Facilitating Knowledge Sharing: The Role of Knowledge Sharing Identity

Abstract

Existing research has typically adopted a social exchange perspective to portray employee knowledge sharing as an act of reciprocation for received support at work. In this study, we adopt an agentic perspective to understand the role of knowledge sharing identity as an inner driving force of knowledge sharing. We integrate identity theory with social cognitive theory to depict how knowledge sharing identity triggers a self-verification process that facilitates knowledge sharing through knowledge sharing envisioning and knowledge sharing self-efficacy as two agentic mechanisms. We further argue that the positive effects of knowledge sharing identity are strengthened by employee self-verification striving. We conducted two studies with Swiss employees from diverse industries to understand why, how, and when employees share knowledge. In a within-person field experiment (Study 1), we showed that knowledge sharing identity activation intervention increased an employee’s daily knowledge sharing via knowledge sharing envisioning and knowledge sharing self-efficacy. In a between-person field study with time-lagged data (Study 2), we replicated the within-person findings regarding the two agentic mechanisms and identified self-verification striving as a moderator strengthening knowledge sharing identity’s effects. Our findings provide theoretical and practical implications to the literature on knowledge sharing, work role identities, and personal agency.