How Does Leader Empowering Behavior Promote Employee Knowledge Sharing? The Perspective of Self-Determination Theory

Abstract

Although scholars have recognized the important role of leader empowering behavior in promoting employee knowledge sharing, investigations on the potential underlying mechanism are still limited. To enrich studies revealing the possible underlying paths, drawing on self-determination theory, this paper proposes a moderated mediation model. We propose that employee self-determination plays a mediating role and employee proactivity moderates the mediating effect. We test our hypotheses based on data collected from 230 employees across a three-wave study. The empirical results demonstrate that leader empowering behavior promotes employee knowledge sharing by enhancing employee self-determination. Employees’ proactive personality moderates the indirect effect such that the indirect effect is stronger when employees have high levels of proactive personality. This paper thus contributes to the related literature and reveals practical implications.

Conceptualization social influence from the need to belong perspective on psychological needs' satisfaction to share knowledge

“…Whereas deepening of the social exchange relationship is promoted by feeling obligated and feeling autonomous [ 16 ], social environments have been posited to play an important role in influencing individuals' psychological needs' satisfaction of the innate psychological needs for autonomy (volition), competence (efficacy), and relatedness (belonging). Xiang, et al [ 17 ] stated that satisfaction of individuals' autonomy needs is likely enhanced when involving them in setting goals, finding solutions independently, and thinking about learning opportunities. While encouraging individuals to make decisions and empower behaviour to communicate with others could enhance the satisfaction of relatedness needs.…”

“…While SDT demonstrates how social contexts influence self-motivation, this paper attempts to investigate the effects of social motivation on psychological needs' satisfaction to share knowledge. The need for autonomy was defined as individuals' need for control and autonomy over their own behaviours and choices, while the need for competence reflects individuals' need to proficiently master tasks, whereas the need for relatedness addresses individuals' feelings of being connected to and recognized by others [ 17 , 76 ]. The Self-Determination Theory [ 18 ] suggests that individuals internally have a particular orientation towards their satisfaction of basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), which increases the likelihood that an individual will experience intrinsic motivation and internalized behavioural regulation, whereas extrinsic motivations can, to various degrees, externally support psychological needs' satisfaction.…”

Research on the Effect of Narcissistic Leadership on Employee Job Embeddedness

“…Therefore, under the management of narcissistic leaders, employees tend to listen to the instructions given by the leaders and cannot make their own decisions, play freely, let alone oppose and question the decisions of the leaders and challenge the authority of the leaders. However, the self-determination theory states that individuals have three basic needs: autonomy, competence, and relationship ( Wang S. et al, 2021 ; Xiang et al, 2021 ). Narcissistic leaders who are overly sensitive rarely authorize and let employees participate in decision-making or free action, which cannot meet their needs for autonomy.…”

How self-leadership promotes job crafting: Based on the perspective of self-determination theory

“…Indeed, the leader is a very crucial person in the social context and has a significant effect on strengthening or weakening the employee's motivation to behave proactively (Parker and Wu, 2014;Fuller et al, 2015). Leader empowering behavior is defined as leaders' top-down assignment of responsibilities to employees, information-sharing with employees, and granting employees more decision-making power to engage in work behaviors (Xiang et al, 2021). As an important contextual factor, leader empowering behavior is good for fostering a supportive environment full of autonomy, thus improving the effectiveness of self-leadership (Namasivayam et al, 2014).…”