Exchange ideology, knowledge sharing visibility and KM technology : explaining the effect of organizational reward on employee knowledge sharing behavior

Abstract

Although knowledge sharing (KS) is a critical step in organizational knowledge management (KM), most organizations face the serious problem of employees being unwilling to share knowledge in knowledge management systems (KMS). As a direct organizational strategy, reward systems have been applied to encourage individual KS behavior in KMS. However, KS literature offers inconsistent findings on the effect of organizational reward systems on employees’ KS behavior. Some studies explain the reward-KS relationship by considering the moderating effect of individual exchange ideology (EI), but the findings report ambiguous moderating effects of EI in different task environments. This suggests that the effects of reward on KS are not only dependent on EI, but also dependent on task environment variables in the KMS, i.e., knowledge sharing visibility (KSV). Considering the ambiguous findings on the effects of reward systems on KS behavior in KMS, the research goals of this research are: 1) to determine whether organizational rewards significantly enhance employees’ KS for different EI levels and different KSV levels, and 2) to investigate how to design KMS to support high KSV environments. This dissertation has adopted three studies with quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve these research goals. Study 1 tested the two-way interaction effect of EI and reward (EI×Reward) on KS in the IT-supported environment. Survey data were collected from 113 part-time graduate studies in the HKNet project, including four universities from three regions (Netherland, Hong Kong and Mainland China). Study 2 tested the three-way interaction effect of EI, reward and KSV (EI×Reward×KSV) on KS in KMS, with survey data collected from 96 part-time MBA students who are knowledge workers in different organizations. Study 3 adopted a case method approach with qualitative and quantitative data. The data were collected from 159 respondents and 16 interviewees in an electronic power service Chinese company. In the quantitative phase, we re-tested the three-way interaction in the case company; in the qualitative phase, we investigated how six KM technology functionalities impacted on three determinants of KSV. The results of the quantitative studies indicate that the moderating effect of EI and reward is dependent on levels of KSV. The results of study 1 show that EI×Reward has a negative influence on the prediction of KS in the low KSV environment. The results of study 2 with cross-organizational samples and the results of the quantitative survey of study 3 with samples in Chinese case company both show that EI×Reward×KSV has a positive interaction on the prediction of employee KS behaviors in KMS. Specifically, in the KMS with high KSV, the positive effect of reward on KS is stronger when the employees’ EI is higher. Results of qualitative interviews in study 3 indicate that some KM technology functions (i.e., statistical, tracking, knowledge distribution and knowledge storing) positively impact on KSV in the KMS, while some communication and collaboration tools (e.g., instant messengers) have a negative influence on KSV. This research contributes theoretically to KS literature in explaining the ambiguous findings of previous studies on reward-KS relationship and interaction effects of EI and reward by considering KSV as third-level moderator. This research also has theoretical contributions for KMS design literature by showing that KSV can be enhanced or reduced by adding or deleting some specific technology functions. Implications for practice, limitations and directions for future studies are offered.