Understanding knowledge sharing in the work context by applying a belief elicitation study

Personality trait of conscientiousness impact on tacit knowledge sharing: the mediating effect of eagerness and subjective norm

Purpose

This study aims to examine psychological mechanisms underlying tacit knowledge-sharing behaviours. The personality trait of conscientiousness is tested in relation to knowledge sharing, and the effect of eagerness and subjective norm on the intention to share is measured in the context of local and multinational knowledge-intensive enterprises in Croatia.

Design/methodology/approach

The quantitative study was conducted on a sample of 288 employees of small and medium-sized companies working on knowledge-intensive tasks. The purposive sampling technique and a survey strategy were used in the study. Organizational affiliation, as it was presumed that these individuals possess a higher degree of tacit knowledge. The data collection was conducted in October 2019. Respondents worked in science and technology companies in Croatia on assignments involving information technology, electronics, petrochemicals, medicine and biochemistry. Statistical product and service solutions analysis of a moment structures software was used to perform confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

Findings

The findings suggest that the personality trait of conscientiousness has a positive impact on tacit knowledge sharing behaviour. An attitude of eagerness and subjective norm were also confirmed as predictors of tacit knowledge sharing behaviour. Furthermore, conscientiousness influences the eagerness to share knowledge. A significant association between subjective norm and conscientiousness was also established. Finally, the mediating effects were identified, indicating that subjective norm and eagerness mediate the relationship between conscientiousness and tacit knowledge sharing.

Practical implications

Explaining the relationship between personality and attitude in the context of knowledge sharing will result in a better understanding of factors that should be nurtured within individuals. Accordingly, distinct management initiatives are to be developed to suit these factors. Furthermore, to intensify the knowledge exchange when working on knowledge-intensive tasks of significant economic value, organizations tailor a more particularistic application to suit the individual in the domain of leadership, staffing decisions, work organization and incentive systems.

Originality/value

This study provides an in-depth analysis and theoretical understanding of factors salient for knowledge-sharing behaviour. The authors provide an overview of how knowledge sharing evolves during social interaction through intensive problem-solving sessions and teamwork. The authors render the explanation on how the personality trait of conscientiousness, conjoint with the attitude of eagerness to share know-how in the expert surrounding, is conducive to the generation of tacit knowledge sharing. Underpinning this study are employees’ psychological motives and internal drives to communicate individual cognitive capital outweighing the potential negative consequences, such as losing the competitive advantage over the colleagues.

Knowledge sharing behaviour of overqualified repatriates

Purpose

Organizations send their employees for international assignments so as to develop their international working experiences, their global knowledge and skills. These employees are then expected to return to their home countries (hereof known as repatriates) to share their newly gained knowledge or skills with their colleagues. This practice would benefit the organization's performance to some extent. Nonetheless, past literature had pointed out that many of such repatriates tend to leave their respective organizations as a result of not being able to fully utilize their newly acquired knowledge and skills, which led them to perceive that they were overqualified. This occurrence could lead to a loss of valuable knowledge for their organization. Aiming to address this issue at hand, the current study focuses on examining of the antecedents that could influence these repatriates' knowledge sharing behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses a research framework which was developed from three aspects of interest–perceived overqualification, affective commitment and the moderating effect of repatriation support practices on knowledge sharing behaviour of repatriates. Structural model analysis was carried out to assess 152 useable data which were collected from returning corporate repatriates in Malaysia. The SmartPLS 3.0 software was applied.

Findings

Repatriates with highly perceived overqualifications tend to exhibit low affective commitment. The impact of their perceived overqualification on knowledge sharing behaviour was fully mediated by their affective commitment. Repatriation support practice was found to strengthen the positive relationship between affective commitment and knowledge sharing behaviour.

Originality/value

The use of the relative deprivation theory showed that the outcome derived from this study could serve as an insight for organizations to understand how those repatriates' perception of overqualification influences their level of affective commitment, and subsequently, the extent to which they share knowledge upon returning.

A simplified approach to understanding customer support and help during self-service encounters

Purpose

In the absence of direct employee involvement, customers sharing knowledge and know-how with other customers during self-service encounters is key for promoting service quality. This study assessed the extent to which customer support and help during self-service encounters could simply be explained by multiple motivations of the social exchange theory.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey approach was followed. The model was tested among 258 electronic banking customers in South Africa and later cross-validated among 253 electronic banking customers in Australia. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis with country as the grouping variable, latent variable modelling and indirect tests were performed to assess interrelationships among diverse factors that may contribute to customer support and help during self-service encounters, as accounted for by motivations of the social exchange theory.

Findings

Adequate model fit was obtained for the combined structural model, which was based on the invariant model. Value contribution and competence affirmation, pleasure derived from helping, reciprocity and reputation enhancement are relevant motivations of the social exchange theory that may impact customer support and help through knowledge sharing.

Research implications

The study provides a simplified and more cohesive explanation of customers' motivations for engaging in customer support and helping behaviours during self-service encounters.

Practical implications

Service providers seeking guidance on knowledge sharing among customers, which may lead to greater service quality, should benefit from this research.

Originality/value

The findings contribute to greater understanding of social exchanges by customers who provide support and help to other customers during self-service encounters, and that ultimately may affect service quality.

Knowledge sharing and the theory of planned behavior: a meta-analysis review

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the application of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in predicting knowledge sharing behavior (KSB) based on a systematic literature review.

Design/methodology/approach

A meta-analysis was applied as a research methodology, and 47 studies were included in this study with a total population of 15,528 people (mean = 353). The authors summarized previous studies which used the TPB for predicting (KSB).

Findings

Findings reveal that KSB is determined jointly by knowledge-sharing intention (KSI) and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Intention itself is a function of attitude toward knowledge sharing, subjective norm surrounding knowledge sharing and PBC to perform KSB.

Practical implications

The primary implication of this meta-analysis is to deeply interpret the essence of KSB r and its determinants, in which managers can foster the conduction of this valuable behavior in their organizations. However, as a limitation, a remarkable threat to validity in the existing literature is a potential “cooperation bias” in which participants likely overestimate their knowledge sharing intention and knowledge sharing behavior. In future studies, this limitation can be addressed by measuring actual KSB.

Originality/value

This study is the first meta-analysis conducted to investigate the prediction power of the TPB for determining KSB. While there are several contradictions reported in the researches which used the TPB in the knowledge-sharing context, this research has summarized and reported the results.

Building intellectual structure of knowledge sharing

Purpose

This study aims to build the intellectual structure of knowledge sharing (KS) research by objectively and systematically capturing and sketching the content of research papers published in the KS research area.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a systematic literature review for data collection, and content analysis and bibliometric techniques of citation and co-citation analysis for data analyses and interpretation.

Findings

Based on the study, the intellectual structure of KS research consisting of five themes has emerged. The five themes identified are: models, frameworks and understanding for KS, the behaviour-oriented perspective of KS, technology-oriented perspective of KS, KS barriers and KS and firm’s performance.

Research limitations/implications

This study has used published literature extracted from selected journals using the web of science database. More journals and databases may be included in future studies.

Practical implications

This study will give future researchers a comprehensive understanding of KS discipline and serve as a quick reference and resource for those interested in KS research. It identifies major areas of KS for the practitioners to enable them to focus and apply various organizational interventions to derive a competitive advantage. The identified themes in the intellectual structure of KS will also provide a holistic view and give multiple perspectives to practitioners so that they can better manage KS in their organizations.

Originality/value

This is among early studies aiming to extract the intellectual structure of KS in the broad area of knowledge management research.

Subjective well-being, knowledge sharing and individual innovation behavior

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of subjective well-being on individual innovation behavior. The authors propose that such effect is mediated by knowledge sharing, and individual absorptive capacity moderates the relationship between knowledge sharing and innovation behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

A research model was developed. Survey data were based on a sample of 220 employees from 20 enterprises in China. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses and bootstrap approach were applied to test the research model.

Findings

Subjective well-being has significantly positive influence on individual innovation behavior, and this effect is mediated by knowledge sharing. Furthermore, absorptive capacity moderates the mediated relationships between subject well-being and individual innovation behavior via knowledge sharing.

Practical implications

This research sheds light on an effective role to promote individual innovation behavior in management practices. It suggests that harmonious atmosphere, communication platform, and well-established learning plans can be cultivated to enhance individual innovation ability.

Originality/value

This research discusses the antecedent of innovation behavior from the viewpoint of individual psychology, and identifies the different roles of knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity on individual innovation behavior.

Why share expertise? A closer look at the quality of motivation to share or withhold knowledge

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of motivation for knowledge sharing (KS) by assessing how four qualitatively different motivation types, as per self-determination theory (SDT), predict KS, its quality and its undesirable counterpart, knowledge withholding.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was carried out as a survey (n = 200) in an expert organization. The analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling.

Findings

Autonomous type of extrinsic motivation (identified motivation) was the strongest predictor of KS (in work meetings) and its quality, whereas the other motivation types (intrinsic, introjected and external) had no independent contribution to variance in KS. Knowledge withholding was negatively associated with identified and positively with external KS motivation.

Research limitations/implications

Single organization limits the generalizability of the results. Future studies should further investigate the role of identified motivation for various KS behaviors.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that autonomy-supportive management practices known to facilitate self-determined behavior can improve KS. Fostering external motivation by incentivizing KS may be both ineffective and have undesirable consequences.

Originality/value

Few prior studies investigate KS motivation beyond external and intrinsic motivation or apply SDT to KS using SDT-based scales. This study distinguishes between four different motivation types and is the first to investigate their differential impact on KS and its quality. It is also the first to demonstrate the importance of identified motivation for KS. It further elucidates how the quality of KS motivation is reflected in knowledge withholding, an overall underinvestigated behavior.

Knowledge sharing in knowledge-intensive manufacturing firms. An empirical study of its enablers

Purpose

– This paper aims to investigate, following previous studies on knowledge-sharing (KS) processes that consist of knowledge donating (KD) and knowledge collecting (KC), the relationship between KS processes and KS enablers to understand the effect of organizational, individual and technological factors.

Design/methodology/approach

– The study is based on a Web survey. Data were collected from a sample of 759 knowledge workers selected from 23 knowledge-intensive manufacturing companies exposed to international markets and located in Tuscany (Italy). The analysis is based on multivariate regression models considering KD and KC as dependent variables.

Findings

– The results show that individual, organizational and technological factors matter to KS. Specifically, the paper reports that individual-level enablers and supportive leadership have a positive effect on both sub-processes of knowledge sharing. Further, the organic management system has a strong and positive impact on KD, while the efficacy of information and communication technology solutions is positively related to KC.

Research limitations/implications

– Although based on a geographically bounded perimeter, the analysis allows some generalizations. In fact, the paper proposes a set of enablers that empirically link micro- and macro-organizational mechanisms to KS.

Practical implications

– The evidence described can help improve the organizational management of KS and, consequently, support managers dealing with organizational design aimed at successful KS.

Originality/value

– The paper presents original results by combining individual, organizational and technological variables in the explanation of KS. It could be a basis for further studies.