Really really great post. I disagree with most of it, but I respect that opinion. I think that what you say is absolutely right in businesses where internal politic is more important than delivering great products and services. In those companies, higher-level management tend to be very secretive and this does not set an example. However, I think that even in those companies people are mostly open to sharing. At least I never saw anyone who didn't want to share that I sensed was reluctant for ownership reasons. In most cases, starting to share knowledge is a big change and resistance to change is always hard to overcome. It requires perseverance, positive leardership, patience but a also a great tool. Give people a 1995 platform that is great to hold outdated knowledge and this is what you'll get! Anyways, I think Crowdbase blog about resistance to change is a great read. Not exactly tied to sharing knowledge, but definitely two topics that are closely related (http://blog.crowdbase.com/2013/11/26/how-to-introduce-a-new-tool-in-the-workplace-part-2/)