The dirty side of money: How extrinsic incentives jeopardize knowledge sharing

A long tradition supports the notion that knowledge sharing is a critical determinant for organizations’ success. By sharing their ideas and know-how, employees can significantly contribute to their own creativity (e.g., Perry-Smith 2006), fasten the development of new products (Mesmer-Magnus & DeChurch 2009), and strengthen a mutual learning (Lin 2007). As a response to the need for knowledge sharing enhancement, most organizations have adopted organizational forms likely to foster the development and generation of knowledge assets (Daft & Lewin 1993). Following this, scholars have proposed the notion of ‘new organizational forms’, which identifies firms adopting new ways of structuring their boundaries and their internal organization (Foss 2002), characterized by lateral integration mechanisms which foster horizontal communication and overcome the barriers within the organization. Moreover, given that jobs have become increasingly knowledge-intensive (Cross & Cummings 2004), the strategic value of workers relies no longer in the organizations’ ability to manage their knowledge, rather on their ability to manage the owners of that knowledge. Therefore, successful knowledge management strategies are those that strongly account for individual’s knowledge sharing behavior, and what motivates such behavior. In this regard, organizations should be aware that different types of motivation simultaneously influence each other (i.e., the motivation crowding effect, Osterloh et al. 2001) shaping how people behave.