This study aims to empirically investigate how ethical leadership and flexible role orientation influence employees’ knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding behaviors, and how intra-team task conflict and relationship conflict affect job performance ...
This study aims to empirically investigate how ethical leadership and flexible role orientation influence employees’ knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding behaviors, and how intra-team task conflict and relationship conflict affect job performance through knowledge behaviors. In addition, the study examines the moderating roles of self-enhancement and cynicism in the relationships between knowledge sharing, knowledge hiding, and job performance, thereby offering an integrated, multi-level understanding of the mechanisms underlying knowledge behaviors within organizations.
Data were collected from 300 employees working in manufacturing, service, technology, and administrative sectors through a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS 4.0. Reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity were confirmed, and the explanatory power (R²), path coefficients, mediation effects, and moderation effects were systematically evaluated.
The empirical results demonstrate, first, that ethical leadership and flexible role orientation significantly and positively influence knowledge sharing, while ethical leadership negatively affects knowledge hiding. Second, relationship conflict simultaneously decreases knowledge sharing and increases knowledge hiding, whereas task conflict increases knowledge hiding. Third, knowledge sharing enhances job performance, whereas knowledge hiding diminishes it. Fourth, knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding function as crucial mediators linking ethical leadership, flexible role orientation, and intra-team conflict to job performance. Fifth, while self-enhancement did not exhibit a significant moderating effect, cynicism significantly strengthened the negative impact of knowledge hiding on job performance.
This study makes a theoretical contribution by integrating ethical leadership, role orientation, organizational conflict, knowledge sharing, knowledge hiding, and psychological traits into a comprehensive structural model explaining job performance. Practical implications include strategies for cultivating a knowledge-sharing culture, strengthening ethical leadership, enhancing role flexibility, managing intra-team conflict, and reducing organizational cynicism in order to improve job performance.
Key words: Ethical leadership, Flexible role orientation, Task conflict, Relationship conflict, Knowledge sharing, Knowledge hiding, Job performance, Self-enhancement, Cynicism