The Influence of Social Capital on Knowledge Sharing: The Moderated Mediator of Perceived Supervisor Support and Psychological Ownership

Abstract: Drawing on the theories of social capital and leader-member exchange (LMX), we examined how psychological ownership and perceived supervisory support played a moderated mediating relationship between social capital and organizational knowledge. To test the proposed model, we collected data from 522 employees working in large corporations in South Korea. We found that: (a) social capital was positively related to organizational knowledge sharing, (b) perceived supervisor support mediated the linkage between social capital and knowledge sharing, and (c) psychological ownership moderated the indirect effect of social capital on knowledge sharing through perceived supervisor support, such that the indirect effect was stronger for employees with low rather than high psychological ownership. This study sheds new light on the degree of influence and the nature of relationship that the leader and the self plays in the context of knowledge sharing and social capital.