Knowledge management formal and informal mentoring: An empirical investigation in Lebanese banks

Purpose – As businesses continue to forge ahead in the twenty-first century, knowledge management (KM) has materialized as a significant differentiator. The process of creating new knowledge, sharing, and preserving such knowledge, is crucial for achieving competitive advantage. To gain maximum benefit from new knowledge, it must be efficiently integrated into the organization within a continuous knowledge life cycle. In this respect, mentoring is becoming ever more effective as a means to facilitate knowledge creation and sharing and build intellectual capital. This study aims to examine how both formal and informal mentoring enhances KM in the Lebanese banking sector. Design/methodology/approach – Professionals in the Lebanese banking sector were surveyed to measure their perception of the impact of mentoring on their willingness to share information within the organization on both a formal and informal basis. A Pearson correlation was conducted to test the hypotheses.