Abstract

Social exchange theory suggests that team members are willing to share their knowledge with each other due to the reciprocity motive stimulated by high-quality exchange relationships with their leader (LMX). However, the relationship may not be this simple. Applying the social learning and self-efficacy elements of social cognitive theory, we propose that team members with higher general self-efficacy are more likely to share knowledge with their teammates when they also enjoy high-quality LMX with the leader. In addition, we hypothesize that this effect is stronger when team members learn how to effectively share knowledge by observing their leader share knowledge or when the variances in LMX qualities within a team (LMX differentiation) are smaller. We also propose that knowledge sharing has a meaningful impact on performance at the team level and hypothesize that team-level knowledge sharing is positively related to team-level performance. Using a field sample of 342 individuals in 56 teams, we find support for our model. These findings advance our understanding of when and why individuals are willing to reciprocate higher-quality LMX relationships by sharing their knowledge with other teammates, and the positive effect this has on team performance.

摘要

社会交换理论表明，由于与领导者 (LMX) 的高质量交换关系所激发的互惠动机，团队成员愿意彼此分享知识。然而，关系可能并没有这么简单。应用社会认知理论的社会学习和自我效能元素，我们提出具有较高一般自我效能的团队成员在与领导者一起享受高质量的 LMX 时更有可能与队友分享知识。此外，我们假设当团队成员通过观察他们的领导共享知识来学习如何有效地共享知识时，或者当团队内 LMX 质量的差异（LMX 差异）较小时，这种效果会更强。我们还提出，知识共享对团队层面的绩效具有有意义的影响，并假设团队层面的知识共享与团队层面的绩效呈正相关。使用 56 个团队中 342 人的现场样本，我们找到了对我们模型的支持。这些发现促进了我们对个人何时以及为何愿意通过与其他队友分享他们的知识来回报更高质量的 LMX 关系，以及这对团队绩效的积极影响的理解。