Employee knowledge sharing in work teams: effects of team diversity, emergent states, and team leadership

Abstract

Knowledge sharing in work teams is one of the critical team processes. Without sharing of knowledge, work teams and organizations may not be able to fully utilize the diverse knowledge brought into work teams by their members. The purpose of this study was to investigate antecedents and underlying mechanisms influencing the extent to which team members share their knowledge with one another. Specifically, this study aimed to examine whether and how team members' team identification, psychological safety mediate the effects of perceived disparity on employee knowledge sharing. In addition, this study seek to investigate the moderating effects of transformational team leadership. A correlational design was used to collect and analyze survey data. Data were collected from a cross-sectional sample of 240 Korean employees of for-profit organizations in South Korea. The findings of this study indicated that perceived disparity (PD) negatively predicted knowledge sharing behavior (KSB). Also, both team identification (TI) and psychological safety (PS) mediated the relationship between PD and KSB. Furthermore, the strength of the mediated relationships between PD and KSP via TI became weaker or nonsignificant under high transformational team leadership than under low transformational team leadership. However, the strength of the mediated relationships between PD and KSP via PS became stronger and significant under high transformational team leadership than under low transformational team leadership. The findings of this study can provide the conceptual basis for interventions that are designed to promote knowledge sharing within work teams. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, along with limitations of the study and directions for future research.