Importance of the task visibility on KS-reward relationship: An explorative investigation

Abstract

Knowledge sharing (KS) literature offers inconsistent findings on the moderating effects of employee's exchange ideology (EI) on the relationship between organizational reward (ER) and employee's KS behavior within organizations. This study contributes to the literature by examining how interaction effect of EI and individual perceived organizational reward depends on the organizational environment variable, i.e., knowledge sharing visibility (KSV). The data were collected from 159 respondents in an innovative service Chinese company. The results show that KSV×EI×ER had a significant interaction in the prediction of employee's knowledge sharing behaviours in the organization. Specially, in the work environment of high KSV, the positive relationship between Reward and KS is stronger when the employee's EI is higher. In the environment of low KSV, Reward is unrelated to KS regardless of the level of individuals' EI. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the end. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.