Innovative Enterprises Development and Employees' Knowledge Sharing Behavior in China: The Role of Leadership Style.

Daokui Jiang,Zhuo Chen

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.747873

Daokui Jiang, Zhuo Chen

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.747873

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Abstract

Leadership is generally considered helpful for team knowledge sharing. However, differences in the influence of different leadership styles on team knowledge sharing mechanism is still unclear. To understand different leadership style foster team knowledge sharing, this study focuses on leader–follower trust during team interactions. From the perspective of leadership as social problem solving, we argue that transformational leadership and authoritative leadership are different linked to team knowledge sharing. Through the collection of a sample of 791 valid questionnaires in China, we used the structural equation model to test the theoretical model. Results showed that: (1) Transformational leadership was positively linked to explicit and implicit knowledge sharing, while authoritative leadership was positively linked to explicit knowledge sharing. (2) Trust tendency mediates the relationship between authoritative leadership and knowledge sharing. (3) Supportive and bureaucratic culture moderate the influence of trust tendency on implicit knowledge sharing, such that the positive relationship is stronger for the low-quality of supportive culture and the high-quality of bureaucratic culture. Finally, The study’s implication for theory and practice were discussed, its limitations were identified, and directions for future research were suggested.

Highlights

As we all know, knowledge is an important means for organizations to acquire resources and maintain competitive advantages
The results show that the supportive culture moderates the effect of trust tendency on explicit and implicit knowledge sharing behavior, and the bureaucratic culture moderates the effect of trust tendency on implicit knowledge sharing behavior
This study proposes a conceptual model of the relationship among transformational leadership, authoritative leadership, trust tendency, explicit and implicit knowledge sharing

Summary

Introduction

Knowledge is an important means for organizations to acquire resources and maintain competitive advantages. Knowledge can be owned by an employee or a team. Knowledge sharing enables individuals to collaborate on expertise and skills that contribute to organizational value and competitive advantage. Teams can help organize values and competitive advantages (Alsharo et al, 2016). Research on knowledge management shows that employee knowledge sharing helps improve organizational performance. Knowledge sharing depends on the willingness of team members to share their unique knowledge. Research generally suggests that sharing knowledge can lead to the loss of ownership of knowledge, which in turn can lead to loss of benefits. Team members refusing to share knowledge can hinder team cooperation, leading to failed goals.

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