Justice Perceptions, Individual Centrality, and Knowledge Contribution Distinctions in a Global Organization

Distributed workgroups are increasingly adopted by global organizations, enabled by the use of advances in collaborative technologies. While the informal networks and performance of such workgroups have been examined, the paths that led to the distinctions in knowledge sharing practices remains blurred. Our research model examines the effects of individual advice and friendship networks on knowledge contribution through the lens of justice perceptions. We collected the data from distributed workgroups of a global knowledge intensive organization. Findings demonstrate that individuals with high advice centrality and moderate (neither high nor low) friendship centrality consistently contributed product and expertise knowledge. Distributive justice perception mediated advice centrality and product knowledge contribution while procedural justice perception mediated advice centrality and expertise knowledge contribution. Informational justice perception mediated friendship centrality and expertise knowledge sharing. These findings illustrate that depending on the network, different paths are taken towards product and expertise knowledge sharing.