Chi-Wei Liu 1, Shih-Chieh Fang 2 and Pei-Wen Huang3
1
Lecturer, Management School, HungKuang TechnologyUniversity, Taichung, Doctoral student, Graduate School of Management, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Taiwan
2
Professor, Department of Marketing and Distribution Management,
National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
3
Lecturer, Department of International Trade, Cheng-Shiu University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Doctoral student, Graduate School of Management, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Correspondence:
Lecturer, Management School, HungKuang TechnologyUniversity, Taichung, Taiwan
Doctoral student, Graduate School of Management, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Tel: 886 7 4 2623 3427 E-mail: wliu01@ms15.hinet.net
HOW CAN “GOOD SOLDIERS” ENHANCE ORGANIZATIOANL PERFORMANCE: KNOWLEDGE SHARING AS A MEDIATOR
ABSTRACT
Though organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been regarded as an important concept in that it is thought to be able to enhance organizational performance by promoting the effective functioning of the organization, this conceptual plausibility has received little empirical attention. Thus, this paper aims to broaden our knowledge on the effect of OCB on organizational performance by proposing knowledge sharing as a mediator of the relationship between OCB and new product development (NPD). Based on the assumption that an organization functions as a social community, by synthesizing and examining the relevant theories, we generate that social exchange theory and psychological contract serve as the theoretical underpinnings the relationship of OCB and NPD posits. The moderating effect of trust on the relationship of OCB and knowledge sharing is proposed to be examined in this study.
Keywords: organizational citizenship behavior, organization performance, knowledge sharing, social exchange theory, psychological contract, new product development
INTRODUCTION
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been the focus of considerable attention since Organ (1988) proposed that organizational citizenship behavior is related to individual and organization performance (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Paine & Bachrach, 2000; Organ, 1997; Podsakoff, Ahearne & MacKenzie, 1997; Krilowicz & Lowery, 1996; Organ & Ryan, 1995; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994; George & Battenhausen, 1990). Organ (1988) described OCB as good solider syndrome, such discretionary behavior is usually not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system but in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of an organization. However, to our knowledge, it is surprising that this conceptual plausibility, compared with the interest in identifying the antecedents of OCBs, has received little empirical attention (Podsakoff et al., 2000). Thus, to broaden our knowledge about the effect of OCB on organizational performance, more focus needs to be put. Especially when an era dominated by knowledge economy, nowadays to examine whether OCB can enhance knowledge management performance in an organization may be in need of more attention.
From knowledge management perspective, organizational members are the primary learning entity in organizations (Dodgson, 1999). These important knowledge carriers proceed with knowledge activities such as knowledge sharing, transfer, integration, absorption and application within the organization. Accordingly, in promoting organizational performance on knowledge management activities, organization members play vital roles. On the other hand, empirical findings of earlier OCB research also showed that OCB has a positive impact on enhancing organizational performance (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994; Podsakoff, Ahearne & MacKenzie 1997). In line with this, we argue that if an organization with more employees proceeding with OCBs, it will have a positive impact on organizational knowledge performance. And our argument is supported by some research (cf., Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Bouty, 2000; Osterloh & Frey, 2000). In analyzing the antecedents of knowledge sharing in an organization, these research conceptually proposed that OCB was one of the antecedents of knowledge sharing. Their argument added a distinctive but reasonable perspective to the existing empirical findings on the antecedents of knowledge sharing and the impact of OCB. It implies that members showing more organizational citizenship behavior are more willing to share knowledge with their
co-workers. Nevertheless, this contention went largely unnoticed but provided another direction to investigate the impact of OCB on knowledge activities. We argue that if OCB does serve as the antecedent of knowledge sharing, and then how does the relationship transform into one of the organization performance?
In a knowledge economy era, in order to make fast responses to the intense competition and satisfy customers’ rapid and changeable demands, a firm’s capability of designing and developing new products will determine the survival and growth of the firm (Zander & Kogut, 1995). Thus, what are the decisive factors determining the success of a NPD needs investigating. Will OCB influence the performance of NPD in an organization? If our assumption is supported, how do these citizenship behaviors enhance the performance of NPD? New product development is regarded, to great extent, as an embodiment of knowledge creation. During the process of knowledge creation, knowledge sharing serves as the core foundation (Nonaka, 1994). Without effective functioning of knowledge sharing, the knowledge embedded and dispersed in individuals in the organization will be less likely transferred in an organization. Accordingly, while examining the relationship between OCB and NPD, we can not neglect the role of knowledge sharing in this relationship. In line with this, in this study, we argue that the impact of OCB on NPD performance should be mediated by the effect of knowledge sharing. With these wonderings to be clarified, this study serves to be at the inception of discovering the theoretical underpinnings behind the interesting phenomenon by investigating the underlying rationale of this conceptual plausibility.
Among the literature review regarding factors affecting knowledge sharing, theorists have analyzed this issue from different aspects (Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Dyer & Nobeoka, 2000; Gupta & Govindarajan, 2000; Hansen, 1999; Hendriks, 1999; Senge, 1998; Tsai, 2001; Zander & Kogut, 1995). Some scholars considered the structural dimension of organizations has direct impact on knowledge sharing activities, evidenced by some related literature (Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Hendriks, 1999; Osterloh & Frey, 2000; Tsai, 2002). Others explored the influence of relational dimension on knowledge sharing (Gupta & Govindarajan, 2000; Kale, Singh, & Perlmutter, 2000; Madhavan & Griver, 1998; Nonaka, Toyama, & Konno, 2000; Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998). Still some researchers investigated how organizational culture affected knowledge sharing (Hanley,1999). Szulanski (1996) searched for the procedures of knowledge sharing while Hendricks (1999) explored from the
organization’s institutional dimension. To synthesize the past researches, only few of them explored knowledge sharing from the viewpoint of individual interaction within an organization and this perspective needs more effort to focus (Bounty, 2000). This study responds to this call to provide a more comprehensive understanding about intra-organizational knowledge sharing from an interaction perspective and makes itself valuable by examining the impact of OCB on organizational performance.
Organization: another form of “social community”
The premise of examining knowledge sharing among organization members from an interaction perspective lies in the assumption that an organization functions as a social community. Kogut & Zander (1996:503) asserted that a firm is a social community which specializes in effective and speedy knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. Being a member of the social community, an organization member shares similar identity with others (Kogut & Zander, 1996; Brown & Duquid, 2001). It is this identity that makes firms more capable of sharing and creating knowledge than other governance form of knowledge (e.g. market).
A social community is a context woven from shared identity, common norms, general belief, collective vision or joint experiences (Kogut & Zander, 1996; Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998; Lesser 2000; Brown & Duquid, 2001; Adler and Kwon 2002). Members in the social community interact with each other on the basis of reciprocity, or community identity (Gulati 1995; Dyer and Singh 1998). Such identity enhances the cohesion and norms of organization members and exemplifies on the interaction based on common language (Nonaka & Takeuchin, 1995; Grant, 1996b). Thus, under such cooperative ambience based on reciprocity and community identity, members in the organization would be more likely to reduce barriers of communication and opportunistic behaviors in the light of common norms and shared context (Conner and Prahalad 1996; Dyer and Singh 1998) and accordingly be more willing to show the spirit of altruism, the core concept of OCB. And their altruistic behavior (or OCB) will make knowledge exchange and knowledge sharing in an intra-organization much more smoothly. Simply put, under such a context with shared identity, members in the organization would have more motivation and opportunities to share knowledge or resources with each other (Dyer and Nobeoka 2000; Adler and Kwon 2002), especially when the context is full of the spirit of altruism. Subsequently, such
ambience raises the level of quality and quantity of the knowledge exchanged (Koka and Prescott 2002) and therefore promotes the performance of knowledge activities in the organization. This perspective regarding an organization as a social community provides support for our examining the relationship between OCB and knowledge sharing.
Related to the above contention, a social community can be characterized by the concept of “reciprocity” and “identity” (Gulati 1995; Kogut & Zander,1996; Dyer and Singh 1998; Brown & Duquid,2001; Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998; Lesser 2000; Adler and Kwon 2002). The former could be regarded as the main concept of social exchange theory while the latter is the key concept of psychological contract. In line with this, to examine the relationship of OCB and knowledge sharing among organizational members from these two theoretical perspectives gains justification. We echo the contention that OCB is one of the antecedents of knowledge sharing (cf., Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Bouty, 2000; Osterloh & Frey, 2000) and further propose that the impact of the relationship on organization performance could be embodied in new product development (NPD). Thus, based on the nature of this study, this research aims to examine the effect of OCBs on NPD in an organization with knowledge sharing as a mediator.
This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, the literature on knowledge sharing, especially the antecedents of this behavior, is briefly reviewed. Next, we move our focus on the literature of organizational citizenship behavior and generate the content of OCB in this study. In the section that follows, supposed that an organization functions as a social community, we investigate the underlying theoretical underpinnings of the relationship between OCB and knowledge sharing posits and further examine the moderating effect of trust on this relationship. Next, we propose that the embodiment of the knowledge sharing will be transformed into NPD. Based on the rationale, a conceptual model of the effect of OCB on NPD, an organizational knowledge creation advantage, is presented. Finally, this paper ends up with some discussion for the future research.
LITERATURE REVIEWS AND PROPOSITION DEVELOPMENT
Knowledge Sharing
From knowledge-based view, a firm is regarded as a knowledge base (Kogut & Zander, 1992, 1996; Grant, 1996b). Since knowledge is dispersed and embedded in individuals, equipment or routines, it would be difficult to govern knowledge related activities if knowledge can not be thoroughly shared within the organization. Therefore, the antecedent role of knowledge sharing in the process of knowledge creation has always been a critical issue in knowledge management (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2000).
Yet, the definition of knowledge sharing has not yet reached consensus. Scholars interpret the concept of knowledge sharing from different perspectives: knowledge interaction perspective (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995), learning perspective (Senge,1998), knowledge market perspective (Davenport and Prusak,1998), communication perspective(Hendriks, 1999), political power perspective (Frehcn and Raven, 1959; Emerson, 1962). No matter what perspective lens has been taken to explore the nature of knowledge sharing, a basic concept to be clarified is that knowledge sharing and information sharing tell different stories. Generally speaking, information is often open and accessible, while knowledge sharing mostly depends on the agreement of the other party (Senge, 1998) That is, in addition to the fact that the knowledge provider is willing to disseminate his knowledge, he is also ready to help the receiver understand and learn the content of this knowledge. The advanced level of knowledge sharing would be the knowledge receiver transformed the received knowledge into his own with distinctive characteristics. In the light of this viewpoint, knowledge sharing includes two aspects: willingness and ability of knowledge sharing (Hansen, 1999). Kostova (1999) discussed the process of knowledge transformation from psychological and cognitive aspects, proposing that successful knowledge transfer is absolutely dependent on both parties’ ability as well as their willingness. Dixon (2000) and Senge (1998) argued that the interaction of knowledge sharing is to achieve others’ “knowledge knowing”. Thus, without the relevant ability for executing knowledge sharing, such as communication, information delivering and interpretation, the effect of knowledge sharing would be discounted even organization members are willing to share their knowledge. To be specific, the dedicated willingness and ability to share are two key components for knowledge sharing. But in terms of the nature of our research question and the perspective we took to examine the impact of OCB on knowledge sharing, we would focus on the dimension of the willingness of knowledge sharing. Thus, the focus of the willingness of knowledge
sharing in this study is that whether the knowledge provider is willing to assist others in learning and share his personal knowledge. As for other issues such as knowledge characteristics, content and the knowledge receiver’s absorptive ability are beyond the scope of our research. Based on Nonaka and Takevchis’s (1995) contention that the willingness of knowledge sharing as the individual member actively involve in sharing knowledge, this paper interprets knowledge sharing as “organization members spontaneously share their knowledge and are indifferent to external motivation with-out the organization.”
Davenport and Prusak (1998) compared “knowledge sharing” to a process of members’ searching and exchanging knowledge in an internal organizational knowledge market. Using the concept of “exchange” to examine the willingness of knowledge sharing helps recognize two parties involving in knowledge sharing: a “knowledge holder” and a “knowledge receiver” as a seller and a buyer respectively in the knowledge market while “knowledge” is the target of exchange. As such, whether individual members in the organization are willing to transact or exchange their knowledge resources depends on mutual benefit, reciprocity, reputation and altruism (Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Bouty, 2000). In this study, we focus on regarding the context of an organization as a social community rather than an internal-market described by Davenport & Prusak (1998 ). We suppose that under the identity-shared or common-value context, through formal and informal communication channels, organization members will exchange resource or help with each other spontaneously. Related research proposes that the richness of personal interaction, especially informal communication channels have higher impact on knowledge sharing than formal communication channels (Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998). The interaction channels enable organization members to shape the shared identity and through the mechanism of “common language” (Grant, 1996) to promote the quantity and quality of knowledge sharing (Davenport & Prusak，1998; Madhavan & Griver,1998; Hansen ,1999; Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998). And, here these spontaneous organizational citizenship behaviors function in an organization to great extent as an informal interaction channel. Thus, we propose that with the core concept of altruism, OCB serves as an informal interaction channel to facilitate knowledge sharing in an organization.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
The theory of organizational citizenship behavior originally came from scholars who are looking for what kind of condition an effective organization should have. In terms of human resources management, it is about what kind of performance individuals should possess to help achieve the effectiveness of organizational performance. Organ (1988) pointed that there is no such perfect organization that organizational objectives could be accomplished by organization members’ in-role behavior. Therefore, an extra-role behavior is motivated to help fill up the deficiency of formal organization systems as well as the realization of role objectives. Such spontaneous extra-role behavior is termed as organizational citizenship behavior by Smith, Organ & Near (1983).
Most of the induction of the antecedents of OCB is based on social exchange theory and positive affective (Konovsky & Pugh, 1994；Moorman, 1991；Organ, 1990).。Positive affective approach is to examine OCB from a perspective of social psychology. They believed that when people are in a state of positive emotion, such as joy and happiness, they are more likely to proceed with altruistic behavior. Some empirical studies expanded individual altruistic behavior as OCB and found support for the above reasoning (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983). With the increase in theoretical and empirical researches, different concepts for analyzing have been brought forward by some scholars, such as the psychological contract perspective (Robinson & Morrison, 1995) and covenantal relationship perspective (Van Dyne, Graham & Dienesch, 1994).
Although the variant perspectives to examine OCB research undoubtedly have broadened our knowledge on OCB, the literature has focused less on carefully defining the nature of citizenship behavior itself (Podsakoff, et al., 2000). Podsakoff et al. (2000:515) proposed “… the proliferation of research on OCBs and other forms of extra-role behavior has resulted in a lack of recognition of some of the similarities and differences in some of these constructs”. The contextual dimensions of OCB have to do with social culture and economic institutional framework (Farh, Zhong & Organ, 2004). Without taking the factor of culture into consideration while they investigated the socially-based citizenship behavior, the same construct may have different, even conflicting conceptual interpretation for people in different cultures (Podsakoff et al., 2000). By examining the prevailing research on OCB, Liu, Chen & Lin (2004) found
that “altruism” is an etic dimension of OCB across cultures. Based on earlier work’s contention that OCB as an antecedent of knowledge sharing, the researchers claimed that here they meant OCB as a helpful behavior, the core value of “altruism”. Thus, in order to make the empirical study appropriately applied in diverse cultures and to examine the impact of the core concept of OCB, in this study, we only examine the altruism dimension of OCB and define altruism as being active and pleased to provide knowledge to others in need of.
With the assertion that an organization functions as a social community, in which organizational members interact with each other on the base of reciprocity and shared identity, we will examine the relationship between OCB and knowledge sharing in an intra-organization context from social exchange theory (with reciprocity as the core concept) and psychological contract (with identity as the fundamental concept) in the following section.
Relationship Between OCB and Knowledge Sharing:
Social Exchange Theory Approach and Psychological Contract Approach
Social Exchange Theory Approach. Many scholars (Organ, 1988；Bateman & Organ, 1983；Moorman,1991；Konovsy & Pugh, 1994) tried to reason organizational citizenship behavior from social exchange theory. Organ (1988) adopting the notion of Blau’s (1964) argued that there are two dominant models of interpersonal interaction, namely social and economic exchange. Social exchange is distinguished from economic exchange in that the foundation of the former is “trust” (Blau, 1964) while the basis for the latter is “transaction”. Blau believed that in the process of social exchange, the resulting reciprocity brings about gratitude, responsibility and trust. From the perspective of social exchange theory, members would change their perception and attitude as a result of social interaction. When members perceive organizational justice and the autonomy and interdependence of their job, members would reinforce their confidence and responsibility to the organization and further habitually present organizational citizenship behavior (Organ, 1988). According to Bolino (1999), organization members exhibiting citizenship behavior are trying to remunerate the organization. Therefore, an organizational citizenship behavior is a rewarding behavior out of organization members’ free will based on social exchange perspective (Organ, 1988, 1990). In a nutshell, the relationship between the cognition
and attitude of organization members and organizational citizenship behavior is based on the social exchange theory.
Traditionally, OCB is regarded as an extra-role behavior which organization members have their right to do or not. Providing that employees consider the relationship between them and organization is a kind of social exchange, they would conduct advantageous behavior to organization based on the concept of reciprocity (Organ, 1988, 1990). When the above contention is applied to the issues of knowledge sharing within organizations, knowledge sharing is the embodiment of reciprocity. From a reciprocal viewpoint, the knowledge provider would be more ready to spend time and effort for knowledge sharing if he expects the knowledge requirer would gives him a hand whenever necessary. On the contrary, an altruistic perspective would suggest that the knowledge provider shares his knowledge from his free will is just because of OCB being an altruistic behavior (Bouty, 2000). Hendriks (1999) concluded that all in all knowledge sharing gives the knowledge requirer an opportunity to reward the provider based on reciprocity consideration and may be likely to share his rebuilt or innovative information or knowledge with the provider in the future. Furthermore, the willingness of knowledge sharing might also be influenced by “empathy” mentality (Hoffman, 1975). “Empathy”, a psychological state of shared feeling, is a response that shares other person’s feelings. Hoffman (1975) supposed that through experiencing the other’s emotion, the stronger the knowledge provider can feel the empathy; the more explicitly the spirit of altruism will reveal. Accordingly, with the strong altruistic orientation, the knowledge provider will have high willingness to share knowledge. Accordingly, through the process of social exchange, organization members spontaneously behave organizational citizenship behaviors as the consequence of their job satisfaction, trust towards the superiors, or organization commitment. In a similar vein, when the occurrence of empathy incrementally increases, organization members will incline to behave with altruism and consequently, their willingness of knowledge sharing will also be enhanced.
Psychological Contract Approach. Psychological contract first is used to describe the subjective perception of the relationship between employers and the employees. Schein (1980) regards psychological contract as an unwritten expectation existing between all the employees and managers. Based on reciprocity, Rousseau (1989)
defines psychological contract as the belief holding by individuals that there exists reciprocal responsibility between individuals and the organization. Specifically, psychological contract is the mutual expectation between individual employee and his or her organization (Brooks, 1999). Robinson & Morrison (1995) postulated that the virtues of citizenship behavior would decrease once the employees perceive the violation of the psychological contract. From organizational justice perspective, employers’ breaching of psychological contract makes employees feel depressed and betrayed because the procedural justice has been impaired. Consequently, this perceived experience fails to motivate employees’ organizational citizenship behavior. Turnley & Feldman (2000) further provided evidence that the violation of psychological contract would result in employees’ changing their jobs, overlooking their task duties or even diminishing their OCBs.
Rousseau and Parks (1993) pointed that the essence of social exchange is trust, fidelity and commitment. Among which, trust is the key factor of sustaining exchange relationship. “Trust”, a concept of “shared value”, could be used to distinguish the difference between psychological contract and traditional exchange relationship (Graham, 1991). This kind of shared value will promote an intimate relationship among employees and also facilitate positive emotions between employees and their organizational identification. Thus, if members could understand the value of the organizational culture, they will behave more beneficial behavior towards the organization. Under the context of common values and shared meanings among organization members, it is favorable for them to achieve common recognition (Grant, 1996a) of the assigned task. Hence, under the context of organizational identification, the ambience would induce more motivations for organization members to share knowledge and, as a result, promote knowledge flows and exchange within organizations (Kogut & Zander, 1996; Brown & Duguid, 2001).
Osterloh & Frey (2000) explored the relationship between psychological contract and knowledge sharing and claimed that an organizational structure and an incentive system have an effect on knowledge sharing within organizations. Specifically, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations influence the effect of internal knowledge sharing and transfer. Intrinsic motivation, from a view point of psychological contract, suggests non-financial reward, such as public praise for outstanding behavior, peer affirmation and job promotion. In this view, satisfaction in psychological contract would induce more knowledge sharing behavior.
To synthesize the above argument, the relationship between OCB and knowledge sharing anchors in the employee’s cognition of organizational justice, the interaction between leaders and followers, organizational support and organizational identification. Based on the cognition in terms of different facets, organization members gradually build trust towards the organization. Moreover, it is the trust and without violation in psychological contract that encourage employees to perform citizenship behaviors and further promote their willingness of knowledge sharing. In a nutshell, a shared context of social community helps organization members conduct OCB either beneficial to individual members or the organization as well as promotes the willingness of knowledge provider to share the embedded knowledge (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Lesser, 2000); in due course, knowledge creation activities could be expected. Therefore, either a social exchange theory or psychological contract perspective supports that, on condition that organization members conduct more altruistic behavior, their willingness of knowledge sharing is accordingly amplified. Hence, we content that either with the motivation of reciprocity or with a high identity towards the organization, being in a social community, organization members will behave more organizational citizenship behaviors, and accordingly promote their willingness of knowledge sharing. Hence, we propose that:
Proposition 1: When organization members conduct more citizenship
behavior, they are more willing to share knowledge within the organization.
An intra-organization functions to great extent as a closed-network, in which the embeddedness of close social ties would stimulate strong trust among members. Under shared norms and the common belief, organization members trust that individual members would obey organization regulations and assume responsibility for an individual behavior to maintain organizational reputation and credibility. Since the quality of relationship between members is composed of trust, commitment and reciprocity, this close relationship between members helps eliminate inter-personal barrier (Nonaka et al., 2000), disarm mutual defensive mentality, increase the willingness of sharing risks resulting from knowledge exchange (Gulati, 1998; Dyer & Singh, 1998), and encourage devotion to knowledge exchange activities (Nahapiet
& Ghoshal, 1998). Tsai and Ghoshal (1998) also contended that when both parties trust each other, they will be more prepared to share their resources with no fear of being taken advantages. A trust-based relationship not only diminishes the possibility of opportunism but also promotes knowledge sharing between organization members (Kale, Singh & Perlmutter, 2000). To sum up, a trust-based mechanism would improve individual members’ mutual reciprocity and interdependence. Accordingly, we propose that trust has a moderating effect on the relationship of OCB and knowledge sharing to great extent and we’ll discuss it in the next section.
The Role of “Trust” in the Relationship of OCB And Knowledge Sharing
Trust stands for a multi-dimensional concept. The meaning of trust includes: (a) a status of cognition, not easy for objective evaluation; (b) a belief of expectation, the trusters do not expect disadvantageous action from the trustees; (c) a behavior of mutual interaction (d) a behavior of trust is advantageous to inter-personal or inter-divisional positive interaction (Dodgson, 1993; Davenport, Davis & Grimes, 1999).
Nonaka et al. (2000) pointed that the premise of members’ sharing tacit knowledge is that there should be intensive love, caring, trust and commitment between members. Under this ambience, organization members would be induced to share their tacit knowledge. Therefore, trust is a key factor to provoke knowledge sharing. Blau (1964) suggested that a trust-based behavior resulting from reciprocal consideration in the long run rather than concern of short-term interest. Consequently, individual members would share their knowledge because of mutual trust in the hope of future remuneration. Jones & George (1998) indicated that once non-conditional trust occurs among people, they will share their knowledge and information of their own accord. Thus, trust has a predicting effect on the knowledge sharing behavior. A study of collaborative R&D project teams (Davenport et al., 1999) found that mutual trust among team members is essential for promoting the performance of R&D cooperation. Whereas the trust between the two knowledge sharers not only means the trust on the knowledge demander’s behavior, the component of the trust also includes the trust on the exchanged target.
In terms of the nature of our research question, trust is the centrality of knowledge exchange and sharing. Davenport & Prusak (1998) postulated that trust is not only the
necessary condition for knowledge exchange, it could be also the outcome of knowledge exchange and sharing. If the organizational members could interact and build up trust, the two parties of knowledge exchange would be able to recognize both quality and quantity of the target knowledge and be able to identify if the exchange is satisfactory or not. We think that this will encourage knowledge flow within organizations. Therefore, we argue that mutual trust among organization members could facilitate the knowledge flow thoroughly and transparently within the organization (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Davenport, et al., 1999). In a nutshell, trust among organization members help eliminate the barrier for knowledge sharing, improve the quality and quantity of knowledge exchange and further strengthen organizational knowledge creation.
Based on the above contention, we suppose that if there is high degree of trust between organization members, they are more willing to exchange information and ideas. In the long run, the effect of knowledge sharing would be promoted. Accordingly,
Proposition 2: The trust among organizational members moderates the
effect of OCB on knowledge sharing.
Knowledge Sharing and New Product Development
Holthouse (1998) proposed that “knowledge” functions as a concept of “flow”. During the interaction between a knowledge–provider and a knowledge-receiver, knowledge will have the interacting synergy through the process of knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing means creating the quantity of knowledge flow in the inter-organization. When the more powerful knowledge flow becomes, the more effectively and efficiently knowledge will be transformed and created. Consequently, organizational competitive competence and core capability will be as the consequence of the knowledge flow (Osterlon & Frey, 2000). In terms of our research question, the embodiment of the organization core competitive advantage will present in the performance of the new product development (NPD).
Products are the embodiments of knowledge and the most valuable knowledge usually is embedded in the group members of NPD. From knowledge-based perspective, new product development could be regarded as a process of integrating,
or recombining knowledge localizing in the internal organization and the external and then embody the integrated and recombined knowledge into products (Madhavan & Grover, 1998). Hence, in terms of knowledge sharing in an internal organization, the key to the successful knowledge sharing lies in how to make the tacit knowledge embedded and dispersed in individuals or departments flow and be shared in the organization, how to transform the knowledge into organizational knowledge and then how to apply the organizational knowledge into innovative activities. Thus, for a NPD team, the first step to be involved in knowledge activities is to thoroughly share the embedded knowledge within the group and then carry on value creation activities with new product. When NPD team members with high degree of willingness to share their knowledge, it means that the knowledge-provider would like to share his new knowledge about the technology and market and at the same time the knowledge-receiver is also willing to learn the shared knowledge. Therefore, knowledge sharing has its positive impact on the accomplishment of new product development project under time pressure. Tsai (2001) also agreed that knowledge transfer is an opportunity for organization members to learn and cooperate with each other. Knowledge transfer could stimulate new knowledge creation and enhance organization’s innovation capability by virtue of internal knowledge exchange and flow to share the product-related knowledge with the individuals in need.
Most of the past research emphasized the importance of knowledge sharing to organizational new product development. Nonaka et al.(2000) proposed that when the more successful knowledge sharing in an intra-organization proceeds, the more new knowledge will be generated by members, and consequently, this will shorten members’ time for information-searching (Hansen, 1999). Dixon (2000) suggested that higher degree of knowledge sharing within organizations would enable the application of past experience of NPD on new project, which may reduce the time for try and error. Susman, Gray, Perry & Blair (2003) argued that knowledge sharing among NPD team members would promote organizations’ innovation capability and market efficacy and so on. As for the research of Hoopes & Postrel (1999), they observed that without the existence of shared knowledge, a negative effect on the performance of new product development would occur.
For the nature of our research, organization members would form as a social community with shared context by means of socialization. Therefore, on the basis of a shared context of cognition, organization members embrace common value, norms
and identity (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Lesser, 2000). Under such context, self-disciplined and self-enforcing forces (Adler & Kwon, 2002) would be shaped to encourage the interaction of knowledge sharing as knowledge-shared routines (Gulati, 1995; Yli-Renko et al., 2002) as well as compose a psychological contract in terms of knowledge sharing (Osterloh & Frey, 2000), which in turn will motivate members to involve in knowledge exchange activities with enthusiasm. On the other hand, since the members in NPD team share the cognitive context, cost of conflict and coordination could be reduced during the process of knowledge exchange and communication (Dyer & Singh, 1998; Dyer & Nobeka, 2000). Hence, we posit that new product development plays a mediating role in the process of knowledge conversion. Through this process of knowledge conversion, the tacit knowledge, which is difficult to observe and transfer, gradually embodies on the conceptualization of new product. Therefore, knowledge sharing plays a decisive factor of determining the success of a new product development. Accordingly, our study asserts that through socialization, a shared context will be shaped among the organization members.
Proposition 3: When the organization members are more willing to share their knowledge, the more efficient the new product development will be.
DISCUSSION
Research on the topic of organizational citizenship behavior has addressed many interesting findings. As the forementioned discussion, conceptually, there are several reasons why citizenship behaviors could enhance organizational competitiveness (Organ, 1988, 1990; Karambayya, 1990; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994, 1997; Podsakoff et al., 1997). For example, as Podsakoff & MacKenzie (1997) summarized OCBs may contribute to organizational performance by enhancing productivity, utilizing resources more productively, helping to coordinate activities, enabling the organization’s adaptation to changeable environment or strengthening the organization’s ability by attracting best employees. But it is surprising that the
assumption that OCB will influence organization effectiveness is only examined by few studies. And generally speaking, the empirical research supports Organ’s assertion that the “good soldier” syndrome is related to organization performance (cf. Karambayya, 1990; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994; MacKenzie, Podsakoff & Ahearne, 1996; Walz & Niehoff, 1996; Podsakoff et al., 1997). However, the findings are inconsistent. Helping behavior was found to enhance performance in some research (MacKenzie, et al.,1996; Walz & Niehoff, 1996; Podsakoff et al., 1997) but also appeared to have a negative impact on performance (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994). With the inconsistence, our study tries to investigate the reason why the findings are not consistent.
Based on the assertion that an organization functions as a social community, in which organization members interact with each other under a context with shared identity, we argue that as an informal channel, OCB will rich the interaction of knowledge sharing among members and then enhance the performance of NPD in an organization. This study investigates the underlying theoretical perspectives of the conceptual plausibility that OCB is positively related to organization performance. By synthesizing the relevant theories, we generate social exchange theory and psychology contract as the theoretical underpinnings the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and new product design deposits. Specifically, we argue that the inconsistent findings on the relationship between OCB and organizational performance might be due to the role of a mediating mechanism in the relationship. In this study, we assert that only through the meditating effect of knowledge sharing will the embodiment of OCB influence the performance of NPD. This insight makes us critically re-think about the existence of mediating mechanisms in the relationship between OCB and organization performance. Is it with high possibility that the impact of OCB on organization performance only exists at the presence of some mediating effect? Or is it the different mediating mechanism that result in different consequences? Our wondering corresponds to what Podsakoff & MacKenzie, (1997) claimed. In their study, they proposed that in terms of the effect of OCB on organizational success, citizenship behaviors have been hypothesized to influence organizational success through a wide variety of different mechanisms. In a nutshell, the assertion of this study not only corresponds to Podsakoff & MacKenzie’s (1997) assumption, but provides an empirical direction to examine the mechanism of knowledge sharing in the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior
and new product development.
In closing, the contribution of this research is four-fold: (a) it conceptually supports that organizational citizenship behavior will have a positive effect on the performance of NPD by investigating the underlying rationale that an organization functions as a social community. (b) it provides a more comprehensive theoretical underpinnings the impact of OCB on NPD posits. (c) it argues that OCB will influence NPD performance with the existence of the mediator of knowledge sharing. (d) it broadens our knowledge about the relationship between OCB and organization performance by re-emphasizing the role of mediating mechanism in the relationship.
REFERENCES
Adler, P. S. & Kwon Seok-Woo 2002. Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept.
Academy of Management Review, 27: 17-40.
Bateman, T. S., & Organ, D. W. 1983. Job Satisfaction and the Good Soldier：The
Relationshipbetween Affect and Employee Citizenship. Academy of Management Journal, 26: 587-595.
Blau, P. M.1964. Exchange and Power in Social Life, New York: Wiley. Brooks, L.1999. Organizational Behavior, London：Pitman Publishing.
Bouty, 2000. Interpersonal and interaction influences on informal resource exchanges
between R&D researchers organizational boundaries. Academy of Management Journal, 43: 50-65.
Bolino, M. D. 1999. Citizenship and impression management：Good soldiers or good
actors. Academy of management Review, 24: 82-98.
Conner, K. M. & Prahalad, C. K. (1996), “A resource-based theory of the firm: knowledge versus opportunism” ,Organization Science, 7(5) , pp.477-501. Davenport, S., Davies, J. & Grimes, C. 1999, Collaborative research programmes :
Building trust from difference. Technovation, 19: 31-40.
Davenport, T. H., & Prusak, L. 1998. Working Knowledge: How organizations
manage what they know. President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Dixon, N. D. 2000. Common knowledge: How companies thrive by sharing what they
know. Harvard Business School Press, Boston.
Dodgson, M. 1993. Organizational learning: A review of some literatures.
Organization Studies, 14: 375-394.
Dyer, J. H., & Nobeoka, K. 2000. Creating and managing A High-performance
Knowledge-sharing Network: The Toyota Case. Strategic Management Journal, 21: 345-367.
Dyer, J. H., & Singh, H. 1998. The Relational View: Cooperative Strategy and
Sources of Inter-organizational Competitive Advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23: 660-679.
Emerson, R.A. 1962. Power-dependence Relations. American Sociological Review,
27: 31-41.
Farh, J. L., Zhong, C. B., & Organ, D. W. 2004. Organizational citizenship behavior
in the People's Republic of China. Organization Science, 15: 241-253. French, J. R., & Raven, B. H. 1959. The Base of Social Power. In D CartWright(ed.),
Studies in Social Power, An Arbor, MI.: University of Michigan Press.
George, J. M., & Battenhausen, K. 1990. Understanding prosocial behavior, sales
performance, and turnover: A group-level analysis in a service context. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75: 698-709.
Graham, J. W. (1991). An Essay on Organizational Citizenship Behavior. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 4, 249-270.
Grant, R. M. 1996a. Prospering in dynamically competitive environments:
organizational capability as knowledge integration. Organization Science, 7: 375-387.
Grant, R. M. 1996b. Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm. Strategic
Management Journal, 17: 109-122.
Gulati, R. 1995. Does Familiarity Breed Trust：The Implications of Repeated Ties for
Contractual Choice in Alliances. Academy of Management Journal, 38: 85-112.
Gulati, R. (1998), “Alliances and Networks”, Strategic Management Journal, 19, pp. 293-317.
Gupta, A. K., & Govindarajan, V. 2000. Knowledge Flows within Multinational
Corporation. Strategic Management Journal, 21: 473-496.
Hanley, S. S. (1999). A culture built on sharing. Informationweek, April 26, 16-17. Hansen, M. T. 1999. The search-transfer problem: The role of weak ties in sharing
knowledge across organization subunits. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44: 82-111.
Hendriks. P. 1999. Why share knowledge? The influence of ICT on the motivation for
knowledge sharing. Knowledge and Process management, 6: 91-100. Hoffman, M. L. 1975. Altruistic Behavior and the Parent-Child Relationship. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 31: 937-943.
Holthouse, Dan 1998. Knowledge Research Issues. California Management
Review, .43: 277-280.
Hoopes, D. G., & Postrel S. 1999. Shared knowledge, “Glitches,” and product
development performance. Strategic management Journal, 20: 837-865. Jones, G. R., & Geroge, J. M. 1998. The Experience and Evolution of Trust：
Implication for Cooperation and Teamwork. Academy of Management Review, 23: 531-546.
Kale P., Singh H., & Perlmutter, H. 2000. Learning and protection of proprietary
assets in strategic alliances: Building relational capital. Strategic management Journal, 21: 217-237.
Koka, B. R. & Prescott, J. E. (2002), “Strategic Alliances as Social Capital: A Multidimensional View ”, Strategic Management Journal, 23(9), pp. 794-816. Kogut,B. & Zander,U (1992), “Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities, and the replication of technology” ,Organization Science, 3(3) , pp.383-397. Kogut,B. & Zander, U. (1996), “What firms do? Coordination, identity and learning” , Organization Science, 7(5) , pp. 502-518. Konvsky, M. A. & Organ, D. W. 1996. Dispositional and Contextual Determinants of
Organizational Citizenship Behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 17: 253-266.
Kostova Tatlana 1999. Transnational Transfer of Strategic Organizational Practices: A
Contextual Perspective. Academy of Management Review, 24: 308-324. Krilowicz, T. J, & Lowery, C. M. 1996. The impact of organizational citizenship
behavior on the performance appraisal process: A cross-cultural study. International Journal of Management, 13(1):94-101.
Lesser, E. L. 2000. Leveraging Social Capital in Organizations, In Lesser E. L. (ed.),
Knowledge and Social Capital: Foundations and Applications,3-16. Liu C.W., Chen C.S., & Lin S. L. 2004. Besides American Values, What Else Do We
Know about Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in a Non-U.S. Context?. 9th
APDSI Conference, Seoul, Korea
Madhavan, R., & Grover, R. 1998. From Embedded Knowledge to Embodied
Knowledge: New Product Development as Knowledge Management. Journal of Marketing, 62: 1-12.
Moorman, Robert H. 1991. Relationship between Organizational Justice and
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76: 845-855.
Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. 1998. Social capital ,intellectual capital ,and the
rganizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23: 242-266. Nonaka, I., Toyama, R., & Konno N. 2000. SECI, ba and leadership: A unified model
of dynamic knowledge creation. Long Range Planning, 33: 5-34.
Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge. Organization
Science, 5(1), 14-37.
Nonaka, I., Takeuchi , H. (1995) ,The knowledge-creating company, Oxford : Oxford University Press.
Organ, D. W. 1988. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Solider
Syndrome, Lexingtion, MA: Lexingtion Books.
Organ, D. W. 1990. The Motivational Basis of Organizational Citizenship Behavior. in
B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings(eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, Greenwich, CT：JAI Press, 12, pp.43-72.
Organ, D. W., & Ryan, K. 1995. A meta-analytic review of attitudinal and
dispositional predictors of organizational citizenship behavior. Personnel Psychology, 48: 775-802.
Organ, D.W. 1997. Organizational citizenship behaviors it’s construct clean up time.
Human Performance, 10: 85-97.
Osterloh, M., and Frey, B. S. 2000. Motivation, knowledge trans for and
organizational forms. Organization Science, 11: 538-550.
Podsakoff P.M., & MacKenzie, S. B.1994. Organizational Citizenship behavior and
sales unit effectiveness. Journal of Marketing Researc, 3(1):351-363. Podsakoff, P. M., Ahearne, M., & MacKenzie, S. B. 1997. Organizational Citizenship
Behavior and the Quantity and Quality of Work Group Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 18: 262-270.
Podsakoff, P. M., Mackenzie, S. B., Paine, B. P., & Bachrach, D.G. 2000.
Organizational citizenship behavior: A critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature and suggestions for future research. Journal of Management, 26: 513-563.
Rousseau, D. M., & Parks, J. M. 1993. The contracts of individuals and organizations.
Research in Organizational Behavior, 15: 1-43.
Robinson, S. L., & Morrison, E. W. 1995. Psychological Contracts and OCB：The
effect of Unfulfilled Obligations on Civil virtue Behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 16: 289-298.
Rousseau, D. M. 1989. Psychological and implied contracts in organizations.
Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 8: 121-139. Schein, E. H. 1980. Organizational Psychology, 3rd ed., Pretence-Hall. Senge, P. (1998). Sharing knowledge. Executive Excellence, 15(6), 11-12. Smith, C. A., Organ, D. W., & Near, J, P. 1983. Organizational Citizenship
Behavior：Its Nature and Antecedents. Journal of Applied Psychology. 68: 653-663.
Szulanski, G. 1996. Exploring internal stickiness： Impediments to the transfer of best
practice within the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17: 27-43.
Tsai, W. (2002), “Social Structure of “Coopetition” Within a Multiunit Organization: Coordination, Competition, and Intra- Organization Knowledge Sharing ”, Organization Science, 13(2), pp. 179-190.
Tsai, W. (2000), “Social Capital, Strategic Relatedness and the Formation of Interaorganal Linkages”, Strategic Management Journal, 21, pp. 925-939. Tsai, W. & Ghoshal, S. (1998), “Social Capital and Value Creation: the Role of Intrarfirm Networks ”, Academy of Management Journal, 41, pp. 464-476. Tsai W. 2001. Knowledge transfer in intraorganizational networks: Effects of network
position and absorptive capacity on business unit innovation and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 44: 996-1004.
Turnley, W.H. & Feldman, D.C. (1998), ” Psychological Contract Violations During
Corporate Restructuring”, Human Resource Management, 37(1):71-82
Van Dyne, L., Graham, J. W., & Dienesch, R. M. 1994. Organizational citizenship
behavior：construct redefinition, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 37: 765-802.
Yli-Renko, H., Autio, E., & Tontti, V. 2002. Social Capital, Knowledge, and the
nternational Growth of Technology-based New Firms. International Business Review, 11: 279-304.
Zander U., & Kogut B. 1995. Knowledge and the speed of the transfer and imitation
of organizational capabilities: An empirical test. Organization Science, 6: 76-92.
因篇幅问题不能全部显示，请点此查看更多更全内容