Does digital transformation promote (or inhibit) employee knowledge sharing? The roles of state regulatory focus and employee status

Abstract

Digital transformation is developing rapidly and is of great significance to organizational knowledge management. However, most existing studies focus on the macro level, paying attention to its impact on the organizational knowledge management structure while neglecting the knowledge management behaviors of individual employees at the micro level. At the micro level, however, employees' willingness to share knowledge is often the foundational prerequisite for successful organizational knowledge management. In view of this, this study aims to explore how enterprise digital transformation influences employees' knowledge sharing behavior through state promotion focus and state prevention focus based on the regulatory focus theory, as well as to examine the moderating roles of employees' status in these relationships. By collecting survey data of 214 employees in China at three time points, we find that enterprise digital transformation can increase employees' knowledge sharing behavior via enhancing their state promotion focus. However, for high-status employees, enterprise digital transformation may instead lead them to develop a state prevention focus, which subsequently reduces their knowledge sharing behavior. Drawing on the regulatory focus theory, this study broadens the theoretical horizon of enterprise digital transformation and knowledge management at the micro level. Simultaneously, this study offers practical counsel for knowledge management in the throes of digital transformation.