The Relationship Between Empowering Leadership and Intention to Share Knowledge in the Context of NGOs

Executive Summary

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The review has explored the relationship between empowering leadership and the intention to share knowledge in the setting of NGOs. Various readings have been analyzed and depicted the relationship being sought in the review. The practice of sharing knowledge among the employees has been linked to the improvement of the performance and operational costs of the organization. Developing leadership in the form of trust has further been associated with a high intention to share knowledge among the workers. A survey has been conducted through the utilization of questionnaire methodology. The study involved participants who had volunteered in an NGO. The items being assessed in the study were measured on a Likert scale that constitutes of seven points and the findings analyzed. There was a robust and positive relationship between empowering leadership and the intention to share knowledge as depicted by the results. Moreover, personnel are also highly inspired to share knowledge once the management shows a form of trust. Confidence in their capabilities initiates leadership empowerment, and thus they have a high motivation to share their knowledge including the tacit one with their colleagues.

Introduction

The economy in the current world is intensive concerning knowledge. As such, the management of knowledge is a significant aspect of organizations and has become quite popular as well. Sharing of knowledge among the individuals entails exchanging ideas to develop new ones. There is a two-way relationship between the behaviors and attitudes of the link between the willingness of the workers to engage in sharing of knowledge. This is considered a critical process for a company to succeed in their operations. Moreover, it assists the organization to satisfy their goals and objectives (Han, Seo, Li, & Yoon, 2015). The paper will focus on the connection between empowering leadership and objective to share information in the context of NGOs. A literature review will be conducted after which a methodology for the study proposed and analysis of the results.

Literature Review

The aspect of sharing knowledge in an organization and in this context, a non-governmental firm, will be determined by the attitude among various parties. The perception of incentives exceeding the costs will result in sharing of knowledge. Giving employees rewards tends to encourage them to share their knowledge. Different forms of extrinsic rewards have thus been postulated to promote more positive attitudes toward the practice of sharing knowledge. As such, it enables the rise or formation of a leader figure in the firm (Murugan, & Murugan, 2011). Moreover, if an organization has a greater form of anticipated extrinsic rewards, there will be more favorable attitudes towards sharing of knowledge. It should thus be an initiative among the leadership of the organization to develop a greater form of extrinsic awards as it will favor the formation of active attitudes towards sharing knowledge (Sajeva, 2014). There is a particular perception of public stress to accomplish or not undertake a certain behavior. This aspect has established a form of significant practical support. This is concerning it being a necessary antecedent to behavioral purpose. With a greater personal custom to share knowledge, there will also be a greater aim to exchange information. The subjective criteria have a primary influence on attitudes through the process of social impact (Vecchio, Justin, & Pearce, 2010).

Most organizations are focusing on the aspect of motivation and leadership that have then recommended the importance of group procedures. As such, they are incorporating the practice of power-sharing in a way that seeks to motivate workers to struggle and attain a higher level of accomplishment within an organized system (Wang, & Noe, 2010). Furthermore, it has been suggested that leaders should not completely abandon their responsibility for providing a direction that is visionary and strategic. Instead, they should design a form of social influence that is two-way with their subordinates while at the same time promote other significant issues. These issues are connected or tied among the subordinates and are such as resources, power, sharing knowledge that entails the job and information as well (Schultz, & Schultz, 2015).

It has been purported that sharing knowledge can result in the improvement of performance and costs of operation. It further enables the foundation of awareness and increases intellectual capital. The work culture in any setting plays a substantial part in the sharing of knowledge (Salin, Javed, Sharif, & Riaz, 2011). Culture is depicted to be at the more profound level of core values, assumptions, and beliefs that are shared among the members of an organization. Having a culture of collaboration and trust leads to the improvement of sharing knowledge (Zboralski, 2009). Trust has further been pointed out as one of the most fundamental elements that affect the willingness to engage in the practice of sharing knowledge. Leadership that is developed in the form of trust will increase the ability and even intention to share knowledge. Moreover, it will also encourage the practice totally among the employees (Veccio, Justin, & Pearce, 2010).

Knowledge sharing and organizational culture can further be analyzed in the context of how it affects learning behavior. In the first case, culture develops the organizational context for social interactions to take place. With social interactions, there will be a high level of knowledge sharing among workers. Culture also defines the hypothesis about which knowledge is significant (Cheung, Lee, & Lee, 2013). It further acts as a mediation of the relationships that exist among individuals, organizational culture and groups as well. On the other hand, culture affects the adoption and development of new knowledge (Marouf, 2015). Knowledge sharing has been observed to lead to effectiveness in NGOs. Encouraging workers to share knowledge in these organizations engages them more in the promotion, development, and implementation of innovations as well. Through the behaviors of innovative work and sharing knowledge, there will be a transformation of the NGO as a whole (Boateng, Dzandu, & Agyemang, 2015). Additionally, the effectiveness of the NGOs occurs due to an improvement in the corporate efficiency, customer service, and modernization. The reinforcement of the effect of culture in the organization could further shape the aspect of tacit knowledge. This form of education has been identified as the most valuable. Inability to focus on tacit leads to the reduction of the capability of the organization to innovate (Noor, Ah, & Idris, 2016). As such, NGOs should develop a culture as it is one of the best elements that will promote knowledge and the behavior of sharing as well.

For knowledge to be managed in a successful way, it should be shared in an efficient way. By not sharing knowledge, it means that the cognitive resources found in the organization are not fully utilized as well. It is thus significant to examine the aspects that are engaging workers in sharing their knowledge. This is because people are the originating point of the transfer of knowledge in the company (Sajeva, 2014). On the other hand, leadership affects the sharing of awareness through various aspects. These are such as personality, cultural elements such as collectivism ad motivational factors like trust and attitudes. Moreover, by empowering the leadership of the organization, there will also be an increase in the sharing behavior of knowledge among the workers (Schultz, & Schultz, 2015).

Empowering leadership has been observed to be a set of behavior in leaders that involve sharing of power or even assigning more duties and a form of independence among employees. Once a leader has an empowering act, they will be in a position to encourage their subordinates to take up the practice of creativity as well and thus pass it to the rest of the workers (Minbaeva, Pedersen, & Reinholt, 2009). A leader who has been empowered further gives support to their staff to speak out their thoughts in an active manner. Additionally, they will also offer more opportunities to share their knowledge and thus look for solutions in an independent manner (Nappinnai, & Premavathy, 2013).

Other terminologies can also be applied when analyzing the correlation between empowering leadership and the intention to share information. Exchange ideology is the extent of the belief of an employee that work effort should rely on how they are treated in the organization. In this context, the workers who have a higher form of exchange ideology are susceptible to the responsiveness of their perception of how they are being treated in a favorable manner by their leaders, co-workers or the organization as a whole (Sajeva, 2014). As such, the exchange ideology is viewed as a form of a moderator of the associations between the opinions of the exchange and the behaviors or attitudes of the workers (Tung, & Chang, 2011).

Most NGOs usually face challenges in the form of resource limitations and gaps in the institutional and capacity level that includes poor governance and leadership when attempting to implement strategies. Due to these negative aspects, they will become more efficient once there is leadership empowerment in their settings. Once their leader has been empowered in a comprehensive manner, then they will develop the urge to share that knowledge (Zheng, & Liu, 2016). Additionally, adequate or thorough understanding among the leaders will further encourage employees to share what they have also acquired. In the end, the leadership will be improved and efficiency obtained as well (Tung, 2014). NGOs should be driven by the presence of employees who are dedicated and committed as they will bring new forms of energies and even concepts to the issues that may be facing the organization. However, there are still encounters the NGOs face when attempting to implement these strategies in the leadership system. These are such as funding issues and partnership management (Nor, Ah, & Idris, 2016). When these challenges are tackled in the right way, they will result in efficiency and the whole practice of empowering leadership and the intention to share knowledge among the workers will be enhanced.

Hypotheses Development

There is a strong relationship between the aspect of empowering leadership and the intention to share knowledge. The practice of participative decision has been observed to be one of the most important aspects of the behavior of an empowering leader. Additionally, the participative method would generate a form of sharing behavior among the employees. There are also more chances for the workers to share their ideas and information once their leader has empowered them in their capacities. This is as a result of providing an opportunity for the employees to express their propositions and views (Amundsen, & Martinsen, 2014). With the empowerment of the employees by the leader, the head of the organization is also able to maintain a participative behavior form of making decisions. In addition to this, the workers will regard their input of ideas and opinions that will affect the aspect of making decisions and thus their behavior of sharing knowledge being valuable to involve in the organization. The act of informing and training the behaviors of empowering a leader guides the employees to look for solutions to other tasks. They undertake this by collaborating through active sharing of knowledge...