Linking the Big Five Model of Personality to Knowledge Sharing Intention

This study aims at empirically analyzing the relation between employees' personality and their knowledge sharing intentions, on which enough light has not yet been shed in spite of its importance. By integrating the big five model of personality with social capital theory and social cognitive theory, this study develops six hypotheses concerning the relation and empirically tests them by using 724 samples collected from employees in practice. The empirical analysis results from this study reveal that employees' extroversion and agreeableness are positively associated with their social relations and that their openness to experience and conscientiousness are positively associated with their knowledge self-efficacy, which are positively related to their knowledge sharing intentions. Based on the new findings, theoretical and practical implications are provided for knowledge management researchers and managers in practice.