Too-much-of-a-good-thing? The curvilinear relation among Communication Openness, knowledge sharing intention and Enterprise Innovation Performance and moderating effect of gender

Abstract

This study explored the relationship between communication openness and corporate innovation performance by constructing intermediary effect model. Data was collected from knowledge workers working in China. The results show that communication openness respectively has an inverted U-shape effect on corporate innovation performance and on employees’ knowledge sharing intention, knowledge sharing intention plays a mediating role between communication openness and corporate innovation performance. And gender moderated the inverted U-shape relation between communication openness and knowledge sharing intention. This study rethinks the effect of communication in innovation processes and in knowledge sharing. The results also show that gender should not be treated as a control variable in the study of knowledge sharing, but should be conceptualized and contextualized.