TY - JOUR
T1 - To share or not to share: Assessing knowledge sharing, interemployee helping, and their antecedents among online knowledge workers
AU - Lin, Chieh-Peng
AU - Joe, Sheng Wuu
PY - 2012/7/1
Y1 - 2012/7/1
N2 - Sharing and helping are important issues in ethical research. This study proposes a model based on flow theory by postulating key antecedents as the critical drivers of knowledge sharing and interemployee helping. Flow is the holistic sensation that employees feel when they act with total immersion and engagement, facilitating individuals' reciprocal activities such as knowledge sharing and interemployee helping. In the proposed model, knowledge sharing is influenced by flow experience directly and also indirectly via the mediation of interemployee helping. Accordingly, the flow experience is influenced simultaneously by four exogenous factors related to individuals' perception about their work: work skills, self-fulfillment in challenges, perceived control, and vividness. This study contributes to the knowledge management literature by extending flow theory to the area of knowledge sharing and interemployee helping, by validating idiosyncratic antecedent drivers of the flow theory, and by performing a practical operationalization of the flow experience. This research also provides managerial implications for business leaders to boost their employees' ethical behavior in terms of sharing and helping.
AB - Sharing and helping are important issues in ethical research. This study proposes a model based on flow theory by postulating key antecedents as the critical drivers of knowledge sharing and interemployee helping. Flow is the holistic sensation that employees feel when they act with total immersion and engagement, facilitating individuals' reciprocal activities such as knowledge sharing and interemployee helping. In the proposed model, knowledge sharing is influenced by flow experience directly and also indirectly via the mediation of interemployee helping. Accordingly, the flow experience is influenced simultaneously by four exogenous factors related to individuals' perception about their work: work skills, self-fulfillment in challenges, perceived control, and vividness. This study contributes to the knowledge management literature by extending flow theory to the area of knowledge sharing and interemployee helping, by validating idiosyncratic antecedent drivers of the flow theory, and by performing a practical operationalization of the flow experience. This research also provides managerial implications for business leaders to boost their employees' ethical behavior in terms of sharing and helping.
KW - Flow experience
KW - Interemployee helping
KW - Knowledge sharing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84862592445&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10551-011-1100-x
DO - 10.1007/s10551-011-1100-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84862592445
VL - 108
SP - 439
EP - 449
JO - Journal of Business Ethics
JF - Journal of Business Ethics
SN - 0167-4544
IS - 4
ER -