Effects of servant leadership, affective commitment, and trust on knowledge sharing tendency in the financial industry

ABSTRACT This study examines the inter-relational aspects of servant leadership, affective commitment, and the interaction of trust on employees’ knowledge-sharing tendency in the financial services industry. While much has been known about how trust correlates positively with the leader’s approach on knowledge-sharing behaviour; what is unknown is how knowledge-sharing tendency is explained by servant leadership and affective commitment and whether trust has a moderating effect on the relationships between servant leadership and affective commitment, and servant leadership and knowledge-sharing tendency. This study developed a moderated mediated model that examines data from a two-part study of 398 financial services personnel in Singapore. SmartPLS analyses revealed that affective commitment is a complementary mediator between the relationship of servant leadership and knowledge-sharing tendency. Trust moderates the relationship differently in that it positively enhances the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge-sharing tendency but attenuates the relationship between servant leadership and affective organisational commitment.