Team personality composition, affective ties and knowledge sharing: a team-level analysis

As knowledge has become the most valuable asset for organisations in the knowledge economy age, the related issue of knowledge management has attracted increasing attention. In particular, the concept of knowledge sharing, a necessary process for organisations seeking fruitful knowledge transfer and creation can help organisations gain and sustain a competitive advantage. In this study, we investigate the issue of knowledge sharing based on the input-process-output (IPO) model at the team level. Fifty-three teams composed of 205 employees participated in this exploration of the relationships among team personality composition (based on a five-factor personality model), team process (affective ties) and team outcomes (knowledge sharing). With respect to team personality composition, higher team mean levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience and extroversion corresponded with higher levels of knowledge sharing. Agreeableness and extroversion also were associated with knowledge sharing through intra-team affective ties.