Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1429540 Knowledge Ownership Case Study Page | 1 Knowledge Management Case Study: Investigating the Concept of DzKnowledge Ownershipdz Babis Theodoulidis 1 , Ugonwa Ekweozor and Saranya Saetang Manchester Business School University of Manchester Manchester M13 9SS United Kingdom b.theodoulidis@mbs.ac.uk ugonwa@hotmail.com Saranya.Saetang@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk 1. Introduction The case study has been designed to investigate the concept of "knowledge ownership" within the context of knowledge sharing in organisations. The iŵpoƌtaŶĐe of kŶoǁledge to the fiƌŵs Đoŵpetitiǀe adǀaŶtage is aŶ aĐkŶoǁledged faĐt iŶ todaLJs eĐoŶoŵiĐ Đliŵate. A sigŶifiĐaŶt pƌopoƌtioŶ of the fiƌŵs collective wisdom comes from her employees and a growing number of researchers have alluded to the importance of ownership perceptions in influencing employee attitudes and behaviour for knowledge sharing in the workplace. The purpose of the case study is to examine the relationship between employee ownership perceptions and their willingness to share their knowledge assets, both tangible and intangible. To this end, the case studLJ diffeƌeŶtiates ďetǁeeŶ peƌĐeptioŶs of the oƌgaŶizatioŶs ƌights to knowledge created by the employee (organisational ownership) aŶd peƌĐeptioŶs of the iŶdiǀiduals ƌights to kŶoǁledge he/she creates (individual ownership). Furthermore, the case study investigates the influence of the work environment (e.g., reward, performance evaluation, organisational procedures, knowledge sharing norms, co-worker relationship, supervisor relationship, etc) on employee ownership perceptions according to the knowledge type (codified or tacit). Questionnaires were used as the data collection tool for the case study since they best suited to carry out hypothesis testing using statistical analysis. The construction of the questionnaire was based on an extensive literature research and is consistent with previous studies in order to allow the results of the analysis to be used for comparison purposes. In addition, one of the main advantages of the use of questionnaires in this study is the anonymity factor. The majority of the questions posed could be considered to be of a sensitive and confidential nature and the use of questionnaires allowed respondents the option to give anonymous gut responses rather than socially acceptable responses. 1 Corresponding author