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Power-status inconsistency and knowledge sharing behavior: the mediating role of self-efficacy and negative emotion

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Abstract

Under the background of knowledge economy, knowledge exchange and sharing among team members is extremely important for team development and organizational innovation. However, previous studies have neglected the root dilemma of individual sharing behavior. Based on costly signaling theory and social hierarchy theory, this study discusses the influence of individual power-status inconsistency on knowledge sharing. Study 1 issued 629 questionnaires to team members of high-tech industries. The results shows that power-status inconsistency has a positive impact on knowledge sharing, and the knowledge sharing level of those with high power and low status is higher than that of those with low power and high status. In study 2, the psychological mechanism of two types of individuals with inconsistent power and status was deeply explored through experiments, which affected individual knowledge sharing by positive cognitive self-efficacy and negative emotion. This paper is helpful to broaden the social hierarchy theory and provide suggestions for knowledge management within the team.

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Data availability

The current study has been validated through an empirical study. The data support the fndings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editors and reviewers for their valuable contributions to the improvement of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Project(72072086) and Postgraduate Research Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX23_0064; KYCX23_0066).

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The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: Liu Ruhong; data collection: Long Jing; analysis and interpretation of results: Liu Longjun; draft manuscript preparation: Liu Ruhong, Liu Longjun. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Longjun Liu.

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Since data is collected from the employee of businesses and MBA students, verbal consent was taken from all respondents to participate in this research.

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Liu, R., Long, J. & Liu, L. Power-status inconsistency and knowledge sharing behavior: the mediating role of self-efficacy and negative emotion. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06125-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06125-y

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