The strategic importance of knowledge sharing and its relationships with organizational and managerial (i.e. environmental) factors have been well documented. The effects of some context-specific individual factors—including interpersonal trust—on knowledge sharing have also been investigated. The effects of enduring and pervasive individual factors (i.e, personality) on knowledge sharing have not been adequately described empirically. This article links personality, specifically agreeableness, a broad personality domain and propensity to trust, a narrow personality facet, to knowledge sharing via interpersonal trust, thereby clarifying substantial person-related effects within these important workplace phenomena.
Abrams, L. C. , Cross, R. , Lesser, E. and Levin, D. Z. (2003) ‘Nurturing Interpersonal Trust in Knowledge-Sharing Networks’ , Academy of Management Executive17(4): 64-77 .
2.
Allport, G. W. (1937) Personality: A Psychological Interpretation. New York: Holt .
3.
Ardichvili, A. , Page, V. and Wentling, T. (2003) ‘Motivation and Barriers to Participation in Virtual Knowledge-sharing Communities of Practice’ , Journal of Knowledge Management7(1): 64-77 .
4.
Argote, L. (1999) Organizational Learning: Creating, Retaining and Transferring Knowledge. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers .
5.
Argote, L. , Ingram, P. , Levine, J. M. and Moreland, R. L. (2000) ‘Knowledge Transfer in Organizations’ , Organisational Behavior and Human Decision Processes82(1): 1-8 .
6.
Argote, L. , Gruenfeld, D. and Naquin, C. (2001) ‘Group Learning in Organizations’, in M. E. Turner (ed.) Groups at Work: Theory and Research, pp. 369-411. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum .
7.
Asendorpf, J. B. and Wilpers, S. (1998) ‘Personality Effects on Social Relationships’ , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology74: 1531-1544 .
8.
Barrick, M. R. , Mount, M. K. and Judge, T. A. (2001) ‘Personality and Job Performance at the Beginning of the New Millenium: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go Next?’ , International Journal of Selection and Assessment9: 9-30 .
9.
Bigley, G. A. and Pearce, J. L. (1998) ‘Straining for Shared Meaning in Organization Science: Problems of Trust and Distrust’ , Academy of Management Review23: 405-421 .
10.
Blackler, F. (1995) ‘Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organizations—An Overview and Interpretation’ , Organization Studies16(6): 1021-1046 .
11.
Bock, G.-W. , Zmud, R. W. , Kim, Y.-G. and Lee, J.-N. (2005) ‘Behavioral Intention Formation in Knowledge Sharing: Examining the Roles of Extrinsic Motivators, Social-psychological Forces and Organizational Climate’ , MIS Quarterly29(1): 87-112 .
12.
Borkenau, P. and Ostendorf, F. (1993) NEO-Fünf-Faktoren Inventar (nach Costa und McCrae) [NEO-Five-factor Inventory, after Costa and McCrae]. Gōttingen: Hogrefe .
13.
Bouchard, T. J. and Loehlin, J. C. (2001) ‘Genes, Evolution and Personality’ , Behavior Genetics31: 243-273 .
14.
Bowling, N. A. , Beehr, T. A. and Swaderb, W. M. (2005) ‘Giving and Receiving Social Support at Work: the Roles of Personality and Reciprocity’ , Journal of Vocational Behaviour67(3): 476-489 .
15.
Brown, J. S. and Duguid, P. (2002) ‘Local Knowledge—Innovation in the Networked Age’ , Management Learning33(4): 427-437 .
16.
Brown, H. B. , Poole, M. S. and Rogers, T. (2004) ‘Interpersonal Traits, Complementarity and Trust in Virtual Collaboration’ , Journal of Management Information Systems20: 115-138 .
17.
Cabrera, Á. and Cabrera, E. F. (2002) ‘Knowledge-sharing Dilemmas’ , Organization Studies23(5): 687-710 .
18.
Colbert, A. E. , Mount, M. K. , Harter, J. K. , Witt, L. A. and Barrick, M. R. (2004) ‘Interactive Effects of Personality and Perceptions of the Work Situation on Workplace Deviance’ , Journal of Applied Psychology89: 599-609 .
19.
Cook, J. and Wall, T. (1980) ‘New Work Attitude Measures of Trust, Organizational Commitment and Personal Need Non-Fulfilment’ , Journal of Occupational Psychology53: 39-52 .
20.
Costa, T. J. and McCrae, R. R. (1992) Revised NEO Personality Inventory and NEO Five-factor Inventory Professional Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources .
21.
Couch, L. L. , Adams, J. M. and Jones, W. H. (1996) ‘The Assessment of Trust Orientation’ , Journal of Personality Assessment67: 305-323 .
22.
Cummings, J. N. (2004) ‘Work Groups, Structural Diversity and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization’ , Management Science50(3): 352-364 .
23.
DeNeve, K. and Cooper, H. (1998) ‘The Happy Personality: A Meta-analysis of 137 Personality Traits and Subjective Well-being’ , Psychological Bulletin124(2): 197-229 .
24.
Digman, J. T. (1990) ‘Personality Structure: Emergence of the Five-factor Model’ , Annual Review of Psychology41: 417-440 .
25.
Dirks, K. T. and Ferrin, D. L. (2001) ‘The Role of Trust in Organizational Settings’ , Organization Science12: 450-467 .
26.
Fornell, C. and Bookstein, F. (1982) ‘Two Structural Equations Models: LISREL and PLS Applied to Consumer Exit-voice Theory’ , Journal of Marketing Research18(November): 39-50 .
27.
Fornell, C. and Larcker, D. F. (1981) ‘Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error’ , Journal of Marketing Research18(Feb-ruary): 39-50 .
28.
Funder, D. (2001) ‘Personality’ , Annual Review of Psychology52: 197-221 .
29.
Gefen, D. (2000) ‘E-commerce: the Role of Familiarity and Trust’ , Omega28: 725-737 .
30.
Gherardi, S. , Nicolini, D. and Odella, F. (1998) ‘Toward a Social Understanding of How People Learn in Organizations’ , Management Learning29(3): 273-297 .
31.
Goldberg, L. R. (1993) ‘The Structure of Phenotypic Personality Traits’ , American Psychologist48: 26-34 .
32.
Gosling, S. D. , Rentfrow, P. J. and Sann, W. B. J. (2003) ‘A Very Brief Measure of the Big-Five Personality Domains’ , Journal of Research in Personality37: 504-528 .
33.
Graziano, W. G. (1994) ‘The Development of Agreeableness as a Dimension of Personality’, in C. F. Halverson, Jr. , G. A. Kohnstamm and R. P. Martin (eds) The Developing Structure of Temperament and Personality from Infacy to Adulthood, pp. 339-354. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum .
34.
Graziano, W. G. and Eisenberg, N. H. (1997) ‘Agreeableness: A Dimension of Personality’, in R. Hogan , J. Johnson and S. Briggs (eds) Handbook of Personality Psychology, pp. 795-824. San Diego, CA: Academic Press .
35.
Graziano, W. G. , Jensen-Campbell, L. A. and Hair, E. C. (1996) ‘Perceiving Interpersonal Conflict and Reacting to it: The Case for Agreeableness’ , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology70: 820-835 .
36.
Hansen, M. T. (1999) ‘The Search-Transfer Problem—The Role of Weak Ties in Sharing Knowledge across Organization Subunits’ , Administrative Science Quarterly44(March): 82-111 .
37.
Hansen, M. T. (2002) ‘Knowledge Networks—Explaining Effective Knowledge Sharing in Multiunit Companies’ , Organization Science13(3): 232-248 .
38.
Hansmann, K.-W. and Ringle, C. M. (2004) SmartPLS Manual. Hamburg: University of Hamburg .
39.
Heaven, C. L. (1996) ‘Personality and Self-reported Delinquency: Analysis of the “Big Five” Personality Dimensions’ , Personality and Individual Differences20: 47-54 .
40.
Hough, L. M. and Ones, D. S. (2001) ‘The Structure, Measurement, Validity and Use of Personality Variables in Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology’, in N. Anderson , D. S. Ones , H. Sinangil and C. Viswesvaran (eds) Handbook of Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology, pp. 233-277. London: Sage .
41.
Hulland, J. (1999) ‘Use of Partial Least Squares (PLS) in Strategic Management Research: A Review of Four Recent Studies’ , Strategic Management Journal20(2): 195-204 .
42.
Hurley, R. F. (1998) ‘Customer Service Behavior in Retail Settings: A Study of the Effect of Service Provider Personality’ , Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science26: 115-127 .
43.
Hurtz, G. M. and Donovan, J. J. (2000) ‘Personality and Job Performance: The Big Five Revisited’ , Journal of Applied Psychology85: 869-879 .
44.
Jarvenpaa, S. L. , Knoll, K. and Leidner, D. E. (1998) ‘Is Anybody Out There? Antecedents of Trust and Global Virtual Teams’ , Journal of Management Information Systems14(4): 29-64 .
45.
Jensen-Campbell, L. A. , Roselli, M. , Workman, K. A. , Santisi, M. , Rios, J. D. and Bojan, D. (2002) ‘Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Effortful Control Processes’ , Journal of Research in Personality36: 476-489 .
46.
John, O. P. and Srivastava, S. (1999) ‘The Big Five Trait Taxonomy: History, Measurement and Theoretical Perspectives’, in L. A. Pervin and O. P. John (eds) Handbook of Personality, pp. 102-138. New York: Guilford Press .
47.
Johnson, J. A. (2005) ‘Ascertaining the Validity of Individual Protocols from Web-based Personality Inventories’ , Journal of Research in Personality39: 103-129 .
48.
Johnson, J. A. and Ostendorf, F. (1993) ‘Clarification of the Five-factor Model with the Abridged Big Five-dimensional Circumplex’ , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology55: 824-835 .
49.
Jones, W. H. , Couch, L. and Scott, S. (1997) ‘Trust and Betrayal: The Psychology of Getting Along and Getting Ahead’, in R. Hogan , J. A. Johnson and S. R. Briggs (eds) Handbook of Personality Psychology, pp. 465-482. San Diego, CA: Academic Press .
50.
King, E. B. , George, J. M. and Hebl, M. R. (2005) ‘Linking Personality to Helping Behaviors at Work: An Interactional Perspective’ , Journal of Personality73: 585-603 .
51.
Kramer, R. M. (1999) ‘Trust and Distrust: Emerging Questions, Enduring Questions’ , Annual Review of Psychology50: 569-598 .
52.
Laursen, B. , Pulkkinen, L. and Adams, R. (2002) ‘The Antecedents and Correlates of Agreeableness in Adulthood’ , Developmental Psychology38: 591-603 .
53.
Levin, D. Z. and Cross, R. (2004) ‘The Strength of Weak Ties You Can Trust: The Mediating Role of Trust in Effective Knowledge Transfer’ , Management Science50(11): 1477-1490 .
54.
Levin, D. Z. , Whitener, E. M. and Cross, R. (2006) ‘Perceived Trustworthiness of Knowledge Sources: The Moderating Impact of Relationship Length’ , Journal of Applied Psychology91(5): 1163-1171 .
55.
McAdams, D. P. (1996) ‘Personality, Modernity and the Storied Self: A Contemporary Framework for Studying Persons’ , Psychological Inquiry7: 295-321 .
56.
McCrae, R. R. (2004) ‘Human Nature and Culture: A Trait Perspective’ , Journal of Research in Personality38: 3-14 .
57.
McCrae, R. R. and Costa, T. J. (2003) Personality in Adulthood: a Five-factor Theory Perspective. New York: Guilford .
58.
McEvily, B. , Peronne, V. and Zaheer, A. (2003) ‘Trust as an Organizing Principle’ , Organization Science14: 91-103 .
59.
MacDonald, A. P. , Kessel, V. S. and Fuller, J. B. (1972) ‘Self-disclosure and Two Kinds of Trust’ , Psychological Reports30: 143-148 .
60.
MacDonald, K. (1998) ‘Evolution, Culture and the Five-factor Model’ , Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology29(1): 119-149 .
61.
Mayer, R. C. , Davis, J. H. and Schoorman, F. D. (1995) ‘An Integrative Model of Organisational Trust’ , Academy of Management Review20(3): 709-734 .
62.
Miller, J. D. and Karakowsky, L. (2005) ‘Gender Influences as an Impediment to Knowledge Sharing: When Men and Women Fail to Seek Peer Feedback’ , Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied13: 39-55 .
63.
Mount, M. K. , Barrick, M. R. and Stewart, G. L. (1998) ‘Five-factor Model of Personality and Performance in Jobs Involving Interpersonal Interactions’ , Human Performance11: 145-165 .
64.
Mowen, J. C. (2000) The 3M Model of Motivation and Personality: Theory and Empirical Applications to Consumer Behavior. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers .
65.
Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge-Creating Company—How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press .
66.
Ozer, D. J. and Reise, S. P. (1994) ‘Personality Assessment’ , Annual Review of Psychology45: 357-388 .
67.
Paunonen, S. V. , Haddock, G. , Forsterling, F. and Keinonen, M. (2003) ‘Broad versus Narrow Personality Measures and the Prediction of Behaviour across Cultures’ , European Journal of Personality17: 413-433 .
68.
Payne, R. L. and Clark, M. C. (2003) ‘Dispositional and Situational Determinants of Trust in Two Types of Managers’ , International Journal of Human Resource Management14(1): 128-138 .
69.
Rempel, J. K. , Holmes, J. G. and Zanna, M. P. (1985) ‘Trust in Close Relationships’ , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology49: 95-112 .
70.
Renner, W. (2002) ‘A Psychometric Analysis of the NEO Five-factor Inventory in an Austrian Sample’ , Review of Psychology9(1-2): 25-31 .
71.
Ridings, C. , Gefen, D. and Arinze, B. (2002) ‘Some Antecedents and Effects of Trust in Virtual Communities’ , Journal of Strategic Information Systems11(3-4): 271-295 .
72.
Rotter, J. (1967) ‘A New Scale for the Measurement of Interpersonal Trust’ , Journal of Personality35: 651-665 .
73.
Saucier, G. and Ostendorf, F. (1999) ‘Hierarchical Subcomponents of the Big Five Personality Factors’ , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology76: 613-627 .
74.
Smith, T. W. and Glazer, K. (2004) ‘Hostility, Anger, Aggressiveness and Coronary Heart Disease: An Interpersonal Perspective on Personality, Emotion and Health’ , Journal of Personality72(6): 1217-1270 .
75.
Spender, J.-C. (1996) ‘Making Knowledge the Basis of a Dynamic Theory of the Firm’ , Strategic Management Journal17(winter special issue): 45-62 .
76.
Swan, J. , Scarbrough, H. and Robertson, M. (2002) ‘The Construction of “Communities of Practice” in the Management of Innovation’ , Management Learning33(4): 477-496 .
77.
Szulanski, G. (1996) ‘Exploring Internal Stickiness: Impediments to the Transfer of Best Practice within the Firm’ , Strategic Management Journal17(winter): 27-43 .
78.
Tsai, W. (2002) ‘Social Structure of “Coopetition” within a Multiunit Organization: Coordination, competition and Intraorganizational Knowledge Sharing’ , Organization Science13(2): 179-190 .
79.
van Lange, P. A. , van Vugt, M. , Meertens, R. and Ruiter, R. A. (1998) ‘A Social Dilemma Analysis of Commuting Preferences: The Role of Social Value Orientation and Trust’ , Journal of Applied Social Psychology28: 796-820 .
80.
von Krogh, G. , Ichijo, K. and Nonaka, I. (2000) Enabling Knowledge Creation—How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press .
81.
Waller, N. G. (1999) ‘Evaluating the Structure of Personality’, in C. R. Cloninger (ed.) Personality and Psychopathology, pp. 155-197. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association .
82.
Wasko, M. M. and Faraj, S. (2005) ‘Why Should I Share? Examining Social Capital and Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Networks of Practice’ , MIS Quarterly29(1): 35-57 .
83.
Wenger, E. C. (2000) ‘Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems’ , Organization7(2): 225-246 .
84.
Wiggins, J. (1979) ‘A Psychological Taxonomy of Trait-descriptive Terms: The Interpersonal Domain’ , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology37: 395-412 .
85.
Wixom, B. H. and Watson, H. J. (2001) ‘An Empirical Investigation of the Factors Affecting Data Warehousing Success’ , MIS Quarterly25(1): 17-41 .
86.
Zander, U. and Kogut, B. (1995) ‘Knowledge and the Speed of the Transfer and Imitation of Organizational Capabilities: An Empirical Test’ , Organization Science6(1): 76-92 .
