Knowledge-oriented leadership and workers' performance: do individual knowledge management engagement and empowerment matter?

Mehwish Malik, Muhammad Abbas and Hassan Imam

International Journal of Manpower, 2023, vol. 44, issue 7, 1382-1398

Abstract: Purpose - Drawing upon social cognitive theory (SCT), the authors aimed to examine the relationship between supervisors' knowledge-oriented leadership (KOL) style and knowledge workers' performance. The authors further investigated the conditional indirect effects of KOL on workers' performance through knowledge management (KM) engagement at different levels of workers' empowerment. Design/methodology/approach - The authors used a time-lagged field survey and collected data from 212 knowledge workers and their 72 supervisors working in 15 knowledge-intensive firms across Pakistan. Findings - The results showed that supervisors' KOL positively affected knowledge workers' performance both directly and through KM engagement. Similarly, the effect of KM engagement on workers' performance was stronger for those who experienced higher levels of empowerment. Finally, the indirect effects of KOL on workers' performance through KM engagement were stronger for higher levels of empowerment. Originality/value - The study provided theoretical implications, specifically in a non-Western work context where KOL is relatively less explored. Additionally, the authors examined the concept of empowerment, using SCT, as a boundary condition, providing evidence for empowerment as a contingency factor that fosters employees' performance.

Keywords: Knowledge-oriented leadership; Knowledge management engagement; Workers' empowerment; Workers' performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-07-2022-0302

DOI: 10.1108/IJM-07-2022-0302

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Manpower is currently edited by Professor Adrian Ziderman

More articles in International Journal of Manpower from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().