The Impact of Individual Centrality and Helping on Knowledge Sharing: A Study of Fit

Knowledge sharing is crucial to organizational and team success. As the complexity and contextualization of knowledge management systems continue to escalate, employees are increasingly relying on peers for contextualized technical help. Our study focuses on knowledge sharing from the perspective of employees who provide technical help, and whether employees who are central to team communication networks are more likely to share knowledge. Using a goodness-as-fit perspective, we examined knowledge sharing through the information processing capabilities of individual centrality and information processing needs of helping behavior. Our results demonstrated that helping behavior, when coupled with individual centrality, predicted knowledge sharing. We subsequently discuss other outcomes of our analyses and findings, along with the implications and contributions of our study.