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Organizational learning has been recognized as a critical intervention to gain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage for organizations in a business environment (Guinot et al., 2016). In other words, organizational learning can play a significant role in acquiring, disseminating and using knowledge to adapt to a changing external environment (Hoe and McShane, 2010). Through a process of cognitive and behavioral changes, organizational learning leads to expected outcomes in the current value system (e.g. trial-and-error; Argyris and Schon, 1996). This process also includes reflection on values/norms and social structures to examine the appropriateness of the final desired outcomes (e.g. innovation).
Considerable attention has been paid to organizational learning. In particular, many scholars have discussed the significant antecedents of organizational learning including individual behavior, attitudinal variables and leadership factors (Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011; Hoe and McShane, 2010). For instance, interpersonal trust, open communication and knowledge sharing, an organizational culture and climate and transformational leadership have been shown to significantly predict organizational learning (Flores et al., 2012; Hsu and Chang, 2014; Sattayaraksa and Boon-itt, 2016; Swift and Hwang, 2013). Among the various factors, transformational leadership has been recognized as a key determinant of organizational learning because it has a critical impact on illustrating appropriate attitudes and behaviors for employees (Flores et al., 2012).
Although previous studies have explored the roles of diverse antecedents of organizational learning, few studies have given empirical evidence to support the mediating role of a knowledge sharing climate and behavior as well as interpersonal trust on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational learning. More research is needed to understand the diverse functions that knowledge sharing and trust play in organizational learning. This knowledge is particularly needed because organizational learning can help employees become active members of the organization and can ultimately contribute to organizational performance (Hoe and McShane, 2010; Somech and Drach-Zahavy, 2004). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the structural relationships among transformational leadership, knowledge sharing climate and behavior, interpersonal trust and organizational learning. The research question guiding this study is as follows:
What are the relationships among transformational leadership, knowledge sharing climate and behavior, interpersonal trust and organizational learning?
This study makes three meaningful contributions to the literature on organizational learning. First, we...