The Influence of Emotional Intelligence on Tacit Knowledge Sharing in Service Organizations

The challenge of knowledge management is to generate, share, exploit and renew knowledge faster than competitors. To achieve sustainable competitive advantage, the knowledge management strategy is to develop and share tacit knowledge so that organizational capabilities rest in many, if not all, employees. In team-work environment, emotional intelligence, trust and organizational citizenship behavior are crucial to tacit knowledge sharing. Emotional intelligence as the ability to control one’s and others’ emotions, among other abilities, will facilitate the sharing of high value tacit knowledge, of work and clients, among team members. The road to a trusting relationship is marked by inter-personal understanding and empathic communication between members leading potentially to organizational citizenship behavior. Organizational citizenship behavior which manifests the employees’ commitment to the job and organization is a significant mediator in tacit knowledge sharing. However, the role of emotional intelligence in facilitating tacit knowledge sharing is constrained by the type of service environment, i.e. professional, service shop and mass service which limits the scope for tacit knowledge sharing. This chapter offers several testable propositions to explain the influence of emotional intelligence on tacit knowledge sharing in service businesses.