It is well known that knowledge sharing amongst employees contributes positively to an organisation’s competitive advantage, but that individuals are sometimes, for various reasons, reluctant to share knowledge. Although various types of conflict may influence employees’ knowledge-sharing intention, there is a dearth of empirical research in this regard. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of relationship and task conflict on the knowledge-sharing intention of individual employees and to establish whether extrinsic or intrinsic motivation moderates the negative effect that relationship conflict, if any, may have on knowledge-sharing intention.
Data were collected from 597 respondents employed at knowledge-intensive organisations. The hypothesised relationships in this study were assessed by means of general linear modelling.
The results of the study reveal that ‘relationship conflict’ is significantly and negatively related to the dependent variable ‘knowledge-sharing intention’ and that this negative relationship is moderated by employees’ ‘intrinsic motivation’.
The results imply that by intrinsically motivating employees, the negative effect of relationship conflict on knowledge sharing can be alleviated.
Given the importance of managing conflict in the workplace in general and its potential negative influence on knowledge sharing, as well as the dearth of recent empirical research on the relationship between conflict and employees’ knowledge-sharing intention, this study addresses this gap in knowledge-sharing research. In addition, this makes a practical contribution by providing recommendations on how to manage conflict in the workplace. Understanding and managing different types of conflict in the workplace could increase knowledge sharing amongst employees and subsequently enhance organisational and employee performance.
The importance of knowledge sharing amongst employees is well documented. Not only is knowledge sharing associated with improved organisational performance, but it also has a positive influence on collaboration amongst employees, their decision-making efficiency, creativity and innovation (Lee,
Given the value of knowledge in knowledge-intensive organisations, knowledge sharing amongst employees in such organisations is of particular importance (Torres,
Whilst previous studies have identified various factors (e.g. value of knowledge, trust, rewards, self-efficacy) that may impact on knowledge-sharing behaviour of individuals, there have been limited studies that examine how conflict amongst individuals influences knowledge sharing (Wang, Wang, & Chang,
In this study, a distinction is made between relationship and task conflict. Generally, conflict research uses the group level of analysis (e.g. Hansen,
Besides the lack of current empirical research on the relationship between different types of conflict and employees’ knowledge-sharing intention, the literature review on knowledge sharing further revealed a lack of research on factors that could moderate possible negative relationships between conflict and employees’ knowledge-sharing intention. Against this backdrop, the primary objective of this study was to investigate the influence of relationship and task conflict on the knowledge-sharing intention of individual employees in knowledge-intensive organisations and to establish whether extrinsic or intrinsic motivation moderates the negative effect that relationship conflict may have on knowledge-sharing intention.
In this study, the dependent variable is the knowledge-sharing intention of employees in knowledge-intensive organisations. It should be noted that although the concept of knowledge hiding is closely linked to knowledge sharing, these are in fact different concepts. In this respect, ‘knowledge hiding is not simply the absence of sharing’ as individuals might not share because of a lack of awareness of the knowledge needs of other individuals (Gagne et al.,
Relationship conflict refers to how often individuals experience arguments, tension, friction, emotional conflict and personality conflict at work. The effects of relationship conflict are noteworthy for managers to promote knowledge sharing (Chen,
Chen, Zhang and Vogel (
Based on the evidence presented above, the following relationship is hypothesised:
Chen’s (
Apart from the moderating effect of ‘extrinsic motivation’ (rewards and reputation) on the relationship between knowledge sharing and relationship conflict, Chen (
Given the evidence presented above, the following hypotheses are formulated:
Task conflict refers to how often individuals experience discrepant views, ideas or opinions amongst colleagues concerning the content of a task being performed (Wang et al.,
Lu et al. (
In contrast, other researchers found no significant relationship between task conflict and knowledge sharing (Gu & Wang,
Whilst conflicting results on the relationship between task conflict and knowledge sharing exist, there is strong evidence to believe that moderate levels of task conflict may have a positive influence on knowledge-sharing intention. The following relationship is consequently hypothesised:
Theoretical model.
In light of the study’s research objective, a positivistic paradigm was deemed most appropriate to measure the perceptions of respondents concerning relationship and task conflict in the workplace. A positivistic approach is associated with quantitative research, which examines questions about relationships between variables, as in the case of the present study (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill,
The population in this study can be defined as all employees in knowledge-intensive organisations who are based in South Africa. Even though these organisations are widely distributed across the country, a complete database of knowledge-intensive organisations is not available in South Africa. As such, convenience sampling was used in the present study. Convenience sampling allowed for the collection of data from members of the population who were conveniently available to participate in the study. Also, it is considered one of the best methods to obtain information quickly and efficiently (Sekaran & Bougie,
Based on the previous empirical studies that reported reliability coefficients over 0.7 and 0.8, respectively (Chatzoglou & Vraimaki,
To measure the independent variables of relationship and task conflict, scales with six and four items, respectively, were developed. Five response choices were given, ranging from 0 = never to 4 = always. Concerning the moderating variables, two five-item Likert-type scales (1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree) were developed to measure extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The scales measuring the independent and moderating variables were based on previous scales (see
Operationalisation of the dependent, independent and moderating variables.
Dependent, independent and moderating variables | Operationalisation of variable | Sample items | Sources | Number of items |
---|---|---|---|---|
Knowledge-sharing intention | Refers to individuals’ willingness/intentions to share tacit knowledge, which includes personal insights, know-how, experience and expertise | I would willingly share work experiences with my co-workers |
Chatzoglou & Vraimaki, |
6 |
Relationship conflict | Refers to how often individuals experience arguments, tension, friction, emotional conflict and personality conflict at work | How often do you experience personality conflict at work? |
Jehn, |
6 |
Task conflict | Refers to how often individuals experience discrepant views, ideas or opinions amongst colleagues with regard to the content of a task being performed | How often do you have a different opinion from your colleagues on how to complete a task/job in your work unit? |
Jehn, |
4 |
Extrinsic motivation | Refers to the extrinsic benefits such as promotion, organisational rewards, acknowledgement, job security and reciprocity that employees consider as motivation to share knowledge | I would share my expertise with co-workers if I knew I would be promoted |
Kankanhalli, Tan, & Wei, |
5 |
Intrinsic motivation | Refers to the intrinsic benefits such as enjoyment in helping others, satisfaction and self-efficacy that employees consider as motivation to share knowledge | It would give me pleasure to share my experience with co-workers |
Kankanhalli et al., |
5 |
Note: Please see the full reference list of the article, Van Greunen, C., Venter, E., & Sharp, G., 2021, The influence of relationship and task conflict on the knowledge-sharing intention in knowledge-intensive organisations.
The majority of respondents in this study were between 31 and 40 years of age, whilst the gender of the respondents was more or less evenly spread between males and females. The majority of the respondents were English speaking and held a bachelor’s or honours degree. These results are typical of a knowledge-intensive sample where most of the respondents are well-educated, qualified employees.
With respect to ethnic background, the majority of the respondents were white individuals. In addition, most respondents had worked in their organisations and current positions for between 3 and 5 years. This could be expected in a South African knowledge-intensive business, especially given the skills shortages in South Africa. In this respect, well-educated, qualified employees could easily be drawn to competitive firms with lucrative career offers, therefore remaining with a particular firm for only a short time until they receive a better offer elsewhere. This further highlights the significance of tacit knowledge sharing amongst employees, as employees who leave a business take their valuable knowledge and experience with them. In fact, the demographic results of the study show that only 6.5% of respondents had worked in their current positions for more than 10 years.
To identify the unique factors in the data set, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed, whilst Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were used to evaluate the reliability of the measuring instrument. In this respect, the software program Statistica (Dell Statistica Version 13) was used. To test the hypothesised relationships in this study, a subset of structural equation modelling, namely general linear modelling, was used. The software program, SPSS (Version 23), was used for the general linear modelling analyses.
The convergent validity of the measuring instrument was confirmed using an EFA. The varimax orthogonal rotation method, which is a commonly used method to extract factors on the basis of variance separation, was employed in the present study (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham,
As anticipated, all six items that measured knowledge-sharing intention loaded onto one factor. The factor loadings varied between 0.71 and 0.89, providing satisfactory evidence of validity for this scale. Also, the items that measured the constructs relationship conflict (0.63–0.80), extrinsic motivation (0.80–0.88) and intrinsic motivation (0.67–0.92) all loaded as expected with factor loading exceeding 0.6 as shown. Satisfactory evidence of convergent validity is therefore available for these constructs. Concerning the construct task conflict, only two of the four items included in the final questionnaire to measure task conflict loaded as expected. As a result, the construct task conflict was excluded for further analysis (refer to factor structures in
Factor structure of the dependent variable.
Item | Factor: Dependent variable (KI) |
---|---|
KI1 | −0.789 |
KI2 | −0.862 |
KI3 | −0.854 |
KI4 | −0.838 |
KI5 | −0.893 |
KI6 | −0.708 |
Cronbach’s alpha | 0.90 |
KI, knowledge-sharing intention.
Factor structure of the independent and moderating variables.
Item | Factor: Independent variables |
|||
---|---|---|---|---|
RC | TC | EM | IM | |
RC1 | 0.747 | 0.120 | −0.012 | −0.043 |
RC2 | 0.630 | 0.300 | −0.024 | 0.047 |
RC3 | 0.730 | 0.151 | 0.000 | 0.055 |
RC4 | 0.693 | 0.238 | 0.058 | 0.044 |
RC5 | 0.759 | 0.022 | 0.017 | 0.123 |
RC6 | 0.795 | 0.127 | 0.023 | 0.138 |
TC1 | 0.587 | 0.393 | 0.094 | 0.022 |
TC2 | 0.178 | 0.863 | 0.013 | 0.025 |
TC3 | 0.279 | 0.776 | −0.074 | −0.034 |
TC4 | 0.532 | 0.428 | 0.056 | 0.104 |
EM1 | −0.021 | 0.050 | 0.855 | 0.115 |
EM2 | 0.009 | 0.044 | 0.884 | 0.130 |
EM3 | 0.026 | 0.035 | 0.804 | −0.042 |
EM4 | 0.007 | −0.060 | 0.862 | 0.070 |
EM5 | 0.074 | −0.116 | 0.802 | −0.029 |
IM1 | −0.005 | 0.168 | −0.065 | −0.672 |
IM2 | −0.068 | −0.035 | −0.059 | −0.904 |
IM3 | −0.054 | −0.026 | −0.070 | −0.920 |
IM4 | −0.062 | −0.075 | −0.049 | −0.850 |
IM5 | −0.071 | 0.092 | −0.051 | −0.691 |
Cronbach’s alpha | 0.85 | 0.74 | 0.90 | 0.87 |
RC, relationship conflict; TC, task conflict; IM, intrinsic motivation; EM, extrinsic motivation.
Although an EFA may also provide useful information concerning discriminant validity issues (Farrell,
In this study, the commonly used Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used as a measure of reliability. The dependent, independent and moderating variables returned acceptable coefficients (refer to
The relationships amongst the dependent (knowledge-sharing intention), independent (relationship conflict) and moderating variables (intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation) were assessed using general linear modelling, a subset of structural equation modelling.
Model parameter estimates and
Variable | Parameter estimate | SE | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
KI ← RC | −2.981 | 0.125 | −23.820 | 0.000 |
RC*KI ← EM | 0.003 | 0.010 | 0.292 | 0.770 |
RC*KI ← IM | 0.479 | 0.018 | 27.064 | 0.000 |
KI, knowledge-sharing intention; RC, relationship conflict; IM, intrinsic motivation; EM, extrinsic motivation; SE, standard error.
,
The findings show that the independent variable, relationship conflict, was significantly and negatively related to the dependent variable of knowledge-sharing intention (parameter estimate = -2.981;
Based on the findings, respondents who were experiencing relationship conflict at work were less likely to share their insights, know-how, experience and expertise with co-workers. This finding, therefore, supports hypothesis H1. Hypothesis H3 was also supported in light of the significant moderating influence of intrinsic motivation on the relationship between knowledge-sharing intention and relationship conflict. Given that task conflict was excluded from further statistical analysis, hypothesis H4 was not supported. In addition, hypothesis H2 was not supported because of the insignificant findings pertaining to the moderating influence of extrinsic motivation on the relationship between knowledge-sharing intention and relationship conflict.
The primary objective of this study was to investigate the influence of relationship and task conflict on the knowledge-sharing intention of individual employees in knowledge-intensive organisations and to establish whether extrinsic or intrinsic motivation moderates the negative effect that relationship conflict may have on knowledge-sharing intention.
Construct validity and reliability were established for the scales measuring the dependent variable (knowledge-sharing intention), independent variables (relationship conflict and task conflict) and moderating variables (extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation).
The results from the general linear modelling analysis indicated that relationship conflict was significantly and negatively related to the dependent variable knowledge-sharing intention. This finding is consistent with existing empirical research on the relationship between knowledge-sharing intention and relationship conflict. For example, the findings of Chen (
The findings in the present study imply that individuals who experience arguments, tension, friction, emotional conflict and personality conflict at work are less likely to share knowledge with co-workers. Also, the findings suggest that when individuals experience internal motivation such as enjoyment in helping others, satisfaction and self-efficacy, the negative intention to share knowledge with co-workers, as a result of relationship conflict, is likely to be reduced.
Based on these findings, management should encourage an organisational environment that supports healthy work relationships between employees. In this respect, management should take a serious stance against interpersonal conflict by addressing and resolving such cases immediately, given the negative effect of relationship conflict on the willingness of employees to share knowledge.
Management should not use only extrinsic rewards such as promotion, bonuses, salary increases and job security as primary mechanisms to motivate employees to share their tacit knowledge. Instead, intrinsic motivators could be used by management to increase employees’ willingness to share knowledge. Particularly, the findings of this study suggest that management should pay specific attention to increasing employees’ confidence that the knowledge they share is useful and valuable to others in the business. In this regard, management should provide positive feedback on employees’ knowledge-sharing efforts. Moreover, management can make it enjoyable and pleasurable for employees to share their knowledge. Employees should feel positive when they share knowledge. Management could, for example, encourage knowledge fairs where information on a specific theme is presented by a variety of means such as kiosks, presentations, showcases, panels, scale models and demonstrations. Knowledge fairs are flexible, and individuals can see what others are doing whilst interacting with each other (Denning,
Besides the practical implications of this study, from a theoretical perspective, this study advanced knowledge about conflict in the workplace and individuals’ knowledge-sharing intentions. In particular, this study focuses on the relationship between conflict and knowledge-sharing intention of individual employees. It, therefore, adopts an individual unit of analysis and addresses the gap in conflict research, where inadequate attention has been paid to conflict at an individual level instead of concentrating on the relationship between conflict and work outcomes at a group level. Furthermore, from an empirical perspective, both direct and moderating relationships were tested as proposed in the theoretical model, which makes a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge-sharing literature as more insight was provided on how the negative relationship between knowledge-sharing intention and relationship conflict can be moderated. This finding is a valuable contribution to knowledge-sharing literature, given that previous research focused on extrinsic motivation and no previous empirical research could be found on the moderating effect of intrinsic motivation on the relationship between knowledge-sharing intention and relationship conflict.
This study makes a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge-sharing literature by providing more insight into the relationship between knowledge-sharing intention, relationship conflict and intrinsic motivation. However, as with all empirical studies, certain limitations should be acknowledged when interpreting and generalising the findings of the study. The degree to which the non-probability sample in this study represents the population can be questioned. Nonetheless, the data analysis was based on relatively large sample size (597 respondents), making it probable that the findings in this study can be generalised to some extent.
Furthermore, only four items were included in the final questionnaire to measure the construct task conflict. This construct was excluded from further analysis following the results of the factor analysis. Future studies could include more items to measure this construct and to possibly obtain a better factor structure that can be subjected to empirical analysis.
It is also advised that future researchers identify and empirically test alternative factors besides intrinsic and extrinsic motivation that could moderate the negative relationship between knowledge-sharing intention and relationship conflict. Also, researchers could identify whether other types of conflict exist and establish whether these relate to employees’ knowledge-sharing intention. The present study focused on the two types of conflict that are commonly identified in knowledge-sharing literature, namely task and relationship conflict. Researchers can also explore the concept of knowledge hiding instead of knowledge sharing, especially given that the reasons why individuals hide knowledge may differ from the reasons why they share knowledge. Furthermore, the focus of this study was on knowledge-sharing intention, with a specific focus on tacit knowledge. Future researchers could focus on both explicit and tacit knowledge. In this respect, it would be worth investigating whether the intention to share different types of knowledge is influenced by different factors.
As this research followed a quantitative approach, future research can centre around triangulation techniques to minimise bias results and improve the validity of research findings. Moreover, comparative studies between the results of this study and those obtained from other emerging economies could be considered. This could lead to other thought-provoking insights that were not captured in the present study. For example, it would be worth investigating whether cultural differences play a role in the relationship between knowledge-sharing intention, relationship conflict and intrinsic motivation. Finally, it is worth investigating the implementation of the recommendations presented in this study.
The present study attempts to contribute to the body of knowledge management literature in general and to knowledge sharing and conflict literature in particular. The study investigated the influence of relationship and task conflict on the knowledge-sharing intention of individual employees and established whether extrinsic or intrinsic motivation moderates the negative effect that relationship conflict, if any, may have on knowledge-sharing intention. From the findings, it is evident that relationship conflict has a detrimental influence on individuals’ willingness to share tacit knowledge. By intrinsically motivating employees who experience relationship conflict, management could alleviate the negative impact of such conflict on their intention to share knowledge. Subsequently, the organisation could reap the benefits of increased knowledge sharing, which include improved organisational performance, collaboration amongst employees, decision-making efficiency, creativity and innovation.
The researcher would like to thank all respondents who took part in the survey. The study was conducted through the author’s own funds.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
All three authors contributed equally to the development of the manuscript. C.v.G. conducted the initial research as part of his PhD thesis under the supervision of E.V. and G.S.
Ethical approval for this study was approved by the Faculty RTI Committee from the Nelson Mandela University, with ethical clearance number: H-15-BES-BMa-008.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, C.v.G., upon reasonable request.
The views and opinions expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors.