TY - JOUR
T1 - The effect of customer power on enterprise internal knowledge sharing
T2 - an empirical study
AU - Chang, Yu Wei
AU - Hsu, Ping Yu
AU - Shiau, Wen Lung
AU - Yi, Ronghua
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
PY - 2015/9/21
Y1 - 2015/9/21
N2 - Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer power of environmental factors affects customer support (CS) engineers’ personal motivations in a knowledge-sharing context. The authors examine extrinsic (i.e. organizational rewards, reputation, and reciprocity) and intrinsic motivations (i.e. knowledge self-efficacy) affecting knowledge-sharing intentions based on the social exchange theory (SET) and self-efficacy theory. Furthermore, the authors introduce the concept of the social power theory to investigate the moderating effect of customer power on the relationships between personal motivations and knowledge-sharing intentions. Design/methodology/approach – This study collects 349 questionnaires of CS engineers from 16 countries, including the USA, China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. After the data collection, the research model and hypotheses are tested using partial least squares. Findings – The empirical results show that reputation, reciprocity, and knowledge self-efficacy are significantly and positively related to knowledge-sharing intentions. Also, the results show that customer power can significantly moderate the relationships between personal motivations and knowledge-sharing intentions. Research limitations/implications – The findings help multinational corporations employ the perception of customer power to motivate CS engineers to share knowledge. Especially, the results can help organizations increase customer added value through effective knowledge sharing. Originality/value – The research model integrates personal motivations derived from the SET and self-efficacy theory and customer power of environmental factors. Additionally, this study is the first to investigate the moderating effect of customer power on employees’ personal motivations and behavioral intentions.
AB - Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer power of environmental factors affects customer support (CS) engineers’ personal motivations in a knowledge-sharing context. The authors examine extrinsic (i.e. organizational rewards, reputation, and reciprocity) and intrinsic motivations (i.e. knowledge self-efficacy) affecting knowledge-sharing intentions based on the social exchange theory (SET) and self-efficacy theory. Furthermore, the authors introduce the concept of the social power theory to investigate the moderating effect of customer power on the relationships between personal motivations and knowledge-sharing intentions. Design/methodology/approach – This study collects 349 questionnaires of CS engineers from 16 countries, including the USA, China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. After the data collection, the research model and hypotheses are tested using partial least squares. Findings – The empirical results show that reputation, reciprocity, and knowledge self-efficacy are significantly and positively related to knowledge-sharing intentions. Also, the results show that customer power can significantly moderate the relationships between personal motivations and knowledge-sharing intentions. Research limitations/implications – The findings help multinational corporations employ the perception of customer power to motivate CS engineers to share knowledge. Especially, the results can help organizations increase customer added value through effective knowledge sharing. Originality/value – The research model integrates personal motivations derived from the SET and self-efficacy theory and customer power of environmental factors. Additionally, this study is the first to investigate the moderating effect of customer power on employees’ personal motivations and behavioral intentions.
KW - Customer power
KW - Knowledge sharing
KW - Motivation
KW - Self-efficacy theory
KW - Social exchange theory
KW - Social power theory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84941921908&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/AJIM-02-2015-0028
DO - 10.1108/AJIM-02-2015-0028
M3 - 期刊論文
AN - SCOPUS:84941921908
SN - 2050-3806
VL - 67
SP - 505
EP - 525
JO - Aslib Journal of Information Management
JF - Aslib Journal of Information Management
IS - 5
ER -