Ethical leadership and knowledge sharing: a social cognitive approach investigating the role of self-efficacy as a key mechanism

Drawing on social cognitive theory (SCT), we propose that employees’ self-efficacy acts as a key mechanism between ethical leadership and employees’ knowledge sharing. Based on SCT, we also identify employees’ emotional exhaustion and their perceptions of coworker trustworthiness as critical boundary conditions for this mechanism (for the first and second stages, respectively). We propose that the self-efficacy mechanism is particularly salient when employees do not feel emotionally exhausted and perceive their coworkers as trustworthy. To test our hypotheses, we conducted four studies (i.e., two experiments and two field studies). In Studies 1a, 1b, and 2, self-efficacy served as a crucial link between ethical leadership and knowledge sharing. In Studies 2 and 3, the indirect effect of ethical leadership on knowledge sharing via self-efficacy was most potent when emotional exhaustion was low and coworker trustworthiness was high. Overall, these findings provide support for our moderated mediation model based on SCT.