Self-Leadership, Personality and Innovative Work Behaviour: The Mediating Effect of Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

Innovative work behaviour (IWB) has been acknowledged as seedbed for organizational innovativeness, which
eventually lead to organizational competitiveness, long term growth and sustainability. Recognizing its importance,
studies on antecedents of IWB have been flourishing for the past ten years. However, majority of these studies have
been focusing on myriad of organizational and contextual factors which limits our understanding on the dynamic and
complexities of human behaviours in terms of their inherent traits. Moreover, most of these studies have been in the
context of large-sized companies. This study extends previous empirical linkages among self-leadership, personality,
knowledge sharing behaviour (KSB) and IWB by examining the mediating effect of knowledge sharing behaviour.
Three hundred and five employees from forty-two small-sized food and beverage companies participated in this study.
Partial Least square Structural Equation Modelling was used to examine both the measurement model and path
analysis. Contrary to previous studies, self-leadership was found to have no significant influence on KSB. Personality,
in particular, Agreeableness, has significant influence on KSB and indirect significance influence on IWB. KSB
explained 23.% of variance in IWB supporting the notion that individual willingness to share knowledge is imperative
for IWB. This study substantiates several claims made in earlier studies yet provides new understanding on the
dynamics amongst personality, self-leadership, KSB and IWB