I see myself in my leader: transformational leadership and its impact on employees' technology-mediated knowledge sharing in professional service firms

Abstract

PurposeKnowledge is the main product of professional service firms; therefore, knowledge is the key to success. Due to the nature of this organizational type, management in professional service firms has faced many challenges in encouraging employees to share knowledge. The diffusion of technologies has facilitated technology-mediated knowledge sharing (TMKS), which helps the transfer of knowledge become easier without time and space limits. This study aims to unfold the impact of transformational leadership as an antecedent of TMKS under the interplay with perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness in using technology.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was distributed to employees in professional service firms through the snowball sampling method. Three hundred forty employees, who had experience with technology-mediated knowledge sharing, participated in the survey.FindingsThe findings showed that transformational leadership had a significant impact on TMKS, which was moderated by perceived usefulness and gender. TMKS influenced organizational innovation, and the mediating effect of TMKS was identified.Originality/valueThis study provides solutions for management in professional service firms to motivate their employees to share knowledge via technology, which drives organizational innovation. More caution about gender differences and the low levels of perceived usefulness from employees need to be considered when adopting transformational leadership.

Guest editorial: Emerging digital technologies and professional services: current and future research agenda

“…The eight papers published in this special issue adopt diverse theoretical and managerial perspectives along with a broad range of methodologies. Based on their approaches and contributions, we have classified these eight papers into three broad themes, namely (1) Diverse theoretical perspectives , including strategic agility perspective (Liu et al ., 2023), theory of resources and capabilities (Marino-Romero et al ., 2023) and a multidisciplinary perspective (Panda et al ., 2023); (2) Challenges in digitalization process , for professional legal firms (Kronblad et al ., 2023) and small professional services firms (Cardinali et al ., 2023) and (3) Practical applications of digitalization: the role of transformational leadership and technology-mediated knowledge sharing (TMKS) (Nguyen, 2023), AI usage in CXO decision-making (Kondapaka et al ., 2023) and the use of computerized text analysis to predict customers' evaluation of their service experience (Ferreira et al ., 2023). Next, we briefly describe all the eight papers under these three broad themes in this section, followed by a general discussion and recommendations for future research.…”

“…The first paper under this theme by Nguyen (2023) begins by identifying knowledge as the main component of PSFs and thus a key to their success. The author argues that PSFs face challenges in having employees share knowledge due to the unique nature of their businesses and operations, which can be overcome by using TMKS that has no space of time limitations.…”

“…Finally, the three papers under the theme “Practical applications of digitalization” further illustrate the processes used by different businesses when dealing with emerging digital technologies. For example, Nguyen (2023) uses an online survey of professional service firm employees in Vietnam to explore the impact of transformational leadership on TMKS, which is moderated by perceived usefulness and gender and leads to organizational innovation as the final outcome. Similarly, Kondapaka et al .…”

“…Finally, the three papers under the theme "Practical applications of digitalization" further illustrate the processes used by different businesses when dealing with emerging digital technologies. For example, Nguyen (2023) uses an online survey of professional service firm employees in Vietnam to explore the impact of transformational leadership on TMKS, which is moderated by perceived usefulness and gender and leads to organizational innovation as the final outcome. Similarly, Kondapaka et al (2023) use a focus group discussion with participants from PSFs followed by in-depth interviews with employees from knowledgeintensive PSFs in Sweden to explore the combined influence of artificial intelligence applications' usage and CXOs' experience in making business decisions.…”

Linking entrepreneurial leadership and innovation performance in hospitality firms: the roles of innovation strategy and knowledge acquisition

“…Knowledge significantly contributes to the development of original business ideas because it functions as a criterion of an opportunity's feasibility (Bloodgood, 2019). Thus, hospitality firms cannot implement innovation strategy if they lack knowledge of the market trends and technologies required to design new products (Nguyen, 2022). In addition, hospitality firms are not able to translate innovation strategy into process innovation effectively if they lack knowledge of re-engineering processes due to low levels of knowledge acquisition.…”