Knowledge sharing within teams: enabling and constraining factors

Abstract

In this study, we tested the effects of several team features on knowledge sharing within teams of primary school teachers. We hypothesized that trust in team leader and trust in colleagues, mediated by team identification, will have a positive effect on knowledge sharing. We found indirect effects of both trust variables through team identification and a direct effect of trust in team members on knowledge sharing. We explored, furthermore, a moderator effect of team identification on the relation between team work value diversity and knowledge sharing to examine if team identification diminishes the potential negative effects of team work value diversity on knowledge sharing. Contrary to our expectations, we found no relation between work value diversity and knowledge sharing if team identification is low, while the relation takes a negative curvilinear form if team identification is high. This outcome is explained by the notion that signals of un-sameness in values can produce perceptions of threat and subsequent reactions in high identification teams.