Share My Knowledge Let Me See What You Have Done for Me: Investigation of Knowledge Sharing from Soc

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Share My Knowledge? Let Me See What You Have
Done for Me Investigation of Knowledge Sharing
fromSocial Exchange Viewpoint

• Seokhwa Yun - Mark Allyn - David Radosevich - A.
  Byung Min
• Presentation to 4th GCBE Oxford UK
• June 28, 2005

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Worker Initiated Sharing
it is clear that willingness of persons to
contribute efforts to the cooperative system is
indispensable. Willingness in the present
connection, means self- abnegation, the surrender
of control of personal conduct, the
depersonalization of personal action. Chester
Barnard, 1938
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Introduction

• Knowledge
• Source of competitive advantage (Grant, 1996)
• Teams (Lawler, Mohrman, Benson, 2001)
• Knowledge teams
• Teams of individuals who apply "theoretical and
  analytical knowledge, acquired through formal
  education" to solve team-related tasks (Janz,
  Colquitt, Noe, 1997).
• Knowledge Sharing
• Individuals are primary movers of knowledge
  creation (Nonaka, 1994)
• Knowledge is created through communication
  sharing of individual knowledge among
  co-workers (Senge, 1990)
• Sharing Knowledge?
• Unwillingness (e.g., Fisher Fisher, 1998
  Tobin, 1998)
• Expert power (French Raven, 1959 )
• Ownership (Szulanski, 1996)
• Research Question
• What are the social foundations of knowledge
  sharing behavior?

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Our Framework
Institutions
Work-group Relations
Ego
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Detailed Program Framework

• Justice/ Fairness (HR practices)
• Procedural Justice
• Distributive Justice
• Interpersonal Justice
• Informational Justice
• Exchange Ideology

• Supports
• Organizational Support
• Supervisory Support
• Coworker Support

• Employee Attitudes
• Job Satisfaction
• Organizational Commitment
• Organizational Identification
• Felt Obligation

• Leadership
• Close Monitoring
• LMX

• Trust
• Trust in Organization
• Trust in Supervisor
• Trust in Coworker

• Outcomes/Behaviors
• Knowledge Sharing
• Knowledge Ownership
• Performance
• Turnover
• Helping

• Employee Characteristics
• Altruism
• Conscientiousness
• Agreeableness
• Self-Monitoring
• Belief in Just World
• Goal-Orientation

Psychological Contract Violation
TASK INTERDEPENDENCE
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Causal Variables for Today

• Co-worker Support (CS)
• Supervisor Support (SS)
• Exchange Ideology (EI)
• Learning Goal Orientation (GOL)

Work-group Relations
Knowledge Sharing Behavior (KS)
Ego
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Definitions

• Co-worker support (CS) the extent to which
  co-workers are supportive of the focal employee
  (Person).
• Supervisory support (SS) the extent to which
  Persons supervisor is supportive of ego and is
  approachable.
• Exchange ideology (EI) exchange ideology
  refers to employees belief that it is
  appropriate and useful to base their concern with
  the organizations welfare and their work effort
  on how favorably they have been treated by the
  organization.the strict application of the
  reciprocity norm
• Learning goal orientation (GOL) Persons goal
  to develop new skills and master new situations.

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Some Typical Scale Items

• Co-Worker Support (CS)
• My co-workers seem willing to listen to my
  problems
• Supervisor Support (SS)
• My supervisor seems to be rather distant and
  unapproachable
• Exchange Ideology (EI)
• An employee who is treated badly by a company
  should work less hard
• Learning Goal Orientation (GOL)
• I am willing to select a challenging work
  assignment that I can learn a lot from
• Knowledge Sharing Behavior (KS)
• I freely provide other members with hard-to-find
  knowledge or specialized skills

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Hypotheses

• Hypothesis 1 Learning orientation is positively
  related to knowledge sharing.
• Hypothesis 2 Exchange ideology is negatively
  related to knowledge sharing .
• Hypothesis 3 Supports from supervisor and
  coworker(s) have positive relationship with
  knowledge sharing .
• Hypothesis 4 The relationship between support
  and knowledge sharing is moderated by exchange
  ideology. More specifically, the positive effect
  of support on knowledge sharing is stronger for
  individuals with high exchange ideology than for
  those with low exchange ideology .

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Research Model
Learning Orientation

• Support
• Supervisor
• Coworker

Knowledge Sharing
Exchange Ideology
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Methods

• Data Collection
• Survey
• Participants
• Three companies at Northeastern US
• 307 employees (response rate 81)
• Measures
• Learning Orientation
• 5 items adopted from Brett and VandeWalle (1999)
• Exchange Ideology
• 8 items (Eisenberger, Cotterell, Marvel, 1987).
  
• Support
• Supervisory 8-item scale (Tsui et al., 1997)
• Coworker 8-item scale (adopted from Tsui et al.,
  1997)
• Knowledge sharing
• 7 items from Faraj and Sproull (2000) and Durham
  (1997)
• All Cronbachs as gt .85
• Data Analysis
• Hierarchical Regression Analysis

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Results

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Results (Contd)
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Felt Obligation as a Driver of Sharing

• Felt Obligation (FO)
• is a prescriptive belief regarding whether one
  should care about the organizations well-being
  and should help the organization reach its goals
  Eisenberger, et al. 2001
• Established via reciprocity norm
• in return for organizational support
• Typical Item
• I would feel guilty if I did not meet the
  organizations performance standards

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An Alternative Model
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Summary of Findings Implications

• Learning orientation and knowledge sharing
  finding
• Learning orientation is positively related to
  knowledge sharing
• Implication
• Recruit for learning goal orientation
• Emphasize learning aspect of work
• Exchange ideology and knowledge sharing finding
• Exchange ideology is negatively related to
  knowledge sharing
• Implication
• Avoid institutions (rules) that encourage
  reciprocation wariness
• Interaction effects between coworker support and
  exchange ideology on knowledge sharing
• Implication
• Supportive co-workers will induce sharing by
  those with strong exchange ideologies
• Create climate where co-workers support and care
  about each other

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Limitations

• Study is cross-sectional at a point in time
• Limits our ability to claim causal inferences
• We need to do longitudinal work plus some
  experimental treatment
• Study confined to limited sample of businesses
• Present analysis does not consider some
  potentially important variables
• Task Interdependence
• Egos efficacy
• Trust in supervisor and coworkers