When empowering leadership links to team work outcomes: Encouraging the expression of psychological empowerment and knowledge sharing

Abstract

Integrating theories of empowering leadership, psychological empowerment, knowledge sharing and performance, this study aims to understand how knowledge sharing in teams led by empowering leader affects desired team work outcomes by psychological empowerment. Knowledge sharing was examined as a mediator in the relationships between psychological empowerment and work outcomes in a survey of 244 hospital employees from 67 medical teams. Work outcomes were based on leader ratings of both teammates’ in-role and extra-role behavior. This study provided the theoretical and methodological contributions to identify empowering leadership positively related to psychological empowerment; psychological empowerment positively related to knowledge sharing, which in turn increases the likelihood of team performance, but not of extra-role behavior. The practical contributions were also discussed as important references for health care service organization.