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Introduction
Knowledge is a strategic and valuable resource (Kim et al., 2017). It is a guiding force for organizations to achieve growth, success and sustainable competitive advantage (Shahzad et al., 2020). To respond to business, agile and dynamic organizations are focussing significantly on knowledge management (KM) (Shahzad et al., 2020). Thus, KM in organizations is continuously gaining attention from researchers (Harvey et al., 2021). Knowledge sharing is an important, indispensable and crucial aspect (Zahedi et al., 2016) of KM to endure and flourish in a dynamic and competitive business environment (Kim et al., 2017). Knowledge creation is a vital process for the long-term success of an organization (Hoon Song et al., 2012) and has turned out to be very essential in ambiguous, complex, uncertain and volatile environments of business (Konno and Schillaci, 2021). Knowledge sharing and knowledge creation are fundamental facets of KM (Anantatmula, 2010) and are regarded as key strategic capabilities (Nonaka et al., 2000). However, the limited focus has been accorded to the underlying processes for creating of new knowledge (Goswami and Agrawal, 2021; Tootell et al., 2021). This study concentrates on knowledge sharing and knowledge creation.
Knowledge sharing (Wu and Lee, 2016) and knowledge creation (Zelaya-Zamora and Senoo, 2013) are influenced by leaders. As such, research establishing linkage between leadership styles and knowledge sharing is attracting interest from scholars (Le and Lei, 2018). Further, there is limited systematic and analytical exposure to leadership’s role in knowledge creation (Goswami and Agrawal, 2021). In recent times, organizations are witnessing the occurrences of several business frauds and scandals, due to which research on the ethical aspect of leadership is getting momentum (Goswami et al., 2021; Shakeel et al., 2020; Frisch and Huppenbauer, 2014) and both researchers and practitioners are keen to explore its role in an organizational context (Halbusi et al., 2020). Although there is a boost in research on the influences of ethical leadership on employees’ behaviour, its influence on KM is inadequate and disintegrated (Goswami and Agrawal, 2021; Tang et al., 2015). However, it is expected that ethical leadership might be significant in influencing knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. Moreover, knowledge sharing is influenced by positive organizational factors (Wu and...