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The Influence of Psychological Safety and Confidence in Knowledge on Employee Knowledge Sharing

Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
College of Business and Behavioral Science, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634
Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois 61820
siems017{at}umn.edu
aroth{at}clemson.edu
sridhar_balasubramanian{at}unc.edu
gopesh{at}illinois.edu

This research empirically examines the influence of psychological safety on knowledge sharing among coworkers in manufacturing and service operations contexts. Reconciling conflicting findings in the literature, we demonstrate that whereas psychological safety is an important antecedent of knowledge sharing, the relationship between psychological safety and knowledge sharing is moderated by the level of confidence that employees have in what they know. The greater this confidence, the lesser is the importance of psychological safety in facilitating knowledge sharing. Linking this result to social network theory, we find that psychological safety increases with the frequency of communication among coworkers and that the confidence of employees in their knowledge is related to the codifiability of the knowledge involved. We further investigate direct and indirect antecedents of psychological safety. This research offers insights into actions that managers can take to enhance psychological safety and, consequently, motivate their employees to share knowledge.

Key Words: psychological safety; knowledge sharing; operational choices; auxiliary network theory
History: Received: April 27, 2007; accepted: June 15, 2008.