Abstract
This study aimed to test the mediating role of knowledge sharing, which includes two central processes of knowledge collecting and knowledge donating, in the relationship of psychological capital and innovative work behavior (IWB). The proposed theoretical framework was based on the theory of reasoned action and social exchange theory. In a field study, using a research sample of 345 valid leader-subordinate matching data, we tested three competitive models to explore the different mediating effects of knowledge collecting and donating. Results indicated that knowledge donating and knowledge collecting played a chain mediating role between psychological capital and IWB, and the independent mediating effect of knowledge collecting was also significant. From the perspective of knowledge sharing, the present study deeply analyzes the psychological processing mechanism of psychological capital on IWB, confirms the positive significance of knowledge donating at the individual level, and provides a new perspective for organizations to promote employees’ knowledge sharing and stimulate their IWB.
Highlights
Innovation is the inevitable choice for the survival and development of organizations
The KMO values of the psychological capital (0.963), knowledge collecting (0.742), knowledge donating (0.841), and Innovative work behavior (IWB) (0.950) scales were either greater than or close to 0.9, and the values of p Bartlett test were lower than the significance level of 0.001, indicating that the three variables were suitable for factor analysis
From the perspective of knowledge sharing, the present study deeply analyzes the psychological processing mechanism and boundary conditions of psychological capital on IWB and confirms the positive significance of knowledge donating at the individual level
Summary
Innovation is the inevitable choice for the survival and development of organizations. As the main body of organizational innovation, employees’ innovation is closely related to organizational innovation. Innovative work behavior (IWB) is a comprehensive index to measure employees’ innovation (Scott and Bruce, 1994; Janssen, 2000; Yuan and Woodman, 2010; Anderson et al, 2014), which focuses on the whole innovation process and represents the continuous, dedicated, and sincere efforts of employees (Agarwal, 2014; Akram et al, 2020). In reality, not all employees are willing to engage in innovation activities unconditionally. Innovation activities are usually accompanied by high risk and complexity (Carmeli and Schaubroeck, 2007). A strong internal drive can help individuals stick to innovation
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