Flexible Work Arrangements and Employees’ Knowledge Sharing in the Post-Pandemic Era

Abstract

Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) have become the norm in the post-epidemic era, but are they really beneficial to employees’ work? Previous literature, based on Social Exchange and Resource Conservation Theories, has viewed FWAs as signals caring for employees and resources supported to employees, arguing that FWAs triggered employees’ positive attitudes and behaviors. Our study challenges this view. We propose a moderated mediation model based on Affective Event Theory (AET) by exploring the relationship between FWAs and employees’ knowledge sharing, and further examining the mediating role of workplace loneliness and the moderating role of task interdependence. The analysis of a three-wave survey of 343 employees in a large group of companies in the field of information technology shows that: (1) FWAs can both negatively affect employees’ knowledge sharing directly and (2) negatively impact employees’ knowledge sharing through the mediating mechanism of workplace loneliness. Further, task interdependence can weaken (3) the positive relationship between FWAs and workplace loneliness, (4) the negative relationship between FWAs and knowledge sharing, and (5) the indirect effect that FWAs negatively affect knowledge sharing via workplace loneliness. Our study contributes to the negative effects of FWAs. Keywords: FWAs; workplace loneliness; knowledge sharing; task interdependence