How to foster frontline employee knowledge sharing within service-oriented enterprises: Empirical evidence from China

Abstract

Based on the context of Chinese workplace, the present research aims to explore the combined effects of proactive personality, supervisor–subordinate guanxi (s–s guanxi), and leaders’ innovation expectations on the knowledge sharing of frontline employees (FLEs). Questionnaire data from a sample of 301 FLEs within service-oriented enterprises in China were used in this study. The results show that proactive personality and leaders’ innovation expectations are both positively related to employees’ psychological empowerment and knowledge sharing, and s–s guanxi significantly impacts psychological empowerment, but has a nonsignificant effect on knowledge sharing. This study expands the understanding of FLEs’ knowledge sharing behavior and enriches our understanding of the guanxi construction process during the interaction between supervisors and subordinates.