The impact of proactive personality, economic rewards, and social exchange perceptions on knowledge sharing among engineers in a South Korean IT company

Over the decades, scholars have acknowledged the importance of knowledge sharing in organizational performance and innovation. Despite the importance of individual factors of knowledge sharing between employees, far too less attention has been paid to individual factors to promote individuals’ intention to share knowledge within organizations. The present study, focusing on the impacts of proactive personality, social and economic exchange perceptions on knowledge sharing, will have theoretical implications for researchers in human resource development (HRD) and management, as well as implications for practicing managers and administrators in organizations. This study examines whether impacts of individuals’ proactive personality and perceptions of social and economic exchange on sharing of knowledge between R&D engineers, which has been rarely explored in the literature. A mixed method using survey research and case study were conducted to test the study hypotheses. For a quantitative study, data were collected from 432 engineers engaged in R&D work at the high performance IT company in South Korea. The nature of their work required a significant reliance on co-workers. Multiple regression analysis, among other statistical techniques, was used to test the hypotheses and determine significant relationships. Of the factors examined in the study, the two factors found to have the strong effect on engineers’ knowledge sharing were proactive personality and social exchange perception. On the other hands, economic rewards was found to have a negative effect on knowledge sharing. For a qualitative study, case study was conducted through interview with selected R&D engineers. Two research questions were answered: (1) How do R&D engineers describe their knowledge sharing? And (2) What influence their knowledge sharing at work? Of the themes from the interview, the four found to show evidence in support of the results of quantitative study were social interaction, sense of duty, trust, and enjoyment. Several implications of these findings, limitations, and future research suggestions are discussed.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Human Resource Education

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Han, Seung Hyun

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kuchinke, Peter
• Li, Jessica
• Huang, Wen-Hao
• Zhang, Jinming

• Knowledge sharing
• proactive personality
• economic rewards
• social exchange
• mixed methods
• South Korea

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Seung Hyun Han

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78617

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/78617