Mid-career peak: Demographic determinants of knowledge generation in Philippine higher education institutions

This study examined the relationship between knowledge generation practices and demographic characteristics among 123 employees (71 teaching, 52 non-teaching) at a Philippine state university using stratified sampling. Validated questionnaires were used to gather information on gender, age, education level, and work experience. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to analyze the data at the P = 0.05 significance level. The findings indicated that both groups were dominated by women. Non-teaching employees were usually between the ages of 47 and 57 with bachelor's degrees and 11 to 20 years of experience, whereas teaching employees were mostly between the ages of 36 and 46 with master's degrees and more than 21 years of experience. There was no discernible difference in knowledge generation between teaching (Median = 4.00) and non-teaching employees (Median = 4.25), P = 0.77, according to the Mann-Whitney test. According to the Kruskal-Wallis test, younger employees (25–35 years old) scored higher in knowledge generation, and age approached significance (P = 0.07). Employees with 3–5 and 6–10 years of experience showed significantly higher levels of knowledge generation (P = 0.015), but no significant differences were found for education level (P = 0.51). The study comes to the conclusion that by creating knowledge management frameworks that increase organizational effectiveness and sustainability, higher education institutions should create focused strategies to improve knowledge generation across diverse workforces. The results support the development of experience-differentiated knowledge management techniques. Longitudinal patterns and cross-institutional comparisons should be investigated in future studies.