The mediation of in-group identification between collectivism and knowledge sharing

Abstract

Knowledge sharing has been highlighted as a desirable behavior in organizations since it contributes significantly to firms’ innovation and competitive advantage. One important way to promote knowledge sharing in organizations is through promoting employees’ collectivism, or collectivist orientation, as it is shown that employees’ collectivist orientation has positive effect on knowledge sharing through the partial mediating role of in-group identification. In this study, we want to follow on this cultural perspective on knowledge sharing by investigating how precisely collectivism affects knowledge sharing at the various dimensions that are known to constitute collectivism. Drawing on empirical data from a questionnaire survey with 512 knowledge sensitive Chinese employees, we have several findings. First, we highlight that collectivism affects knowledge sharing at its different dimensions. Secondly, we find that at different dimensions of collectivism in-group identification plays different mediating roles. Thirdly, we also find that at certain dimensions of collectivism, collectivism’s effect on the sharing of common and key knowledge is also different. Overall, our study enriches the cultural perspective on knowledge sharing by articulating in details how collectivism affects knowledge sharing through in-group identification.

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