Understanding the Effect of Innovative Climate and Interaction Involvement on User Intention to Share Knowledge

Effective knowledge sharing among members has rapidly become a competitive necessity for organizations. Thus it is essential for organizations to take steps to increase members' willingness to share knowledge, leading to desirable knowledge sharing behaviors. This study explores possible factors affecting users' intention to share knowledge in the context of system analysis. In addition to innovative climate, system analyst and user's interaction involvement, which is viewed as an important interpersonal communication competence, is proposed and further investigated, taking into consideration the links between innovative climate, interaction involvement and user intention to share knowledge. Based on data collected from 182 student analysts and 182 users, the results indicate that system analysts demonstrated higher levels of interaction involvement than users, where interaction involvement was measured by responsiveness, perceptiveness, and attentiveness. In addition, innovative climate positively and directly influences users' intention to share knowledge, while quite surprisingly, user's interaction involvement negatively affects his/her intention to share knowledge.