Chieh-Peng Lin, Her-Ting Huang and Tse Yao Huang
Drawing upon social exchange theory, this study justified the indirect effects of responsible leadership and knowledge sharing on job performance through the mediation of work…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing upon social exchange theory, this study justified the indirect effects of responsible leadership and knowledge sharing on job performance through the mediation of work engagement and helping initiatives. Job tenure was examined as a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses of this study were empirically tested with structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderated regression analyses. This study conducted a field survey on 512 knowledge workers who employed a high portion of or highly specialized tacit knowledge to do their job.
Findings
This research presented that both work engagement and helping initiatives mediated the indirect effects of responsible leadership and knowledge sharing on job performance. The empirical results revealed that job tenure moderated the relationships between responsible leadership and work engagement, and between responsible leadership and helping initiatives. However, job tenure did not moderate the relationships between knowledge sharing and work engagement, and between knowledge sharing and helping initiatives.
Originality/value
This research is one of the few to verify the key role of responsible leadership from the theoretical aspect of social exchange, complementing the leadership literature based on stakeholder theory. This research is a pioneer by taking into account the simultaneous influences of responsible leadership and knowledge sharing on job performance in a single model setting.
Details
Keywords
Chieh-Peng Lin and Tse-Yao Huang
Although the literature has somewhat discussed social capital and knowledge sharing, the mediating and moderating mechanisms that influence team workers to move from connecting…
Abstract
Purpose
Although the literature has somewhat discussed social capital and knowledge sharing, the mediating and moderating mechanisms that influence team workers to move from connecting with one another to building social capital and consequently engaging in knowledge sharing still remain largely understudied. For that reason, this study aims to develop a holistic research framework that links social capital to knowledge sharing with positive affective tone as a mediator and hypercompetition as a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon the social capital theory and the affective events theory (AET), this study proposes a research framework to assess how social capital factors influence knowledge sharing with the mediation of positive affective tone and the moderation of hypercompetition in high-tech teams. This study obtains survey data based on 330 questionnaires of working professionals from 66 high-tech teams in Taiwan, in which each team comprises four members and their team leader.
Findings
The empirical results of this study show that social interaction, shared vision and trust are positively related to knowledge sharing via the mediation of positive affective tone. Moreover, hypercompetition has positive moderating effects on the relationships between social interaction and positive affective tone as well as between trust and positive affective tone.
Originality/value
This study expands the previous literature to study through what mediating mechanism the effects of different social capital factors on knowledge sharing can be effectively realized and whether there exists any critical moderator that influences these effects.