The act of sharingknowledge activates a process of cognitiveelaboration and re-elaboration that providesinpiduals with a new understanding of theknowledge they already have, and supports itsmobilization for innovation purposes. Weaccordingly hypothesize the following: Hypothesis 1: Employees’ knowledge sharingbehaviour is positively related to their own inno-vative behaviour.Knowledge sharing also enables socialinteractions that might provide inpidualswith useful resources for their own innova-tions (Hansen, 1999). Inpidual innovationoccurs when employees attract support fromcolleagues and supervisors, especially whenthis support elicits new information, resourcesand understanding. Gaining access to suchresources requires formal and informal inter-actions (Klein & Sorra, 1996; Woodman,Sawyer & Griffin, 1993), and knowledgesharing represents a particularly powerfulform of social interaction because it instilsa norm of reciprocity into the recipients(Gouldner, 1960). Social exchange theoryargues that social interactions are regulated bynorms of reciprocity, under which inpidualsfeel obliged to return the ‘favour’ to thank thecolleague, but also to avoid social disapprovaland organizational stigma (Blau, 1964). Bysharing relevant knowledge, a person thuscreates a sense of indebtedness in therecipients who will then reciprocate theknowledge received (Watson & Hewett, 2006).In consequence, employees who share moreknowledge are more likely to be reciprocatedand receive new ideas and support fromothers – and thus have stronger oppor-tunities to engage in innovative behaviours.Konstantinou and Fincham (2011) suggest thatemployees ‘do not share but trade’ theirknowledge, as they explicitly expect somereturn for it in the future. As such, knowledgereciprocation represents an immediate mecha-nism through which inpiduals access exter-nal knowledge and use it as a stimulus forinnovation (Majchrzak, Cooper & Neece,2004). Based on these arguments, we hypoth-esize the following:Hypothesis
2: Knowledge reciprocationmediates the positive link between employees’knowledge sharing behaviour and their owninnovative work behaviour.Knowledge Sharing and theMOA FrameworkManagers have widely acknowledged theirstruggle to mandate and control employees’knowledge sharing, especially in work envi-ronments that are characterized by informa-tion asymmetries and professional boundaries(Currie, Waring & Finn, 2008; Davenport &Prusak, 1998). Knowledge sharing is a voli-tional behaviour, depending primarily onwhat employees ‘want to’ share rather than‘have to’ share (Wang & Noe, 2010). Pastresearch has often referred to the psychologi-cal and behavioural sciences to model theproximal antecedents of knowledge sharing atthe inpidual level (Radaelli, Lettieri &Masella, 2013; Ryu, Ho & Han, 2003). In par-ticular, several studies have employed themotivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) frame-work (MacInnis, Moorman & Jaworski, 1991;Olander & Thøgersen, 1995) and empiricallydemonstrated how motivation, opportunityand ability directly and positively affect indi-viduals’ knowledge sharing (Huysman &Wulf, 2006; Kelloway & Barling, 2000; Reinholt,Pedersen & Foss, 2011; Siemsen, Roth &Balasubramanian, 2008). Those studies arguethat motivation is the most significant anteced-ent of knowledge sharing because employeesintentionally and rationally decide to shareknowledge when they favourably assess thebenefits to be attained by doing so (Lam &Lambermont-Ford, 2010). In addition to beingmotivated, inpiduals must also have theability to share their knowledge, becauseknowledge sharing represents a difficult task(Lin & Huang, 2008), especially when tacit,‘sticky’ knowledge has to be transmitted toothers (Szulanski, 2002). Finally, ‘willing andable’ employees must also have the opportu-nity to share their knowledge. Organizationalopportunities, in particular, play a key role inknowledge sharing because the transmissionof tacit knowledge occurs through a process ofosmosis that is both complex and time-consuming (Martin, Currie & Finn, 2009),and work environments need to provideemployees with enough time to collect,organize and translate tacit knowledge toothers (Siemsen, Roth & Balasubramanian,2008), as well as with a climate that is support-ive of extra-role behaviours (Chow & Chan,2008).As a final remark, we must note that thereexist two forms of theMOA framework: one inwhich motivation, opportunity and ability alldirectly affect an organizational or consumerbehaviour (MacInnis, 医疗保健中的知识共享和创新工作行为英文文献和中文翻译(2):http://www.youerw.com/fanyi/lunwen_63504.html