TopIntroduction
It is necessary for companies to organize their knowledge in order to succeed in today’s economy (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). This is also consistent with the knowledge based view of companies: knowledge could help a company maintain its competitive advantage (Kearns & Lederer, 2003). However, knowledge is kept in the human b rain, as well as in documents, and it has been suggested that people tend to turn to other people for information rather than documents and intranets (Allen, 1977; Cross & Sproull, 2004). What is more, knowledge sharing is needed when people attempt to solve complicated or unstructured problems (Augier, Shariq & Vendelo, 2001). Thus, knowledge sharing between employees is quite a significant issue considering its potential impact on enhancing the effectiveness of firms (Cummings, 2004). Since it has been suggested that hoarding knowledge is an inherently human characteristic (Davenport & Prusak, 1998), knowledge sharing behavior could only be encouraged rather than mandated. Therefore, much research has focused on how to encourage employees to share knowledge within and across organizations (Tezuka & Niwa, 2004; Voelpel & Han, 2005).
In prior research which investigated how people can be encouraged to share knowledge, researchers have normally taken a variety of viewpoints, considering: managerial factors (Lin & Lee, 2004; Srivastava & Bartol, 2006); organizational factors (Cummings, 2004; Kolekofski & Heminger, 2003; Southon, Todd & Seneque, 2002); cultural factors (Kyriakidou, 2004; Reid, 2003) and so on. Recently, many researchers have recognised realized the importance of leadership in knowledge management (Chen & Barnes, 2006). However, relatively little attention has been paid to the detailed processes by which leadership style would exert an impact on knowledge management activities. In fact, it is believed that leadership has a direct impact on the way companies arrange knowledge management initiatives because leaders could set the example for employees (Bell, Dyer, Hoopes & Harris, 2004). More importantly, much research has recognized that managers could provide a supportive atmosphere and culture which could help to encourage employees to share their knowledge (McDermott, 2000).