Team Leaders Matter in Knowledge Sharing: A Cross-Level Analysis of the Interplay between Leaders’ and Members’ Goal Orientations in the Chinese Context
研究了中国两家公司设计团队中，领导与成员的目标导向（学习、绩效趋近、绩效回避）如何跨层次交互影响知识共享，发现领导的学习目标导向起关键调节作用。
ABSTRACT This article investigates the impact of cross-level interplay between team members’ and their leaders’ goal orientations (learning, performance approach, and performance avoidance) on knowledge sharing using samples from design teams in two companies in China. Our results show that team leaders’ learning goal orientation plays a critical moderating role. Specifically, team leaders’ learning goal orientation strengthens the positive relationship between team members’ learning orientation and knowledge sharing; positively moderates the relationship between team members’ performance approach orientation and knowledge sharing; and weakens the negative relationship between team members’ performance avoidance orientation and knowledge sharing. Team leaders’ performance approach orientation demonstrates a positive moderating effect when there is congruence between the performance approach orientation of leaders and members. Finally, team leaders’ performance avoidance orientation negatively moderates the relationship between team members’ learning and performance approach orientation on knowledge sharing. This research enhances our understanding of the conditions under which knowledge sharing occurs among team members, using the lens of Trait Activation Theory.