The principal-agent model of knowledge sharing within enterprises

Nowadays, industry economy is evolving to knowledge economy. During the process, the core productive factor of enterprises is changing from labor force and capital to knowledge. More and more researches are being made on knowledge management in order to improve the core competence of enterprises. But on one side employees are reluctant to share their own knowledge with others, and on the other side enterprises lack of effective incentive mechanisms to encourage knowledge sharing. From the economic view the paper builds a principal-agent model of knowledge sharing within organizations, and then discusses qualifications that the incentive mechanism of enterprises should meet under two different conditions- one condition is employees' effort level for sharing knowledge is discrete, another is employees' effort level for sharing knowledge is continuous.