Antecedents of knowledge sharing and employee innovativeness

Abstract

Previous researchers have acknowledged that the success of a firm’s innovation capability depends greatly on knowledge sharing. Numerous studies have examined individual factors affecting knowledge sharing and innovation capability. A review of the literature has unveiled the individual factors focusing on trust, enjoyment in helping others, self-efficacy, reciprocity, pro-sharing norms, self-image and organizational reward. However, other essential variables relating to attitudinal and behavioral factors have been neglected. In order to fill this gap, four factors namely job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviour, and employee engagement are crucial for employees to engage in knowledge sharing to enhance their innovativeness incorporated into the research model. In the attempt to empirically validate this model, data were collected from engineers working with Malaysian manufacturing firms. Data were statistically analyzed by the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique using the SmartPLS software. The findings suggest that job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviour and employee engagement have significant influence on knowledge sharing. Furthermore, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and organization citizenship behaviour were found to have significant influence on employee innovativeness. Importantly, knowledge sharing mediated the relationship between job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviour and employee engagement with employee innovativeness. The implication of this study is that satisfied and engaged employees with good citizenship behaviour would foster knowledge sharing which in turn enhances their innovativeness. Further empirical validation or incorporation of new variables is recommended to extend this current study.