When leader-member exchange leads to knowledge sharing: The roles of general self-efficacy, team leader modeling, and LMX differentiation

Abstract

Social exchange theory suggests that team members are willing to share their knowledge with each other due to the reciprocity motive stimulated by high-quality exchange relationships with their leader (LMX). However, the relationship may not be this simple. Applying the social learning and self-efficacy elements of social cognitive theory, we propose that team members with higher general self-efficacy are more likely to share knowledge with their teammates when they also enjoy high-quality LMX with the leader. In addition, we hypothesize that this effect is stronger when team members learn how to effectively share knowledge by observing their leader share knowledge or when the variances in LMX qualities within a team (LMX differentiation) are smaller. We also propose that knowledge sharing has a meaningful impact on performance at the team level and hypothesize that team-level knowledge sharing is positively related to team-level performance. Using a field sample of 342 individuals in 56 teams, we find support for our model. These findings advance our understanding of when and why individuals are willing to reciprocate higher-quality LMX relationships by sharing their knowledge with other teammates, and the positive effect this has on team performance.

Keywords:

• Knowledge sharing
• leader-member exchange
• general self-efficacy
• leader knowledge sharing
• LMX differentiation
• team performance

Acknowledgement

One of the authors, Stan Gully, passed away in 2017 but had played an important role in developing the model for this paper. This research was supported in part by the Institute of Management Research at Seoul National University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Throughout the paper we will use ‘individuals’ to refer to the focal team member deciding whether or not to share their knowledge and ‘team members’ to refer to the non-leader teammates with whom they would choose to share their knowledge.