Selfish or Selfless: The Role of Power Construal and Ability Feedback on Strategic Information Sharing

• In Event: Organizational Communication Research Escalator - Extended Session

Abstract

Knowledge maintains organizations’ competitive advantage. However, in today’s knowledge-intensive economy, it’s a real challenge to stimulate information sharing. This experimental research expands the view of information sharing as strategic behavior and shows how power construals (as opportunity vs. as responsibility) and (high vs. low) ability feedback reduce/increase proselfs’ and prosocials’ strategic information sharing. Results showed that proselfs share 1) more private information in the power as responsibility (vs. as opportunity) condition; 2) more public than private information in the power as opportunity condition; 3) less information when they receive a high (vs. low) ability feedback. Prosocials 1) share more public than private information in both social power construal conditions; 2) tend to share more information than proselfs within the high ability feedback condition; 3) share less information than proselfs in the low ability feedback condition, despite their (much higher) real ability score. Implications for organizations and knowledge management are discussed.

Author

• Nicoleta Balau, VU U Amsterdam