How Do Institution-Based Trust and Interpersonal Trust Affect Interdepartmental Knowledge Sharing?

Abstract

There are two typical forms of trust in organisational settings—institution-based trust and interpersonal trust. The role of interpersonal trust in promoting interdepartmental knowledge sharing has been investigated. The effect of institution-based trust, especially the joint effect of institution-based and interpersonal trust, on interdepartmental knowledge sharing has not been adequately described. This article builds a conceptual model to describe the independent and joint effects of these two forms of trust on the satisfaction and success of interdepartmental knowledge sharing. The moderating role of knowledge tacitness is also described in this model, which is tested on 294 collaborative task scenarios between departments within Chinese IT firms. The empirical results essentially support the proposed model and contribute to organisational trust and interdepartmental knowledge-sharing discussions by clarifying the substantial roles of these two forms of trust in the context of interdepartmental collaboration and knowledge sharing.