Influence of relational leadership on employees' informal knowledge sharing: The effects of organizational commitment and team diversity

Abstract

This research aims to delve deeper into the impact of relational leadership on informal knowledge-sharing behavior and expand empirical research on these aspects in the Chinese context, providing further managerial perspectives for business leaders. This research focuses on in-service employees from 16 Chinese enterprises as our study subjects. We employ a questionnaire survey method to research the relationship between relational leadership and informal knowledge-sharing behavior. To construct a theoretical model, we also introduce two variables: organizational commitment as a mediating variable and team interdependence as a moderating variable. Examination of 683 data samples indicates that relational leadership facilitates employees' informal knowledge-sharing behavior and strengthens their organizational commitment. Importantly, raising organizational commitment levels serves as a means to promote the emergence of informal knowledge-sharing behavior. This means that relational leadership has a direct effect on employees’ informal knowledge-sharing behavior and can indirectly improve it by making employees more committed to the organisation, with organizational commitment acting as a mediator. Team interdependence makes relational leadership more effective for informal knowledge-sharing behavior. Studying the impact of informal knowledge sharing behavior among employees from the perspective of leader behavior style can promote the understanding of employee sharing behavior in the management process of enterprises and help enterprises maintain or even continuously acquire development motivation and vitality.