Linking Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Sharing: The Mediating Roles of Perceived Team Goal Commitment and Perceived Team Identification

Abstract

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It is widely assumed that transformational leadership can effectively facilitate the sharing of knowledge among followers, but most investigations of the underlying mechanisms were based on the social exchange perspective. Based on a sensegiving theory perspective, this article attempts to uncover the mechanisms by which transformational leadership has its impact on employee knowledge sharing behavior by proposing two team-directed mediating mechanisms: perceived team goal commitment and perceived team identification. Results of multi-source and time-lagged data from 186 leader–follower pairs supported the proposed mediating effects. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Keywords

• transformational leadership
• team goal commitment
• team identification
• knowledge sharing
• leadership