Perceived mastery climate, felt trust, and knowledge sharing

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2241
• Author: Matej Černe,Ronny Scherer,Miha Škerlavaj,Rosalind Searle,Christina G.L. Nerstad,Anders Dysvik
• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Date: 01 May 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Perceived mastery climate, felt trust, and knowledge sharing

Christina G.L. Nerstad

1

|Rosalind Searle

2

|Matej Černe

3

|Anders Dysvik

1

|

Miha Škerlavaj

1

|Ronny Scherer

4

1

Department of Leadership and

Organizational Behaviour, BI Norwegian

Business School, Oslo, Norway

2

Adam Smith Business School, University of

Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.

3

Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana,

Ljubljana, Slovenia

4

Centre for Educational Measurement at the

University of Oslo (CEMO), University of Oslo,

Oslo, Norway

Correspondence

Christina G. L. Nerstad, Department of

Leadership and Organizational Behaviour, BI

Norwegian Business School, Nydalsveien 37,

N‐0442 Oslo, Norway.

Email: christina.nerstad@bi.no

Summary

Interpersonal trust is associated with a range of adaptive outcomes, including knowledge sharing.

However, to date, our knowledge of antecedents and consequences of employees feeling trusted

by supervisors in organizations remains limited. On the basis of a multisource, multiwave field

study among 956 employees from 5 Norwegian organizations, we examined the predictive roles

of perceived mastery climate and employee felt trust for employees' knowledge sharing. Drawing

on the achievement goal theory, we develop and test a model to demonstrate that when

employees perceive a mastery climate, they are more likely to feel trusted by their supervisors

at both the individual and group levels. Moreover, the relationship between employees' percep-

tions of a mastery climate and supervisor‐rated knowledge sharing is mediated by perceptions

of being trusted by the supervisor. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of our

findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS

felt trust, knowledge sharing, motivational climate,multilevel modeling

1|INTRODUCTION

[Trust] the inmates to run the asylum.—Laszlo Bock,

Work Rules! Insights from Inside Google that will

Transform how you Live and Lead, 2015

Knowledge is a central resource for ensuring organizational com-

petitive advantage (Grant, 1996; Ipe, 2003; Kogut & Zander, 1992;

Wang & Noe, 2010). It is therefore essential that employees' knowl-

edge is made available in organizations through processes involving

most if not all employees and departments (De Vries, Van den Hooff,

& De Ridder, 2006; Grant, 1996; Ipe, 2003). Knowledge sharing refers

to the provision of task information and know‐how as a way of helping

others and of developing collaborative problem solving, new ideas, and

the implementation of novel policies and procedures (Wang & Noe,

2010). Extant research in this area has revealed that imparting and

exchanging knowledge and information is positively associated with

both team and organizational productivity and performance (Collins

& Smith, 2006; Wang & Noe, 2010). Because knowledge work is

regarded as significant in the process of wealth creation in today's

global economy, understanding the antecedents of knowledge sharing

has become an increasingly important concern (De Vries et al., 2006;

Frost, Osterloh, & Weibel, 2010; Gagné, 2009).

The organizational context in which processes of sharing and com-

bining knowledge occur is a central component of actual knowledge

transfer (Connelly & Kelloway, 2003; Connelly, Zweig, Webster, &

Trougakos, 2012; Javenpaa & Staples, 2001; Wang & Noe, 2010).

However, developing our understanding of antecedents for

employees' motivation for sharing and actual knowledge sharing

remains an important area of research (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2005;

Wang & Noe, 2010). In spite of this, the motivational drivers for

employee knowledge sharing are still not fully understood (Lam &

Lambermont‐Ford, 2010; Milne, 2007; Osterloh, Frost, & Frey,

2002). This is unfortunate because one of the greatest challenges that

organizations face stems from practices of hoarding/hiding knowledge.

Although providing short‐term personal competitive advantage (Milne,

2007), such maladaptive behaviors have long‐term organizational con-

sequences. An existing practical challenge (for supervisors in particular)

is therefore how to develop organizational contexts wherein norms of

knowledge sharing and learning will prevail (Černe, Nerstad, Dysvik, &

Škerlavaj, 2014; Milne, 2007).

In this paper, we examine the perceived mastery motivational cli-

mate, defined by the traditional achievement goal theory (AGT; Ames,

1992b; Nicholls, 1989), as a potential antecedent of knowledge

sharing. This motivational climate defines the achievement criteria of

success and failure in a particular work situation based on learning,

Received: 8 March 2016 Revised: 5 September 2017 Accepted: 8 September 2017

DOI: 10.1002/job.2241

J Organ Behav. 2018;39:429–447. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 429

growth, cooperation, and effort (Nerstad, Roberts, & Richardsen,

2013a). A mastery motivational climate has been found to predict

important employee outcomes, including job engagement, burnout,

turnover intention, work performance, incivility, innovative work

behavior, and knowledge hiding (e.g., Birkeland & Nerstad, 2016;

Černe et al., 2014; Černe, Hernaus, Dysvik, & Škerlavaj, 2017; Nerstad

et al., 2013a; Nerstad, Roberts, & Richardsen, 2013b). Employees' per-

ceptions of a mastery climate direct how they relate to the task and

each other, which goals they accomplish, and how well they are evalu-

ated (Ames & Ames, 1984). It may therefore also affect the sharing of

knowledge (cf. Swift, Balkin, & Matusik, 2010). For example,

employees experiencing a mastery climate should be more likely to

share their knowledge because it is seen as beneficial for both their

own and their coworkers' learning and self‐improvement (Poortvliet

& Giebels, 2012; Poortvliet, Janssen, Van Yperen, & Van de Vliert,

2009). In support of this, prior studies have found perceived mastery

climate to positively predict individual knowledge sharing (Poortvliet

et al., 2009; Poortvliet, Anseel, Janssen, Van Yperen, & Van de Vliert,

2012; Poortvliet & Giebels, 2012). However, there is a dearth of

understanding

1

of the mechanisms that might explain how a perceived

mastery climate relates to knowledge sharing.

Previous work on knowledge sharing has identified interpersonal

trust—or the willingness to be vulnerable to others in the anticipation

of their positive behavior or intention (Brower, Lester, Korsgaard, &

Dineen, 2009; Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995)—as important for

explaining the extent to which individuals share their knowledge

(Golden & Raghuram, 2010; Lau, Lam, & Wen, 2014; Levin & Cross,

2004; Wang & Noe, 2010). Recently, researchers have focused on per-

ceptions of being trusted by a supervisor, or felt trust (Salamon &

Robinson, 2008) instead of generalized trust, as has been done previ-

ously. Extending this line of inquiry, our study builds on insights of

prior research examining employee outcomes related to subordinates'

perceptions of their leaders' trustworthiness, by examining felt trust

(Lau et al., 2014; Lester & Brower, 2003). Colquitt and Rodell (2011)

demonstrated the importance of supervisor trustworthiness through

initiating the first step toward subordinates in sharing information,

and thus becoming vulnerable to them. Accordingly, employees' beliefs

and expectations of their supervisors' trustworthiness can shape their

own willingness to engage in trusting behaviors (cf. Seppälä, Lipponen,

Pirttila‐Backman, & Lipsanen, 2011). Similarity of values between the

two parties is an important antecedent to these feelings of being

trusted (Lau, Liu, & Fu, 2007). In social exchange theory, trust is central

in the ongoing series of exchanges between employer and employees

(Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). However, although previous research

has indicated the importance of interpersonal trust in enhancing the

likelihood of knowledge sharing, little is known about the antecedents

of interpersonal trust and the consequences of feeling trusted by

supervisors. In order to examine the relationship between a perceived

mastery climate and knowledge sharing in this study, we explore

whether feeling trusted by supervisors serves as an explanatory

mechanism.

We intend to contribute to the trust and knowledge‐exchange lit-

erature in three distinct ways. First, we extend the nomological under-

standing (cf. Lau et al., 2007; Lau et al., 2014; Salamon & Robinson,

2008) of how felt trust predicts employee outcomes. Specifically, we

develop and test a model (Figure 1) of the role of felt trust as a more

in‐depth explanation of how a perceived mastery climate relates to

employees' knowledge sharing. We build on previous research of

employee outcomes, which shows that feeling trusted by a supervisor

is a more effective measure than simple trust in the supervisor is (Lau

et al., 2007). The conceptual mechanisms by which felt trust operates

vary. For some, it can engender norms of responsibility that improve

employee attention and diligence, leading to enhanced organizational

performance (Salamon & Robinson, 2008). Other studies suggest it is

via a more positive self‐concept of organization‐based self‐esteem

(Lau et al., 2014) in which performance improvement is driven

(Bowling, Eschleman, Wang, Kirkendall, & Alarcon, 2010). In contrast,

some have argued that feeling one is trusted changes employees'

sense of empowerment (Brower et al., 2009). Felt trust also operates

through a Pygmalion effect (Eden, 1990) derived from the sense of

pride and enhanced task performance while employees become driven

to maintain their reputation (Baer et al., 2015). Baer et al. (2015) partic-

ularly showed supervisors' roles in promoting reciprocated norms from

bestowing trust on employees extending to consequences including

the sharing of knowledge, which is regarded as an increasingly impor-

tant resource to access in knowledge‐intensive organizations (Ipe,

2003; Quigley, Tesluk, Locke, & Bartol, 2007). In this study, we assess

the direct and collective impacts of perceived supervisor efforts in

modeling being vulnerable to others. We selected this mechanism

because felt trust operates by establishing and modeling norms of

reciprocity (Salamon & Robinson, 2008). In this way, the norms of

vulnerability that occur when bestowing trust are similar to the vulner-

ability that sharing knowledge produces.

Second, we contribute to our knowledge about trust dynamics and

develop insight into effective managerial practices regarding feeling

trusted by a supervisor through considering both individual and shared

group‐level cognitions. We thus add a novel group‐level perspective

on whether felt trust perceptions are likely to be shared more widely

and become reinforced within a local aggregated context (Thornton

& Rupp, 2016). From the simultaneous investigation of both the direct

and larger social aggregate cognitive unit, we are able to examine two

distinct levels that occur in membership of an organization (Černe

et al., 2014; Kramer, 2010; Preacher, Zyphur, & Zhang, 2010; Salamon

& Robinson, 2008). We thereby respond to calls for research to better

understand how (felt) trust operates at different levels of analysis and

what the implications of an approach using various levels of analysis

are (Jiang & Probst, 2015; Schoorman, Mayer, & Davis, 2007). This

insight is particularly important given that felt trust is based in relation-

ships, which are relevant both to the individual and group levels of

analysis (Schoorman et al., 2007).

Third, we add to the research on knowledge sharing by exploring

the role of a perceived mastery climate and its mechanisms in the pro-

motion of knowledge sharing in line with calls for more multilevel

research on environmental factors (i.e., climate) in predicting knowl-

edge sharing (Lam & Lambermont‐Ford, 2010; Wang & Noe, 2010).

As multilevel issues have often received scant attention (Jiang &

1

It shouldbe noted that Gagné (2009) presenteda conceptualframework of moti-

vational influences on knowledge‐sharing mechanisms using a different motiva-

tional lens combining the theory of planned behavior with self‐determination

theory.

430 NERSTAD ET AL.