 units. Hence we will reject H4; which is resulted in client commitment affects the Knowledge Sharing within the organization.

Discussion:-
Employee motivation and commitment derives success and failure of Knowledge management. (Galletta, 2003) states that inspiration and obligation plays a vital role in fruitfully implementing Knowledge Management Systems (as antecedents).
Above results and answers have significant implications for concept and for exercise. Study investigation has donated to the inadequate but increasing investigation on relationship among worker commitment and knowledge distribution (Hislop, 2003;. This research has established on the various kinds (Meyer and Allen, 1991) and foci of worker commitment to comprehend the impact on know-how sharing behavior Table 7: Hypothesis summary HYPOTHESES DECISION H1: Different types of employee commitment to the firm/organization are positively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects).
Accepted H2: Different types of employee commitment to the Occupation/Profession are positively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects). Accepted H3: Different types of employee commitment to the project team are positively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects). Accepted H4: Different types of employee commitment to the Client are negatively associated to knowledge sharing with coworkers in the organization (in Projects).

Rejected
Affective employee commitment to the project team and it members and the occupation is positively associated to knowledge sharing behavior. This shows emotive commitment with team-and-professional working (Becker, 2009) enlightens the know-how distribution behavior.
Normative employee commitment (i.e.; a feeling of obligation to the organization) is a further vital impact on knowledge distribution behavior. This behavior can be enhancing by rewards and other mediums of motivation.
Continuance employee loyalty to the customer is weakly associated to knowledge distribution or sharing behavior. Team members are less expected to part their know-how with project colleagues when they pursue to become customer and business experts and want to endure to work with a certain customer/client. These experts have established highly customer focused know-how that may be hard to share with other experts in the project.

Conclusion & Implications:-
The goal of this study is to examine the impact of different kinds of employee commitment (affective, normative and continuance commitment) and foci of commitment (organization, professional, customer and project team) on knowledge sharing. This study has examined organization affective commitment, organization normative commitment and organization continuance commitment, same goes with other foci of commitment. An investigation result evidently shows that the numerous kinds and foci of worker commitment are connected to organizational knowledge distribution behavior.
Project managers should try to motivate their team members in order to increase their commitment to organization, profession and team particularly so that they share their specialized knowledge within the organization. This will ultimately give competitive advantage and will result in greater chances of project success. This investigation has been able to inspect the types of employee loyalty and also various foci of commitment within the project. This delivers that there is a link among each kind and foci of commitment and two directional knowhow distribution behaviors. Research showed that foci that are proximal (i.e. team and profession) generate emotive commitment, which impacts on know-how distribution, while more distal foci, such as the firm, will tend to rely on normative to support know-how distribution behavior.
Lastly, it has showed that firms will be confronted with strategic knowledge management challenges when inspiring very robust customer commitment that indications to the growth of customer oriented knowledge, which desires to be stable with the ability to leverage this know-how inside the firm. This will eventually influence on the competitive ability of the firm, which consequences from the combined effects of knowledge distribution.
Results of analysis revealed that almost all different types and multi-foci of commitment have an influence on knowledge distribution behavior with colleagues in the firm. As knowledge sharing increases chances for project success increases. Knowledge is vital and beneficial on the collective level. Therefore, the analysis leads to interpretation that, knowledge is a vital resource as we are living in a knowledge economy. Commitment on various levels increases knowledge sharing behavior that will ultimately lead to project or organization success.
In future this study could be done with the higher sample size; Future investigator could do comparative analysis in terms of different industries as this study is based on the Advertising Agencies projects only. Future studies can also study some moderating and mediating effect on the relation of commitment and knowledge sharing. Potential researchers can also check the impact of different variables from a new perspective or different perspective that differentiate the more successful organization than the less one. This perspective could be leadership quality, rewards, and likewise impact on a knowledge sharing or other management practices impact.