Knowledge Sharing in the Higher Education Environment of Developing Economies – The Case of Eritrea

This paper explores the prevailing higher education environment in Eritrea as a case study, with the aim of identifying factors influencing knowledge sharing and collaboration in the community both within and across the institutions. The research is based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with seven respondents: leaders and senior academicians representing all six higher education institutions (HEIs) in Eritrea. It investigates the environment from the socio-technical systems perspective with a holistic view of the institutional system rather than sub-systems. The results show that the HEIs have considerable levels of underutilized technology tools available in the community, and institutional guidelines to promote collaboration. However, the realities on ground show several challenges requiring coherence between the social and technical factors. This research, therefore, justifies the need to use the advanced capabilities of technologies to also augment non-technical factors for a unifying systemic solution to promote knowledge sharing at institutional level.