The Effects of Social Capital's Relational Dimension on Tacit and Explicit Knowledge Sharing

Software development companies are knowledge intensive and usually adopt either traditional or agile methods to drive their projects. This paper concentrates on organizations that have been using Agile Methods (AM), which focus is, from a knowledge perspective, on tacit knowledge. Although the knowledge might flow well within agile teams, there are often opportunities in terms of knowledge flowing across teams' boundaries, which can negatively impact organizational learning. Furthermore, difficult relations between individuals within an organization may constitute a barrier to knowledge sharing (KS). Given this scenario, this article aims to analyse the influence of the relational dimension of social capital theory on tacit and explicit KS among individuals from different software development teams. To this end, a survey was conducted among individuals working in software development teams using agile methodology in which 205 completed questionnaires were collected. The data were analysed using descriptive measures and partial least squares structural equation modelling. The findings show: 1) reciprocity directly influences tacit and explicit KS; 2) norms of cooperation and trust directly influence tacit KS; 3) reciprocity, norms of cooperation and trust indirectly influence explicit KS; and 4) tacit KS influences explicit KS. These findings are aligned with the characteristics of AM, which prioritise tacit knowledge. This study should help managers and scholars: 1) identify how to increase KS among individuals from different teams using AM; and 2) understand the relevance of reciprocity, which is the only motivation directly associated with tacit and explicit KS among individuals from different teams.