Abstract

Transferring knowledge from experts to apprentices is critical for sustaining a company’s competitive advantage. Further, existing literature indicates that employees in the Millennial (Y) generation and Generation Z prefer collaboration in the work environment. To address such needs, this research study aims to analyze the factors that enable knowledge collaboration among apprentices and experts in the practice of engineering. Survey data collected from 138 apprentices in the practice of engineering revealed that apprentices are more likely to collaborate with experts within their companies when they can trust the experts and perceive support for collaboration from senior management. This research adds to the body of knowledge by explicitly addressing apprentices’ trust, senior management support, intrinsic motivation, and knowledge collaboration with experts. Engineering managers can use this article to utilize trust, support from senior management, and employee’s intrinsic motivation to increase knowledge collaboration success among engineering experts and apprentices.

摘要

将知识从专家传授给学徒对于维持公司的竞争优势至关重要。此外，现有文献表明，千禧一代 (Y) 和 Z 一代的员工更喜欢在工作环境中进行协作。为了满足这些需求，本研究旨在分析能够在工程实践中实现学徒和专家之间知识协作的因素。从 138 名工程实践学徒收集的调查数据显示，当学徒可以信任专家并感受到高级管理层对协作的支持时，他们更有可能与公司内的专家合作。这项研究通过明确解决学徒的信任、高级管理人员的支持、内在动机、以及与专家的知识合作。工程经理可以使用这篇文章来利用信任、高级管理层的支持和员工的内在动机来提高工程专家和学徒之间的知识协作成功率。