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Research Article

Effects of Core Self-evaluation, Co-worker Trust, and Social Interdependence with Moderation of Individual Virtual Competence on Knowledge Sharing of Remote Workers

Han Kyu Jin, Kim, YoungKyung, Lee Jungwoo

Yonsei University
Yonsei University
Yonsei University

Published: January 2021 · Vol. 50, No. 3 · pp. 829-860

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17287/kmr.2021.50.3.829

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Abstract

With the advance of information technology, remote work is increasingly adopted as a standard practice in the field. This study explores the underlying mechanism of knowledge sharing in a remote work environment. Via literature review, core self-evaluation, co-worker trust, social interdependence, and individual virtual competence are identified as critical antecedents and performance and job satisfaction as outcomes of knowledge sharing. An empirical model is derived with individual virtual competence as the moderating construct of all the antecedents. Analysis of survey data collected from 178 workers with remote work experience revealed that affective co-worker trust and goal interdependence have a stronger influence on knowledge sharing than core self-evaluation and task interdependence. Interestingly, cognitive trust turns out to be insignificant in our sample. Moreover, the impact of affective co-worker trust, task interdependence, and goal interdependence on knowledge sharing is found to be strongly moderated by individual virtual competence, impacting job performance and job satisfaction. Task and goal interdependence needs to be carefully designed in a remote work environments in order to increase knowledge sharing among remote workers. Also, increasing affective trust by way of intermittent face-to-face meeting would benefit the performance and satisfaction. Future research and limitations are discussed at the end.
Keywords: teleworkknowledge sharingknowledge transfercore self-evaluation(CSE)co-worker trustsocial interdependenceindividual virtual competence(IVC)