Extending past research in extra-role behavior: "Unleasing a new paradigm from the prism of knowledge sharing and whistleblowing"

Abstract

This dissertation attempts to adopt an interactionist approach on extra-role behavior with a series of 3 independent, experiment-based field studies; 2 studies centered on knowledge sharing and 1 study on whistleblowing. Study 1, based on a sample of 295 engineers, investigates and compares the effectiveness of performance appraisal vs. performance bonuses in facilitating knowledge sharing as well as the moderating roles of impression management, Machiavellianism, and the potential beneficiaries of the knowledge sharing. Including knowledge sharing in the appraisal system had a stronger impact on whether employees would be willing to share knowledge than the provision of bonuses; however, the impact varied according to whether the co-workers were considered close friends as well as the personality and motives of the employee. Overall, results showed that Machiavellians responded instrumentally, whereas impression managersa?? responses were consistent with a desire to maintain a public imageStudy 2 (a follow up and extension of Study1), involving 150 engineers, explores the joint effects of employee self-monitoring disposition and explicit incentives for increasing employeesa?? willingness to share knowledge across various beneficiaries in a work setting. I found that the presence of incentives was highly effective at increasing employeesa?? willingness to share work-related knowledge and that recognition-based incentives were, overall, as effective as pay-based incentives. However, for high self-monitors, recognition-based incentives were more effective than pay-based incentives. Willingness to share knowledge also varied according to whom the recipient would be (coworkers who are friends, coworkers in onea??s work unit, or other employees in the organization). These findings highlight the importance of considering motivation and incentives when implementing knowledge management systems, as well as the critical role of individual differences in impression management concerns.Study 3, involving 102 engineers, examined the role of organizational directed motives (motives of organizational concern) and co-worker directed motives (motives of pro-social values) on the intention to report company wrongdoings anonymously vs. non-anonymously. Results showed that organization-directed sentiments and whistleblowing intent were negatively correlated in the non-anonymous condition while uncorrelated in the anonymous condition; however, coworker-directed sentiments and whistleblowing intent were negatively correlated in the anonymous condition while uncorrelated in the non-anonymous condition. These results demonstrate the importance of person-situation interaction in whistleblowing research. The findings are interpreted in terms of individuala??s level of affect toward organization vs. co-workers and target of self-presentation (organization vs. co-workers).Overall, findings across the 3 independent studies highlight the usefulness of considering the joint effects of dispositional and situational factors in studying extra-role behaviors. Results demonstrated that person-by-situation interaction effects could explain a substantial amount of variance over and above either personality or situational variance taken separately. From a theoretical perspective, the 3 studies reported in this dissertation provides further support for the proposition of Mischel and Shoda (Mischel & Shoda, 1998, Shoda & Mischel 2000) that personality / disposition should be conceptualized in terms of patterns of cognition, affect, and behavior that a person accesses for a particular situation rather than across situations.