Knowledge Sharing of Self-Initiated Expatriates: The Effects of Job Embeddedness, Career Capital, and Supervisor Incivility

• Published in: Management international review Vol. 64; no. 5; pp. 843 - 870
• Main Authors: Hussain, Taiba, Henderson, Alexandra, Jeong, Sophia Soyoung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.10.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Business and Management; Business Strategy/Leadership; Careers; Competitive advantage; Conservation; Embeddedness; Emerging Markets/Globalization; Expatriates; Knowledge sharing; Operations Management; Organization; Research Article; Supervisors; Knowledge sharing; Self-initiated expatriates; Supervisor incivility; Career capital; Job embeddedness
• ISSN: 0938-8249; 1861-8901
• DOI: 10.1007/s11575-024-00553-5

Self-initiated expatriates are recognized as a major source of knowledge and have the potential of acting as key players in helping organizations gain and maintain competitive advantage. Using conservation of resources theory as a guiding theoretical framework, we examined the effect of job embeddedness on self-initiated expatriates’ knowledge sharing, as well as the moderating effects of career capital and supervisor incivility. We utilized a sample of 170 self-initiated expatriates and their supervisors working in public service organizations in the United Arab Emirates. Results showed that job embeddedness was positively related to the two facets of knowledge sharing: knowledge donating and knowledge collecting. The study also revealed that knowing how career capital positively moderated the relationship between job embeddedness and knowledge donating, while it did not moderate the relationship between job embeddedness and knowledge collecting. Supervisor incivility negatively moderated the relationship between job embeddedness and both knowledge donating and knowledge collecting. This study examines the motivational and contextual factors that affect knowledge sharing of self-initiated expatriates, which have previously been overlooked.