Perceived mastery climate, felt trust, and knowledge sharing

Posted on by Miha Škerlavaj

We know how important trust is for oh-so-many reasons. How important is it to actually feel trusted? Our study reveals that felt trust plays an essential role for knowledge sharing behaviors. Summary below, while the article is available from the following link.

Interpersonal trust is associated with a range of adaptive outcomes, including knowledge sharing. However, to date, our knowledge of antecedents and consequences of employees feeling trusted by supervisors in organizations remains limited. On the basis of a multisource, multiwave field study among 956 employees from five Norwegian organizations, we examined the predictive roles of perceived mastery climate and employee felt trust for employees’ knowledge sharing. Drawing on the achievement goal theory, we develop and test a model to demonstrate that when employees perceive a mastery climate, they are more likely to feel trusted by their supervisors at both the individual and group levels. Moreover, the relationship between employees’ perceptions of a mastery climate and supervisor‐rated knowledge sharing is mediated by perceptions of being trusted by the supervisor. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

Source: Nerstad, C.G.L., Searle, R., Černe, M., Dysvik, A., Škerlavaj, M., & Scherer, R. (2017): Perceived mastery climate, felt trust, and knowledge sharing, Journal of Organizational Behavior, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.2241/epdf.

Riding two Horses at Once: The Combined Roles of Mastery and Performance Climates in Implementing Creative Ideas

Posted on by Miha Škerlavaj

Innovation paradox is a reason behind much of trouble within and around innovation processes. What works on the front end of creative process, does not necessarily contribute to the innovation outcomes. Continuing our work that started with exploring role of perceived supervisor support and more extensive Capitalizing on creativity book project, we now present finding from Chinese and Slovenian employees on the role of motivational climates for innovation. Below you will find the abstract of our recent publication in the European Management Review:

Not all creative ideas end up being implemented. Drawing on micro-innovation literature and achievement goal theory, we propose that the interplay of two types of work motivational climates (mastery and performance) moderates a curvilinear relationship between the frequency of idea-generation and idea-implementation behavior. Field studies in two non-Western countries (China, with a study of 117 employees nested within 21 groups, and Slovenia, with a study of 240 employees nested within 34 groups) revealed a three-way interaction of idea generation, performance climate, and mastery climate as joint predictors of idea implementation. Specifically, results of random coefficient modeling show that when combined, mastery and performance climates transform the relationship between the frequency of idea generation and idea implementation from an inverse U-shaped curvilinear relationship to a positive and more linear one. These findings suggest that ideas are most frequently implemented in organizational contexts characterized by both high-mastery and high-performance climates. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Source: Škerlavaj, M., Černe, M., Dysvik, A., Nerstad, C. G. L., and Su, C. (2017): Riding two Horses at Once: The Combined Roles of Mastery and Performance Climates in Implementing Creative Ideas. European Management Review, doi: 10.1111/emre.12151.

 

Research seminar on knowlege hiding, motivational climates and creativity @ BI

Posted on by Miha Škerlavaj

Today, we (that is Matej Černe, Christina Nerstad, and Anders Dysvik) held a research seminar on an article that we will present at the Academy of Management Conference 2012, Boston, MA. It has also been chosen for the publication in Best paper conference proceedings. Its’ central idea is that knowledge hiding of an individual creates a so-called distrust loop which in turn damages one’s self creativity (not just creativity of coworkers). And performance climate just makes things worse (to put it in simple terms). However, that there is a cure for that called a mastery climate – a climate that promotes development, growth and collaboration among colleagues.  Great discussions and most helpful comments from the colleagues from Department of Leadership and Organisational Behavior, BI Norwegian Business School.