Mediating Influence of Knowledge Sharing Behaviour of Pharmaceutical Leaders on the Relationship between Cultural Intelligence Dimensions and Leadership Effectiveness

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of cultural intelligence on leadership effectiveness through knowledge sharing behaviour of pharmaceutical leaders, particularly in Malaysia. Methodology: This study was conducted among the pharmaceutical leaders, who are from nine (9) pharmaceutical companies located in Klang Valley in Malaysia. A questionnaire with 53 items with a Likert scale was distributed among the target populations of pharmaceutical leaders. Data was collected from an effective sample size of 502 respondents. The collected data was analysed using SEM-SMART-PLS via SMART-PLS 3.0. Findings: The study found that knowledge sharing behaviour has significantly positive mediating influence on the relationship between all the dimensions of cultural intelligence and leadership effectiveness, except behavioural cultural intelligence and leadership effectiveness. Furthermore, the finding indicated that knowledge sharing behaviour is a full mediator between cognitive cultural intelligence and leadership effectiveness, while acts as partial mediator between metacognitive and leadership effectiveness as well as motivational cultural intelligence and leadership effectiveness. Moreover, the study found that metacognitive, cognitive and motivational cultural intelligence has significantly positive influence on knowledge sharing behaviour, while metacognitive and motivational cultural intelligence has significantly positive influence on leadership effectiveness. In addition, knowledge sharing behaviour has significantly positive influence on leadership effectiveness. Implications for theory and practice: This study has contributed to establish the link between cultural intelligence and leadership effectiveness through knowledge sharing behaviour. Also, this study contributed to establish the relevance of cultural intelligence in predicting leadership effectiveness and knowledge sharing behaviour among the pharmaceutical leaders. Therefore, managers should focus on developing and designing effective training programs to cultivate and build capacity among the leaders through cultural intelligence to improve leadership effectiveness. Originality and value: The novelty of this research is that this research was carried out among the pharmaceutical leaders in Malaysia as first empirical research that examined the influence of mediating effect of knowledge sharing behaviour among the relationship between cultural intelligence and leadership effectiveness. This research contributed to close the research gap by establishing the fact that only metacognitive and cognitive cultural intelligence influences leadership effectiveness.