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This study presents a micro-level investigation that provides new insights into howemployees’ knowledge sharing affects their own innovative work behaviours (IWBs). Ourstudy posited three mechanisms linking an inpidual’s knowledge sharing behaviours to hisor her own IWBs: (i) a direct effect whereby the act of sharing elicits a recombination andtranslation of knowledge that facilitates innovation; (ii) an indirect effect whereby knowledgesharing creates social conditions (i.e., reciprocation with new knowledge) for innovation; (iii)a distal effect whereby the antecedents of knowledge sharing also promote innovation. Wetested these hypotheses on 155 employees in four palliative care organizations.58561
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Our resultsprovide original evidence that employees who share knowledge also engage more in creating,promoting and implementing innovations. This study reveals a direct, unmediated linkbetween knowledge sharing behaviours and IWBs. Our evidence suggests that it is the act ofknowledge recombination and translation embedded in knowledge sharing that exerts themost positive effect on IWBs. We discuss how this result indicates that sharing knowledgeignites transformation and exploitation capabilities that help sharers innovate their own workpractices.IntroductionCompanies that stimulate knowledgesharing within and outside theorganizational boundaries are more likely todevelop innovations and improve their perfor-mance (Howell & Annansingh, 2013; Liu &Phillips, 2011; Zhou & Li, 2012). As work pro-cesses become ever more interdependent,inpiduals, teams and organizations needto systematically break through ‘knowledgesilos’ and recombine a variety of skills andknowledge assets to continuously innovateprocesses and practices (Spencer, 2003; Tsai,2001; Wang & Noe, 2010). Knowledge sharingis a fundamental mechanism for making suchcollaborative flows effective, allowing innova-tors to acquire new information and stimulifor exploring external ideas and exploitinginternal knowledge.Past research has extensively investigatedthe impact of employees’ knowledge sharingon the innovative capacity of the recipientsof the knowledge; for example, colleagues(Majchrzak, Cooper & Neece, 2004), teams(Kessel, Kratzer & Schultz, 2012; Liu &Phillips, 2011), or firms (Lin, 2007: MacCurtainet al., 2010). Although those findings remainvalid, one aspect previous work has rarelyexplored is whether knowledge sharing mightalso directly affect the transmitters of theknowledge, i.e., whether those who shareknowledge more frequently are also moreinnovation-prone (Aulawi et al., 2009; Lu, Lin& Leung, 2012; Mura et al., 2013). In the litera-ture, the potential link between employees’ knowledge sharing and their own innovativebehaviours remains both under-theorized andempirically untested.This study addresses this gap by investigat-ing two mechanisms through which knowl-edge sharing might support employees’ owninnovative behaviours: (i) an indirect mecha-nism whereby the recipients of the knowledgereciprocate, and in their turn share otherknowledge that stimulates innovative ideas;(ii) a directmechanismwhereby the very act ofelaborating, combining and explaining knowl-edge to others stimulates the knowledgesharer to innovate.We also test whether contingencies thatdrive knowledge sharing also elicit innova-tive behaviours. Our model adopts themotivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) frame-work to explain the antecedents of knowledgesharing at the inpidual level (Ipe, 2003;Kettinger et al., 2013; Siemsen, Roth &Balasubramanian, 2008). On this basis, we testwhether – and how – the opportunity andability to share knowledgemight also improveemployees’ rates of innovative behaviours.Overall, our study offers scholars an origi-nal perspective on how employees whoshare their knowledge with peers might, byso doing, also stimulate and positivelyaffect their own propensity and capacity togenerate, promote and apply new ideas intheir organizations.
Theoretical Background andHypothesis DevelopmentKnowledge Sharing and InnovativeWork BehaviourInnovative work behaviour (IWB) denotes theintentional creation, introduction and applica-tion of new ideas that benefit work-role, groupor organizational performance (De Jong & denHartog, 2010; Janssen, 2000; Scott & Bruce,1994). IWB encompasses three separate tasks:idea generation, i.e. developing novel ideas; ideapromotion, i.e. obtaining external support; andidea application, i.e. producing a model orprototype of the idea. The scope of IWBincludes innovations to products, servicesand/or work processes. Examples of IWBin healthcare organizations (our empiricalsetting) include doctors developing newcriteria for the diagnosis of patients, orpromoting new therapeutic approaches;nurses promoting and engaging in teamworkto develop new guidelines for patient–nurseand family–nurse communication; physio-therapists adopting scientific evidence andinternational guidelines to modify rehabilita-tion approaches and techniques (Kessel,Hannemann-Weber & Kratzer, 2012; Kessel,Kratzer & Schultz, 2012; Reuvers et al., 2008).Inpiduals who engage in IWB must con-stantly manage knowledge, and in particularelaborate, recombine, translate and dissemi-nate tacit knowledge (Nonaka, 1994; Quintaneet al., 2011). Idea generation is a process ofknowledge creation that requires recombininginternal and external knowledge into newforms (Koruna, 2004; Popadiuk & Choo, 2006).During idea promotion, inpiduals do notmerely transmit information and data aboutthe proposed innovation, but must also‘translate’ these into a form that is understand-able and palatable for other inpiduals andteams (Caniëls, De Stobbeleir & De Clippeleer,2014; Howell & Shea, 2001). Finally, duringidea application, inpiduals co-ordinate andintegrate different sets of knowledge withother inpiduals or teams, so that the innova-tion can be routinized (Glaser, Abelson& Garrison, 1983; Tucker, Nembhard &Edmondson, 2007).Elaborating, recombining and translatingtacit knowledge is likewise also what inpid-uals who share knowledge must do (e.g., toimpart task information, know-how, and feed-back on products, procedures or services; Bocket al., 2005). When inpiduals share theirknowledge, they do not simply pass on infor-mation to others: they also elaborate, combineand ‘translate’ it into a form that is clear andrelevant to the recipient (Davenport & Prusak,1998; Hansen, Mors & Løvås, 2005; Szulanski,2002). In so doing, knowledge sharers enhancetheir own capacity to innovate. Specifically, weargue that, when elaborating, integrating andtranslating information, knowledge sharersactively reflect on the scope of their knowl-edge, and on its fit with existing practices andorganizations. This exercise enables them tomore readily perceive opportunities forchange, recombine knowledge into new uses,promote these across the organization, andfinally implement them into full-fledgedroutines.The above argument resonates with long-established evidence from research in cogni-tive psychology which states that, forinformation to be retained in memory andrelated to other information already inmemory, the learner must engage in some sortof cognitive restructuring, or elaboration, ofthe material (Slavin, 1996).