Exploring Motivations and Trust Mechanisms in Knowledge Sharing: The Moderating Role of Social Alienation

This study is based on social exchange theory and the UTAUT model to develop a research model to investigate the impact of motivations under the background of established enterprise social media (ESM) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Motivations like organization rewards (OR), reciprocal benefits (RB), expectation fulfillment (EF), and job relevance (JR) have different impacts on the following two dimensions of trust: affect-based trust (ABT) and technology-based trust (TBT). This study considers the trust mechanism as the mediator in the relationship between motivations and knowledge sharing (KS). It also demonstrates the psychological element of social alienation (SA) as a moderator that influences trust level and its inhibitory effect on knowledge sharing within the organization. The authors in this study collected data from managers and employees in seven enterprises, including three retail enterprises and four information technology (IT) enterprises in China through three waves. In total, 509 responses were received, and 483 valid data were used to test the research model and hypotheses through the structural equation modeling (SEM) method to evaluate the impact of the potential elements on knowledge-sharing behavior. This research found that motivations like OR and RB promote ABT, thereby encouraging knowledge sharing when employees use ESM. The motivations of EF and JR have a direct effect on TBT, as well as promoting knowledge sharing. Both ABT and TBT have mediating roles between motivations and KS. In addition, the research also revealed the negative moderation effect of SA on the relationship between the two types of trust and KS. Specifically, SA gradually weakens the effects of ABT and TBT on KS, especially when employees are experiencing high levels of SA; ABT and TBT have no impact on KS. This study attempts to advance the theoretical and practical insights of motivations on knowledge sharing by exploring mediating effects of trust mechanisms. It also reveals the importance of SA's moderation effect on the relationship between trust mechanisms and KS under the application of ESM.