Study of Interrelationship between Social Network Ties and Shared-Goals for Knowledge-Sharing Intentions among Academia in Quetta City

Abstract

Firms are eager to enhance the knowledge capital of their organization to remain competitive in turbulent market conditions. Workers’ interaction with external and internal networks are considered a key factor in knowledge accumulation, dissemination, integration and sharing intention. Knowledge management scholars have unpacked several factors from leadership, organizational, personality, psychological and external network perspectives. However, internal networks like socialnetwork ties and shared-goals are catalyst for knowledge-sharing intention. The existing literature requires empirical verifications to examine the connection of social network ties and knowledge sharing intention from various sectors and context because the existing findings are contradictory. The goal of this study is to substantiate the impact of social network ties, shared-goals on knowledge-sharing intention with mediating effect of interpersonal-trust. Faculty members of three public sector universiites operating in Quetta city were considered as target population who filled three hundred questionnaires. Regression approach was used to test hypotheses. Findings show that instrumental-ties, expressive-ties and shared-goals are positive and significant predictors of knowledge-sharing intention. Cognitive and affect-based trust significantly mediates the link between ties and knowledge sharing intention. Shared-goals became the most critical predictor of knowledge-sharing intention when the trust was considered a mediator.