The effects of Personality Trait and Social Cognitive Factors on Knowledge Sharing Behavior of the Hospital Nurses

성격적 특성과 사회인지적 요인이 병원 근무 간호사의 지식공유행동에 미치는 영향

This study investigates the antecedents of knowledge sharing behavior focusing on the individual level factors in an assumption that the behavior is initiated from the individual level decisions. A hypothesis that the relation between personality trait and behavior is mediated by the social-cognitive constructs contained in the Theory of Planned Behavior(TPB) is tested. For the study, we suggest a TPB extended model that extends original TPB model by including conscientiousness facet of FFM(Five Factor Model). This study uses a cross-sectional design. Data were collected from a self-reported survey on 197 nurses in a tertiary hospital. The results showes a significant positive relationship between the conscientiousness facet of FFM and knowledge sharing behavior. In the TPB extended model, the conscientiousness facet has significant direct effects on all the constructs of original TPB model. Of the TPB exogenous constructs, the social norm construct alone has a significant effect on intention and the perceived behavioral has a direct significant effect on the knowledge sharing behavior. These results confirm the importance of conscientiousness in predicting knowledge sharing behavior and clarify the characteristics of knowledge sharing behavior as a contextual, job oriented behavior in a workplace. We conclude that personality trait as conceptualized in the FFM needs to be integrated into TPB model in explaining the knowledge sharing behavior. Based on these results theoretical and practical implications are discussed.