The effect of organizational social factors on employee performance and the mediating role of knowledge sharing: focus on e-government utilization in Mongolia

Abstract

In a knowledge-based society, government organizations become more knowledge-intensive. Most governments which have not yet implemented effective knowledge management systems for government organizations have indicated concern about increasing the impact of knowledge sharing to promote the success of e-government implementation, and they have tried to determine what types of organizational social factors influence knowledge sharing among government employees. To provide insight into these concerns, this paper presents an empirical study of how major organizational social enabling factors influence knowledge sharing among employees by conducting surveys in a number of central government organizations that implement e-government strategies in Mongolia. The research model was analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) method. This study also investigates the mediating effects of knowledge sharing between the organizational social factors and employee performance with the moderating role of the e-government facilitating conditions. Leadership, reward and trust were revealed in this research as the components of the strongest foundation for knowledge sharing. The results also show that knowledge sharing plays a mediating role between these organizational social factors and performance. Moreover, this study finds that facilitating conditions play a key role as enablers of organizational performance improvements. These findings present important implications for policymakers to improve strategic planning for e-government implementation through investments that utilize the necessary facilitating conditions with sufficient knowledge sharing among employees of government so as to create a more conductive environment for improving organizational performance.