2. Literature Review
IB refers to employees’ discovery and generation of new ideas and the proposal and implementation of solutions [
1,
3]. It usually depends on the re-integration and absorption of knowledge, on the collision between different ideas, and on the re-integration of resources. Organization environments, such as interpersonal trust between organizational members, are influential for both KS and IB [
5]. KS highly depends on the mutual trust between organizational members. Employees hardly share knowledge and information with others if they distrust each other.
ITW is derived from employees’ positive expectations that the others in the organizations will perform particular actions important to them under risk-prone conditions [
9]. In most cases, employees do not have enough knowledge and experiences to implement innovations by themselves. IB is based on the sharing of knowledge, technology, information and experience. KS in ICT companies, especially those who are creating complex and knowledge-intensive products, is essential for maintaining high levels of organizational innovation [
10]. In general, previous studies have confirmed the positive relationship between KS and IB. Therefore, KS is an important mediator between ITW and IB [
11].
AOC is crucial to KS and employee innovation. AOC constitutes a necessary condition for employees to voluntarily share important knowledge such as competences, key information and personal experiences [
12]. AOC produces a collective sense of identity among individuals in the organization, leads to a sense of shared purpose, and increases the likelihood that employees will engage voluntarily in KS within the organizations [
13].
ITW includes vertical and horizontal trusts [
14]. Vertical trust lies between employees and their immediate supervisors or top management, whereas horizontal trust exists between employees and their peers or equals in the workplace [
15]. However, small or mid-sized ICT companies have adopted flexible, increasingly flat organizational forms with fewer hierarchical levels in order to encourage equal interactions and free communications. This makes horizontal trust, rather than vertical trust, more important for teamwork and organizational innovation [
16]. Therefore, this study focused on horizontal trust.
IB is the process of reengineering knowledge and reusing resources. Interpersonal trust is conducive to resolving the conflicts among members of an innovation team and shaping organizational commitment. Stronger interpersonal trust can lead to more mutual supports, cooperation and coordination among employees and less opportunistic behaviors [
17]. ITW can also provide psychological support for employees and help them obtain feedback on work-related issues, which has a positive impact on IB [
18]. ITW also improves the feeling of emotional safety among the team, which can encourage IB. High interpersonal trust can help employees overcome the pressure at work and obtain encouragement for IB [
9]. Therefore, we developed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1 (H1). ITW could have a positive impact on IB.
Organizational commitment is an emotional state maintained between an employee and an organization, usually measured by three categories: affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment [
19]. Among these three categories, AOC has drawn the most research attention [
20]. AOC refers to the emotional attachment and identification with organizational values and organizational goals [
21]. ITW is derived from personal informal relationships, affective connections and high-quality interactions and leads to stronger AOC [
22]. As ICT companies have less formality and consistently experienced rapid restructuring and renewal, employees are more likely to have greater interpersonal trust which has become an increasingly important element of organizational environments in uncertain times [
23]. Employees usually have higher levels of AOC when they trust each other in the workplace. Therefore, we developed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2 (H2). ITW could have a positive impact on AOC.
Another potential consequence of ITW is KS. KS requires the willingness of individuals to actively participate in the exchange and creation of knowledge and to collaborate together in the workplace [
13]. KS is specifically important for ICT companies to obtain sustainable competitive advantages. These companies should encourage their employees to transfer expertise, information and technology to their colleagues [
24]. KS is the fundamental means to enrich organizational knowledge by leveraging individual knowledge. Trust relationships, common frames of reference and shared goals are important antecedents of KS [
25]. As knowledge, especially tacit knowledge, is a resource developed in an individual mind, KS requires a willingness of the individuals who possess it to share and communicate it [
26].
However, promoting KS is a major challenge, as many employees tend to hoard their own knowledge, rather than taking steps to convert their knowledge into a form that can be understood, absorbed, and used by others, and they are suspicious of the knowledge given by their colleagues [
27]. In an organization, the exchange of knowledge, technology, information and experience not only depends on formal organizational communication, such as document exchange, training, meetings and so on, but also on informal in-person communications, especially for the dissemination of tacit knowledge [
28]. It is nearly impossible for employees to share ideas and knowledge without strong interpersonal trust. High levels of ITW create conditions for the flow and sharing of ideas and knowledge in organizations. Therefore, interpersonal interactions constitute the channel of information flow, reducing the time and cost of obtaining information [
29]. The dissemination of knowledge, information and technology depends on interpersonal activities. Interpersonal trust can promote communications among employees, reduce the cost of knowledge and information, and lessen resource mismatch caused by information asymmetry [
30].
Why is ITW so important in determining KS? There are several reasons. First, when there are trust relationships, employees will be less concerned about the loss of KS and be more likely to provide useful knowledge [
31]. Employees believe that trusted colleagues, as the recipients of knowledge, will use the shared knowledge appropriately and not use it against them, even if the knowledge is incomplete, imperfect or containing errors. Second, employees expect reciprocity and receive positive feedback when in trust relationships, according to social exchange and social capital theories [
9]. Third, the knowledge shared by a trusted colleague or supervisor can save time and efforts in terms of verifying the acquired knowledge. Finally, ITW encourages employees to accept others’ knowledge and improve their responsiveness in KS [
32]. ICT companies can encourage more sharing behaviors with a set of normative documents that promote their duties or obligations to share knowledge in accordance with organizational values [
33]. ICT companies can reduce concerns regarding the potential losses of valuable information and promote the competitive advantages resulting from knowledge diffusion [
32]. Therefore, we developed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3 (H3). ITW could have a positive impact on KS.
KS depends on the giver’s willingness to voluntarily share knowledge. A high level of AOC will result in voluntary cooperation, including the sharing of knowledge. Extensive research has confirmed that AOC is a significant determinant of KS, across a broad range of countries and occupations [
34]. AOC plays an important mediating effect between ITW and KS. ICT companies depend on their highly educated talents and significantly invest in employee training and team building. The nature of knowledge in ICT companies is often tacit and less formalized. Higher AOC can encourage employees in ICT companies to voluntarily help their co-workers and share their tacit knowledge [
35]. Employees’ tacit knowledge does not transform automatically or easily into organizational knowledge, even with the implementation of knowledge repositories [
36]. Therefore, we developed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4 (H4). AOC could have a positive impact on KS.
Similarly, AOC can also increase the effort and value coherence and the attachment to the organization, thus promoting IB [
37]. IB is different from habitual behaviors embedded in bureaucratic systems. IB is potentially costly to employees due to the inherent risks. The failure of innovation can result in negative consequences [
38]. Therefore, employees might participate in innovational activities only when they have strong AOCs and are willing to take such risks. Therefore, we developed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 5 (H5). AOC could have a positive impact on IB.
KS is part of knowledge management and has been a focus of both academia and business due to its relevance for innovative capabilities [
8]. KS not only includes sending and receiving knowledge, but also enables the acquisition of beneficial knowledge [
39]. KS is a crucial process for an organization to meet challenges, to gain competitive advantage and to achieve its targets in an efficient and effective way. It enables the knowledge held by individuals and groups to be transferred to the organizational level, facilitating the development of new products, services, and processes in the organizations [
22]. KS is a fundamental tool for fostering innovative behaviors, stimulating critical thinking, and translating ideas into innovative behaviors [
40]. Employees can voluntarily share their valuable implicit or explicit knowledge with team members or colleagues. These behaviors in the workplace lead to knowledge creation and drive organizational innovation in ICT companies [
41]. Employees in ICT companies need explicit and implicit knowledge to improve their innovative performance. These companies should motivate employees to elaborate, integrate, and translate knowledge and information rather than simply passing them on to recipients [
42]. Therefore, we developed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 6 (H6). KS could have a positive impact on IB.
Although a number of studies have applied a gender-focused lens to innovation research in the last decade, the gender dynamics impacting employee innovation have not been fully discussed [
43]. Employee innovations in traditionally male-dominated industries have tended to exclude female participants, although there has been a growing interest in the role and function of females in innovation fields [
44]. However, female participation in innovative activities is increasing globally. Many females have led innovation, entrepreneurship, and science and technology activities in a variety of companies. Although only 5.5% of commercial patent holders are female, female involvement in patent-intensive fields has been increasing [
45].
In contemporary ICT companies, many innovative positions require relational as well as technical skills. The building and application of social capital, either actual or technology-based, are important to IB and KS. There are significant gender differences in the approaches used in the social networks, contacts, and alliances of colleagues to access knowledge and acquire new ideas, such that females tend to converse with others while males may experiment alone, when adapting to new technology [
46].
The socialization process and gender role differences between genders can vary in terms of the construction and application of interpersonal trust. Interpersonal trust, as an element of social capital, is important for both male and female employees in sharing complete and true information and knowledge and taking risks to embrace IB [
47]. However, males tend to construct and maintain an independent self-image and females consider others as parts of the whole self [
48]. As compared to males, females tend to have smaller and lower-level professional networks and maintain high levels of interpersonal trust with their colleagues when participating in KS and organizational innovation [
49]. For example, female scholars are more likely to cooperate with others to publish academic papers and males are more likely to publish alone, indicating that females may be more dependent on social capital to develop their innovations [
50]. Thus, we expected that ITW, as a part of social capital, might have stronger impacts on KS and IB among female employees. Therefore, we developed the following two hypotheses:
Hypothesis 7 (H7). ITW could have a stronger positive impact on KS for females than for males.
Hypothesis 8 (H8). ITW could have a stronger positive impact on IB for females than for males.
Previous research has suggested that males and females may use different criteria in their assessment of organizations. Males tended to have higher levels of organizational commitment than females, suggesting that males were more likely than females to hold jobs with commitment-enhancing features [
51]. Females were faced with more barriers than males in gaining acceptance and identity in their organizations. Females usually worked in occupations not usually associated with innovation, while male employees had more expectations of gaining returns from their organizations, such as job security, career development, power and promotion, and future relationships [
52]. Organizations might expect males to play key roles in most innovative activities in the natural sciences, technology and mathematics, and tacitly exclude females from these areas in the innovation policy [
53]. When faced with the potential risks and costs of KS and employee innovation, male employees with higher AOC were more likely to voluntarily share knowledge and sacrifice self-interest to make innovation happen [
54]. Prior research also demonstrated that male employees were more willing to share their knowledge with others and engage in innovative activities if they were certain that doing so was beneficial for their organizations [
55]. Thus, higher AOC could lead to more KS and IB in males than in females. Therefore, we developed the following two hypotheses (the above hypotheses are shown in the research model in
Figure 1):
Hypothesis 9 (H9). AOC could have a stronger positive impact on KS for males than for females.
Hypothesis 10 (H10). AOC could have a stronger positive impact on IB for males than for females.