IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i6p2009-d333914.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coworker Trust and Knowledge Sharing among Public Sector Employees in Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Felix Kipkosgei

    (College of Business, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea)

  • Seung Yeon Son

    (Graduate School of Defense Management, Korea National Defense University, Nonsan 33021, Korea)

  • Seung-Wan Kang

    (College of Business, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, Korea)

Abstract

This study investigates the association between coworker trust and knowledge sharing among public sector employees with additional consideration of team-member exchange (TMX). It also accounts for the use of supportive technology as a determinant of coworker trust. The study aims to develop a framework to help organizations understand the complex associations among coworker trust, exchange, and knowledge sharing and recognizes the roles of supportive technology and task interdependence in those associations. A cross-sectional survey of 255 employees at three Kenyan public organizations was analyzed. A hierarchical regression analysis tested five hypotheses in eight models to estimate direct, moderating, and mediating relationships. Coworker trust was positively related to knowledge sharing and TMX. Supportive technology significantly moderated the relationships; however, task interdependence was not statistically significant. The results imply that organizations might increase knowledge sharing by focusing on building trustful bonds among workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Kipkosgei & Seung Yeon Son & Seung-Wan Kang, 2020. "Coworker Trust and Knowledge Sharing among Public Sector Employees in Kenya," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-17, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:6:p:2009-:d:333914
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/6/2009/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/6/2009/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Muhammad Asrar-ul-Haq & Sadia Anwar, 2016. "A systematic review of knowledge management and knowledge sharing: Trends, issues, and challenges," Cogent Business & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1127744-112, December.
    2. Darr, Eric D. & Kurtzberg, Terri R., 2000. "An Investigation of Partner Similarity Dimensions on Knowledge Transfer," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 28-44, May.
    3. Khalifa I. Al Hosani & Hossam M. Abu Elanain & Mian M. Ajmal, 2018. "Personality traits and work engagement: does team member exchange make a difference?," International Journal of Innovation and Learning, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 24(3), pages 239-261.
    4. Xiao-Bing Zhang & Che-Hung Lin & Kou-Chang Chung & Fu-Sheng Tsai & Rung-Tai Wu, 2019. "Knowledge Sharing and Co-Opetition: Turning Absorptive Capacity into Effectiveness in Consumer Electronics Industries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-13, August.
    5. Woocheol Kim & Jiwon Park, 2017. "Examining Structural Relationships between Work Engagement, Organizational Procedural Justice, Knowledge Sharing, and Innovative Work Behavior for Sustainable Organizations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-16, February.
    6. Kate M. Andrews & Brian L. Delahaye, 2000. "Influences On Knowledge processes In Organizational Learning: The Psychosocial Filter," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(6), pages 797-810, September.
    7. Bill McEvily & Vincenzo Perrone & Akbar Zaheer, 2003. "Trust as an Organizing Principle," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 91-103, February.
    8. Lan Li & Gang Li & Xiaoling Feng & Zhigao Liu & Fu-Sheng Tsai, 2019. "Moderating Effect of Dynamic Environment in the Relationship between Guanxi, Trust, and Repurchase Intention of Agricultural Materials," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-23, October.
    9. Kurt T. Dirks & Donald L. Ferrin, 2001. "The Role of Trust in Organizational Settings," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 450-467, August.
    10. Shujahat, Muhammad & Sousa, Maria José & Hussain, Saddam & Nawaz, Faisal & Wang, Minhong & Umer, Muhammad, 2019. "Translating the impact of knowledge management processes into knowledge-based innovation: The neglected and mediating role of knowledge-worker productivity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 442-450.
    11. Louise Tourigny & Jian Han & Vishwanath V. Baba & Polly Pan, 2019. "Ethical Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility in China: A Multilevel Study of Their Effects on Trust and Organizational Citizenship Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 427-440, August.
    12. Ikujiro Nonaka, 1994. "A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 5(1), pages 14-37, February.
    13. Nisar Ahmad & Muhammad Saeed Lodhi & Khalid Zaman & Imran Naseem, 2017. "Knowledge Management: a Gateway for Organizational Performance," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 8(3), pages 859-876, September.
    14. Byung-Jik Kim, 2019. "Unstable Jobs Cannot Cultivate Good Organizational Citizens: The Sequential Mediating Role of Organizational Trust and Identification," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-14, March.
    15. Jaffar Abbas & Iftikhar Hussain & Safdar Hussain & Sabahat Akram & Imrab Shaheen & Ben Niu, 2019. "The Impact of Knowledge Sharing and Innovation on Sustainable Performance in Islamic Banks: A Mediation Analysis through a SEM Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-25, July.
    16. Maryam Alavi & Amrit Tiwana, 2002. "Knowledge integration in virtual teams: The potential role of KMS," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 53(12), pages 1029-1037, October.
    17. Wilson, Jeanne M. & Straus, Susan G. & McEvily, Bill, 2006. "All in due time: The development of trust in computer-mediated and face-to-face teams," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 16-33, January.
    18. Muhammad Ali Butt & Faisal Nawaz & Saddam Hussain & Maria José Sousa & Minhong Wang & Muhammad Saleem Sumbal & Muhammad Shujahat, 2019. "Individual knowledge management engagement, knowledge-worker productivity, and innovation performance in knowledge-based organizations: the implications for knowledge processes and knowledge-based sys," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 336-356, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeeyoon Jeong & Byung-Jik Kim & Min-Jik Kim, 2022. "The Impact of Job Insecurity on Knowledge-Hiding Behavior: The Mediating Role of Organizational Identification and the Buffering Role of Coaching Leadership," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-17, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lijie Feng & Zhenzhen Zhao & Jinfeng Wang & Ke Zhang, 2022. "The Impact of Knowledge Management Capabilities on Innovation Performance from Dynamic Capabilities Perspective: Moderating the Role of Environmental Dynamism," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-19, April.
    2. Pamela Chidiogo Izunwanne, 2017. "Developing an Understanding of Organisational Knowledge Creation: A Review Framework," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(02), pages 1-31, June.
    3. Willem, A. & Scarbrough, H. & Buelens, M., 2007. "Impact of coherent versus multiple identities on knowledge integration," Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Working Paper Series 2007-28, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School.
    4. Felix Kipkosgei & Seung-Wan Kang & Suk Bong Choi, 2020. "A Team-Level Study of the Relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Trust in Kenya: Moderating Role of Collaborative Technology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-13, February.
    5. Gabriel Szulanski & Rossella Cappetta & Robert J. Jensen, 2004. "When and How Trustworthiness Matters: Knowledge Transfer and the Moderating Effect of Causal Ambiguity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(5), pages 600-613, October.
    6. Jaffar Abbas & Qingyu Zhang & Iftikhar Hussain & Sabahat Akram & Aneeqa Afaq & Muhammad Afzal Shad, 2020. "Sustainable Innovation in Small Medium Enterprises: The Impact of Knowledge Management on Organizational Innovation through a Mediation Analysis by Using SEM Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-19, March.
    7. Kiessling, Timothy & Maley, Jane Frances & Moeller, Miriam & Dabić, Marina, 2023. "Managing global knowledge transfer: Inpatriate manager embeddedness and firm innovation," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2).
    8. Pandey, Jatin & Gupta, Manish & Behl, Abhishek & Pereira, Vijay & Budhwar, Pawan & Varma, Arup & Hassan, Yusuf & Kukreja, Priyam, 2021. "Technology-enabled knowledge management for community healthcare workers: The effects of knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 787-799.
    9. Jahangir Hamzavi, 2023. "Developing a comprehensive model for the knowledge productivity in electronic word-of-mouth marketing for banks," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 1-29, February.
    10. Byung Park, 2010. "What matters to managerial knowledge acquisition in international joint ventures? High knowledge acquirers versus low knowledge acquirers," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 55-79, March.
    11. Kähkönen, T. & Blomqvist, K. & Gillespie, N. & Vanhala, M., 2021. "Employee trust repair: A systematic review of 20 years of empirical research and future research directions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 98-109.
    12. Davies, Mark A.P. & Lassar, Walfried & Manolis, Chris & Prince, Melvin & Winsor, Robert D., 2011. "A model of trust and compliance in franchise relationships," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 321-340, May.
    13. Stefano Brusoni & Lorenzo Cassi & Simge Tuna, 2021. "Knowledge integration between technical change and strategy making," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(5), pages 1521-1552, November.
    14. Tran Huy Phuong, 2019. "How authentic leadership promotes individual knowledge sharing: viewing from the lens of COR theory," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 14(4), pages 386-401, December.
    15. Vincenzo Perrone, 2013. "Sympathy for the devil? Reflections on the perils of institutionalising trust research," Journal of Trust Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 155-171, October.
    16. Rabbiosi, Larissa & Santangelo, Grazia D., 2013. "Parent company benefits from reverse knowledge transfer: The role of the liability of newness in MNEs," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 160-170.
    17. Lui, Steven S. & Ngo, Hang-yue & Hon, Alice H.Y., 2006. "Coercive strategy in interfirm cooperation: Mediating roles of interpersonal and interorganizational trust," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 466-474, April.
    18. Jalan, Akanksha & Matkovskyy, Roman & Urquhart, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2023. "The role of interpersonal trust in cryptocurrency adoption," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    19. Jonathan R. Clark & Robert S. Huckman & Bradley R. Staats, 2013. "Learning from Customers: Individual and Organizational Effects in Outsourced Radiological Services," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(5), pages 1539-1557, October.
    20. da Silva, Filipa Pires & Mosquera, Pilar & Soares, Maria Eduarda, 2022. "Factors influencing knowledge sharing among IT geographically dispersed teams," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:6:p:2009-:d:333914. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.