The Relatıonshıp Between Goal Orıentatıon of Salespeople and Theır Knowledge Sharıng Behavıors: The Moderatıng Role of Norms

Despite growing academic and managerial interest in the interplay between goal orientation (i.e., learning, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance oriented) and external cues, much remains unknown. The motivation behind this study was to fill part of the gap in the literature by investigating (a) the relationship between three different types of goal orientation and knowledge sharing behaviors, and (b) how this relationship can change under the moderating role of knowledge sharing norms in the business-to-business sales context. By taking advantage of the nested structure of the dataset, the authors examined the cross-level interaction effects between goal orientation and knowledge sharing norms on salespeople’s knowledge sharing behaviors. Results indicate that norms have different moderating effects for salespeople with different goal orientations. Implications for knowledge sharing are discussed along with future research directions.