Perceived creativity: the role of emotional intelligence and knowledge sharing behaviour

Knowledge sharing is deemed to be important for organisation as it helps to bring much benefits to the organisation, such as enhancing one's creativity. Knowledge sharing behaviour (KSB) is highly subjective and it depends on one's willingness to participate in such behaviour. Prior research has indicated that a person's emotional intelligence (EI) affects one's ability to share their knowledge and through knowledge sharing it helps to increase creativity in workplace. Despite such claims had been made by researchers, yet there is very little empirical examination has been conducted to examine the link between EI and perceived creativity through KSB. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of KSB as a mediator between EI and creativity. A survey was conducted and obtained a total of 176 valid respondents from 20 MNCs in Klang Valley. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to analyse the hypotheses. The results indicate that KSB mediates the relationship between EI and creativity. The results also indicate that EI plays an important role in influencing one's willingness to share his or her knowledge.