Actor, partner, and similarity effects of personality on knowledge sharing: does gender make a difference?

Knowledge sharing is essentially a product of interpersonal interaction, and the knowledge provider's and receiver's personalities should be considered in exploring how personality affect knowledge sharing. Following the actor - partner interdependence model, we examined the actor, partner, and similarity effects of personality on knowledge sharing in co-worker dyads, and the moderating role of gender in a sample of 528 technical employees from 38 teams. Results showed that (a) individuals who scored higher on extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness or lower on neuroticism were more willing to share their knowledge; (b) knowledge receivers with higher agreeableness and conscientiousness or lower neuroticism promoted knowledge providers' knowledge sharing; (c) personality similarity did not significantly affect the dyad's knowledge sharing; and (d) the actor effect and the partner effect of conscientiousness and the similarity effect of openness showed different patterns between same-gender and opposite-gender dyads. We highlighted personality's dyadic impact on co-workers' knowledge sharing.