Personality
affects knowledge exchange
Personality plays an
important role in knowledge exchange. Researchers at the Knowledge Media
Research Center (KMRC) in Tübingen and the University of Tübingen validate Adam
Grant's interaction styles in the context of knowledge transfer.
Givers share more
important knowledge than takers, according to a recent study conducted by
researchers at the Knowledge Media Research Center (KMRC) in Tübingen and the
University of Tübingen. In a large online study, working professionals were
classified as givers, matchers and takers based on a personality measure
developed by Adam Grant (The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania).
The researchers examined how these three interaction styles affected resource
and information sharing. The main finding: Givers not only share more resources
and more information, but they also share mainly the important information.
Takers keep everything for themselves.
Adam Grant
distinguishes between three main interaction styles: givers, matchers, and
takers. Givers are always helpful and give more than they receive, without
expecting anything in return. Matchers apply a tit-for-tat strategy.
Takers try
to get as much as possible without giving anything in return. To classify
people, Grant has developed a questionnaire in which participants have to
decide how they would behave in 15 different situations, both everyday and
professional scenarios.
New findings from a
study that will be published soon in the journal Personality and Individual
Differences, suggest that this concept of givers, matchers and takers can also
be applied to organizational knowledge sharing.
Prof. Dr. Sonja Utz (professor
at the University of Tübingen and leader of the social media group at KMRC),
Nicole Muscanell (KMRC) and Prof. Dr. Anja Göritz (University of Freiburg) used
this new personality measure to examine how it relates to sharing in a sample
of over 1200 working professionals.
They also examined a more established
(related) measure, which classifies people as being prosocials, individualists
and competitors. In the study, working professionals first completed the
measurements classifying their interaction styles, along with several
personality constructs such as narcissism.
Two weeks later, Prof.
Utz and her colleagues assessed cooperative behavior in a social dilemma and a
strategic information sharing task. In the social dilemma task, participants
were allotted a fictitious endowment of 300 Euros.
They were then asked to
decide how much of their 300 Euros they would give to a shared group pool. They
were told that the money in the pool would be doubled and divided equally among
all group members.
Thus, it would be more beneficial to the group (as a whole)
if everyone contributed their individual endowments; however, it would be more
beneficial at the individual level, if everyone else from the group
contributed, while the individual kept his/her own endowment.
The researchers
used this strategic information sharing task to examine how much and which
pieces of information participants shared: the less important and already known
information or the really important information only known by the individual.
The results showed that givers are less self-oriented and narcissistic than
takers. Moreover, compared to the traditional classification of prosocials,
individualists and competitors, this new classification of givers, matchers and
takers was better at predicting behaviors measured two weeks later. Givers
shared not only more money with the group, but they also shared mainly the
important information.
Takers on the other hand kept both money as well as
different types of information.
These results have
important implications for organizational knowledge management. The findings
suggest that it may not be enough to simply provide knowledge management tools
in order to optimize knowledge exchange.
It may also be necessary for leaders
and managers to keep in mind the personality and interaction styles of their
employees. Specifically, they should be wary that takers may keep the important
information for themselves.
Story Source:
The above story is
based on materials provided by Universitaet
Tübingen. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal
Reference:
1.
Sonja Utz, Nicole Muscanell, Anja S. Göritz. Give, match, or take: A new
personality construct predicts resource and information sharing. Personality and Individual
Differences, 2014; 70: 11 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2014.06.011
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Universitaet Tübingen.
"Better to give than to receive: Personality affects knowledge
exchange." Science
Daily, 6 August 2014.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140806094828.htm>.
