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Introduction
In the 21st-century digital knowledge economy, the effective creation, distribution and utilisation of knowledge in an organisation is important to enhancing an organisation's competitive strength in a global business environment and to compete successfully in globalised markets (Burmeister et al., 2015; Dabic et al., 2014). Employees are the human capital, the intangible organisational assets that transform knowledge into value for the organisation (Dabic et al., 2014). Employees' knowledge and knowledge sharing and knowledge dissemination activities are crucial for continuous improvement and innovation of existing processes, products and services (Kessels and Keursten, 2011; Montani and Staglianò, 2021). Business improvement and innovation are critical for organisations because the dynamics of both the organisation's profitability and growth are based upon the knowledge transfer process and the continuous process of innovation (Dabic et al., 2014). In their research on knowledge transfer between organisation's subsidiary to headquarter, Kiessling et al. (2021) found that knowledge transfer results in innovative practices. Other beneficial individual, team and organisational benefits derived from knowledge-sharing are unleashing creativity embedded in individuals and in the workforce within organisations; higher efficiency and effectiveness, performance and engagement of employees; improved organisational learning culture; increased adaptiveness to continuously changing circumstances; organisational agility, innovation and performance; global efficiency, national responsiveness to local needs, and developing and spreading innovation internationally; improved quality of products and services; higher sales and increased market share; stakeholder value creation; creating lasting economic value; surviving and thriving in the face of crises, sustained business competitiveness (Dabic et al., 2014; Di Vaio et al., 2020; Halisah et al., 2021; Jennings et al., 2016; Maley et al., 2020; Montani and Staglianò, 2021; Park and Kim, 2018; Suarez, 2019).
Knowledge management, including absorption and transfer of knowledge and bidirectional experiential knowledge flows, has emerged as a crucial innovation strategy for organisations operating globally to seek answers to changes and challenges imposed by the external environment (Dabic et al., 2014), most recently, the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in instability and uncertainty of the external environment (Montani and Staglianò, 2021). Consequently, organisations operate in unpredictable markets (Dabic et al., 2014).
The COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 30 January 2020 (Sakusic et...