Does a Humanness Management Style encourage Knowledge Sharing?

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Does a Humanness Management Style

encourage Knowledge Sharing?

Cross-cultural study on

the stability of the relationship between

Humanness and Knowledge Sharing

Master Thesis

Sophie van den Arend (S1604058) sophievandenarend@gmail.com

University of Groningen - Faculty of Economics and Business Msc. International Business and Management

Mr. Dr. B.J.W. Pennink Mr. Dr. K. van Veen

***

2 Abstract:

This paper examines four research studies on the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing in Tanzania, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Netherlands. As these four studies found a positive relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing this study will compare the data of these studies in one comprehensive dataset in order to determine if the relationship can be seen as universal or is influenced by country. The ANOVA analysis showed that country has a significant influence on the score of both the Humanness and the Knowledge Sharing dimensions. When the variable country was added to the regression model it showed that country had a significant impact as well. These results tell that country is intervening the Humanness and Knowledge Sharing relationship and therefore the country’s external context needs to be taken into account when managers want to implement a Humanness Management Style. It is recommended that managers and other researchers will search for ways to operationalize the Humanness values within a company and take into account the country’s specific context.

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Content

2.3 The Relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Humanness... 11

2.4 Cultural Context; Tanzania, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Netherlands ... 12

2.5 Influence of Gender, Age, Company Size and Industry on Humanness and Knowledge Sharing ... 15

2.6 Hypothesis and Conceptual Model ... 15

3. Research Methods ... 17

3.1 Research Approach ... 17

3.2 Data Description ... 18

3.3 Validity and Reliability of the Measurement Concepts ... 19

4. Analysis and Results ... 19

4.1 The Level of Humanness and Knowledge Sharing in Tanzania, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Netherlands... 19

4.2 Correlation between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing and its Dimensions ... 22

4.3 Regression Analysis ... 26

4.4 Entering Country to the Regression model ... 33

5. Discussion and Implications ... 35

6. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research ... 38

7. Conclusion ... 39

8. References ... 41

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1. Introduction

The South African philosophy of Ubuntu, translated in English as Humanness, is roughly similar to John Donne's “No man is an island” and can be seen as an ingrained concept in the South African business environment (Economist, 2013). The concept of Humanness is rich with consideration for compassion, respect and communality (Mangaliso, 2001). Some features of Humanness can be seen as distinctively African but the essential dimensions are not. These features are rooted in human nature and are common to the entire human race (Colff, 2003). So far four research studies on the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge sharing have been conducted in four different countries. These studies provide information on the existence of Humanness and Knowledge sharing in- and outside of Africa. So far no conclusions have been drawn on the stability of the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing across countries and the impact that an external context may have on the Humanness and Knowledge Sharing relationship. This study will elaborate on the question if Humanness and its relation to Knowledge Sharing can be seen as a universal relationship and what this will mean to managers and companies around the globe.

The relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing can be explained by the fact that the exchange of knowledge is a social interaction and that the social processes of Knowledge Sharing are strengthened by a higher level of Humanness within an organization. Exploring the role of a Humanness management style in converting knowledge into a competitive advantage is important to the understanding of leaders and organizations. Managers play an important role in the process of managing organizational knowledge as managers provide vision, motivation, systems and structures at all levels of the organization that will facilitate knowledge sharing (Bryant, 2003). By creating a better understanding on the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing, new tools and guidelines can be developed for managers to create a Humanness management style that promotes organizational Knowledge Sharing. As managing knowledge is getting more and more important a lot of studies have looked at the drivers of employees’ Knowledge Sharing (Reinholt et al., 2011). Especially leadership plays an important role in inspiring and supporting Knowledge Sharing behaviors. A human oriented leadership style is likely to have a positive effect on both knowledge collecting and donating behaviors (De Vries et al., 2010).

5 across nations. This study will develop a boarder understanding of the relationship by evaluating and comparing the results of the following four studies; Scholtens (2011), Boom & Pennink (2012), Scholte (2012), and Fredriks (2012). As differences between countries on the relation between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing have not been evaluated before it is at the moment not possible to make a clear judgment on the impact that a country’s external context has on this relationship. A lot of researchers already questioned if Humanness is something unique to Africa and a trend towards a Humanistic form of management has been widely observed in countries across the globe (Saunders, 2012). Much of modern Humanistic leadership theory is however based upon Western perspectives and calls for more human ways of working with people which can be found in the contexts of Humanness (Saunders, 2012). It is important to know if a country specific approach is needed for implementing these Humanness values in an organization as this will impact the direction for the further operationalization of a Humanness management style. When differences between countries are found more focus on the impact of external context needs to be given. As this study builds upon four research studies it will not be possible to cover all cultural contexts, nevertheless this research will be a starting point for more in-depth research on this topic and for the implementation of Humanness values within organizations worldwide.

The main research question will answer if the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing is stable across countries or that country has an influence on the relationship. This will be tested by combining and comparing the results from previous studies with a total of 742 respondents. The following part of this paper is divided into six sections. The first part will give a theoretical literature review of the concepts of Knowledge Sharing and Humanness and gives the research question. The next section will provide the methodology and will be followed by the analysis and results. After this the discussion, management implications and directions for further research will be given. The final section will provide a summary of the conclusions.

2. Literature Review

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2.1 Knowledge Sharing

Theories on Knowledge Sharing span already over more than 30 years (Polanyi, 1966), however more recently Knowledge Sharing became regarded as a strategic asset and a critical resource for creating and sustaining a competitive advantage (Hitt & Ireland, 2000). Knowledge Sharing, is an important sub-area of Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management can be defined as the management of knowledge for facilitating the creation, access, and reuse of knowledge, typically by using advanced technology (Rasmus, 2000). Knowledge Management will provide strategies for sharing information and expertise in order to increase the level of understanding and the effectiveness of decision making (Satyadas et al., 2001). Next to that, the innovative ability of organizations will increase by enhanced Knowledge Sharing as the exchange of knowledge and ideas will enable employees to connect previously unconnected knowledge, and thus create new knowledge (Yaping et al., 2013).

Based on Lin et al. (2009) three dimensions to measure the degree of Knowledge Sharing are formulated and used in this research. These dimensions are Employee Motivations, Corporate Culture and Leadership, and Information Technology.

Employee Motivations

7 Corporate Culture & Leadership

The dimension Corporate Culture & Leadership is a combination of two separate dimensions. In the analysis of Scholtens (2011) it became clear that the dimension Corporate Culture and the dimension Leadership were measuring the same construct. Corporate culture is according to the study of Lin et al. (2009) the most important factor in promoting Knowledge Sharing. When employees are embedded in a strong social network and have clear vision and goals they are motivated to share knowledge with colleagues. According to Lin et al. (2006) it is important to first build trust among members of the organization, and build a positive social interaction culture before Knowledge Sharing initiatives can be successful. Creating an organizational culture that is characterized by building and maintaining trust relationships, organizational learning capability, and reward systems for inducing Knowledge Sharing, will most likely encourage employees to socialize and interact more frequently and will drive Knowledge Sharing activities. The second part of this dimension is Leadership. A survey by Lin & Lee (2004) found that attitudes of leaders towards Knowledge Sharing behavior positively influenced intentions within the organization to encourage Knowledge Sharing. Leaders can influence Knowledge Sharing by providing structure, resources, and psychological conditions that help motivate employees to be involved in Knowledge Sharing activities (Carmeli et al., 2013). Two popular and well-known characterizations of leadership are the transformational and transactional leadership styles. In the case of transformational leadership style, the leaders are admired, trusted, and have high standards of ethical and moral conduct. Such leaders focus on individual and team spirit and encourage innovation and Knowledge Sharing. Transactional leaders clarify expectations and offer recognition when goals are achieved. These leaders specify the standards for compliance, monitor performance and take corrective action when performance is not as expected. Analoui et al., 2013 found that not only transformational leadership creates more Knowledge Sharing but that when knowledge managers adopt both the transformational and transactional leadership style there is even a bigger increase in knowledge management activity.

Information Technology

8 2010). Researchers have emphasized the importance of Information Technology in linking organizational information with knowledge integration (Kim & Lee, 2006). Furthermore, researchers identified advanced information and communications technology applications as the primary driver of organizational Knowledge Sharing (Pan & Leidner, 2003). Alavi and Leidner (2001) note that Information Technology increases knowledge transfer by extending the formal lines of communication. An important note to make is that the existence of Information Technology not always leads to improved Knowledge Sharing. The information systems and software must be user-friendly and accepted by the employees (Davis, 1989). King (1999) also indicates that having a knowledge management system that addresses all the needs of the users is one of the most important factors for improving organizational Knowledge Sharing.

2.2 Humanness

Many authors have written about the concept of Humanness in a more philosophical way. These authors recognize the statement of Mbigi (1997) that managers and leaders can learn from the philosophy of Humanness and should combine it with management practices. Mbigi (1997) is one of the first that became publicly associated with the term ‘Ubuntu’ or in English Humanness. Since the measurement tool of Sigger et al. (2010) is suitable for research in all African and Non-Africa countries and this study focuses on the differences between countries, the usage of the term Humanness is more suitable than the term Ubuntu. The Nguni word Ubuntu, from the expression; ‘Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu : A person is a person because of or through others’, can be described as the capacity in a culture to express compassion, reciprocity, dignity, humanity and mutuality in the interest of building and maintaining communities with justice and mutual caring (Bekker, 2006). Mbiti (1969) explains Humaness by using the sentence: “I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.” Turaki (2006) puts it the following way: “People are not individuals, living in a state of independence, but part of a community, living in relationships and interdependence.” According to Luhabe (2002), Humanness is based upon concepts such as respect, trust, compassion and, above all, that we are a collective with the success of one person depending on the success of all. Looking at Humanness in a business context, Nkomo (2006) wrote that an African management approach focuses on teamwork, attention to relationships, mutual respect, empathy between leaders and followers, and participative leadership.

9 management concept can be recognized. Table 1 shows the characteristics and how they can apply to the concept of Humanness.

Table 1: Humanness as a management concept (Karsten and Van Veen, 1998) Characteristics of

a management concept

Humanness as a management concept 1. The concept needs to have a

striking label

The striking label is the philosophy of Humanness.

2. There needs to be a specific management issue

Building an organizational culture that enables the willingness to share knowledge amongst its employees is difficult but also necessary for companies in a competitive environment. 3. The concept needs to provide a

solution for a identified problem

Implementing the values of Humanness within a corporate culture can provide a solution to the reluctance of employees to share knowledge.

4. There needs to be evidence of the success of the management concept in organizations

No real evidence yet.

From these four characteristics it is not unambiguous if Humanness can be seen as a management concept. Even though three out of four requirements are fulfilled there is still need for a larger body of research on the concept of Humanness.

10 with the issues of a culturally diverse workforce and capture all the value that can result from having a diverse workforce that is willing to share knowledge. However, this can only be achieved if sound policies and strategies are put into place (Sydhagen & Cunningham, 2007). Mbigi (1997) identified five key social values of Humanness, namely Survival, Solidarity, Compassion, Respect and Dignity. Sigger et al. (2010) came forward with four dimensions, as Respect & Dignity were combined. These values can form the basis of a Humanness management style and are discussed below.

Survival

The dimension Survival can be seen as the cornerstone of Humanness. All the difficulties and distress that the African people experienced have led to a strong brotherly caring for each other. The dimension Survival is about the shared will to survive and to share what you have with others. In an organizational context it can be seen as the members of the group that work together as a collective, to solve individual problems (Siger et al. 2010). Mbigi (1997) states that team members in an organization should rely on each other in order to increase effectiveness and must put the goals of the team before their individual goals. In this way the company and its members are seen as extended family (Mangaliso, 2001).

Solidarity

Solidarity is about accomplishing difficult tasks collectively. Personal interests are less important than community needs and there is a strong responsibility feeling towards the community (Sigger et al., 2010). According to Mbigi (1997), Africans are socialized to understand that difficult goals and tasks can only be accomplished collectively. Solidarity can be translated to the organizational context by collective singing, effort at work, celebrations, rituals and family life (Nussbaum, 2003). This will create a working environment full of happiness, harmony and trust. Next to that, it will enhance the cohesion between the team members and create an emphasis on teamwork (Siger et al., 2010).

Compassion

11 becomes part of someone’s psychological makeup and it is difficult to unlearn such a quality (Bekker, 2006).

Respect & Dignity

Respect refers to an objective, unbiased consideration and regard for rights, values, beliefs and property (Yukl, 2002). Respect and Dignity are considered as important values in most societies and cultures. In the African culture Respect and Dignity are considered as one of its building blocks (Bekker, 2006). When Africans grow up, they learn to be respectful to the elder and other members of their community and in this way receiving dignity. In an organizational context, respecting different cultures and traditions can serve as a strategic asset, since different cultures can bring different insights to the organization. If diversity of vision is encouraged and protected, all voices will be respected and heard (Siger et al. 2010). Next to this, high levels of Respect & Dignity will lead to high levels of mutual trust, which will lead to better performance and effective working teams (Poovan et al., 2006). Appendix 1 shows an overview of the key characteristics per dimension.

2.3 The Relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Humanness

12 the reluctance of employees to share knowledge and increasing the level of Humanness may be one way to do so.

The willingness to share knowledge within an organization and the ability of a company to innovate can be positively influenced by high levels of Respect & Dignity amongst the employees. When all employees pool their knowledge, skills and abilities, and respect the differences in vision it will improve their innovative ability. Respect & Dignity also has to do with trust, and according to Buskens and Raub (2002) no human interactions would exist in a world without trust. A high level of the dimension Survival in the organization can also influence the willingness to share knowledge. Survival is about the reliance on each other and sharing what you have with others. If team members are able to rely on each other they do not feel the need to keep important knowledge to themselves in order to stay competitive. Instead they can focus their attention on being effective and productive in Knowledge Sharing and will realize that higher effectiveness is achieved through sharing the knowledge that they have with others (Poovan et al., 2006). The dimension Solidarity can also contribute to higher levels of Knowledge Sharing within the organization. The dimension Solidarity is about combining efforts and teamwork, and implies that personal goals are sacrificed for the good of the organization. Employees that develop a spirit of solidarity tend to have a higher morale and increased community feeling which can become the basis for effective Knowledge Sharing (Poovan et al., 2006). Lastly, the dimension Compassion includes values such as sympathy, shared vision and helping others. By installing feelings of compassion in members of the organization, this dimension can help to create a shared vision. A shared vision will increase the ability of employees to perform at optimal levels and care for the organizational goals (Colff, 2003).

As mentioned before, some features of Humanness may be typical African but the essential features are common across cultures. However, the degree to which the Humanness dimensions are embedded in a specific culture may differ. In the next section the different cultural contexts included in this research are discussed.

2.4 Cultural Context; Tanzania, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Netherlands

13 members from one group to another over time (Hofstede 1980). This study will look at country as a variable that could influence the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. Different types of culture have been identified the most popular being individualism and collectivism (Triandis & Bahwuk, 1997). Collectivists view themselves as interdependent with others and this interdependency is accompanied by sharing resources. They also have goals that are compatible with in-group goals. Individualists, on the other hand, view themselves as independent from groups and have goals that are differentiated from the in-group goals. They focus more on personal needs and emphasize rationality (Triandis & Bahwuk 1997).

The relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Humanness has firstly been studied in Tanzania. According to Broodryk (2006) Humanness is present in all the languages of Africa. In Kiswahili, the native language of Tanzania, the word for Humanness is Ujamaa and is based on three values: freedom, equality and unity. These values correspond with the values of Humanness. However the word Ujamaa cannot be seen as a simple translation of the concept of Humanness since the people in Tanzania associate Ujamaa more to political policies than to a people-oriented management style (Sigger et al. 2010). The poitical policies of Ujamaa have been shaped by the vision of one man, the country’s first President, Julius Nyerere (Spalding, 1996). In the Tanzanian society the organizations and political authority is mostly based on personal relationships, especially through family and clans. According to Spalding (1996) several characteristics of the pre-colonial Tanzanian society are still widely observed, these are: non-centralization and relative absence of strong authority and control, family as the unit of decision, and autonomous, diverse, interacting communities. According to Hofstede (2010), Tanzania, is considered a collectivistic society with a score of 25. This manifests in a close long-term commitment to a family, extended family, or extended relationships.

14 Malaysian culture (Tajaddini and Mujtaba 2009). According to Tajaddini & Mujtaba (2009), the Malaysian business environment closely reflects Malaysian cultural values of tolerance, harmony, courtesy and saving face. There is also a strong focus on trust and developing relationships, as opposed to the exchange of facts and information. Malaysia has, with a score of 26, almost the same score on collectivism as Tanzania and can be seen as a collectivistic country (Hofstede, 2010).

The second South East Asian country that is examined is Indonesia. Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic state where, with multiple ethnicities, multiple languages, and multiple religions amongst its population of 235 million inhabitants. These differences make studies of Indonesian culture a difficult task. A predominant group in Indonesia are the Javanese, which make up 50% of the total population. The Javanese embrace the concept of Rukun. This concept builds upon the idea of harmony as a result of active orientation towards mutual respect and adjustment to each other (Pekerti & Sendjaya, 2010). The values of Rukun match the core values of Humanness. Noesjirwan (1978) conceptualized the Indonesian identity as being sociable, emphasizing the community rather than the individual, and maintaining a steady state life style in which other are respected. Magnis-Suseno (1997), explained that Indonesians, view self-enhancement as a means to promote self-interest, and this is regarded as disruptive to social harmony. In comparison to Tanzania and Malaysia, Indonesia is even a more collectivistic country with a score of 14. In Indonesia individuals are expected to conform to the ideals of the society and the groups to which they belong (Hofstede, 2010).

15 individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families only and within companies management is focused on the management of individuals.

2.5 Influence of Gender, Age, Company Size and Industry on Humanness and

Knowledge Sharing

In the research of Siger et al. (2010) the effect of gender, age, company size and industry on the dimensions of Humanness has been examined. The results showed that all the respondents scored moderate to high on the four dimensions of Humanness regardless of the control variables. A lot of studies have been examining the difference between men’s and women’s management styles. Eagly (2007) states that individuals behave in accordance with societal expectations about their gender role and these expectations lead to gender differences in leadership behaviors. This leads to women being more focused on creating coalitions and team-building and therefore gender could have an influence on Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. Different studies examined the influence of generational differences on personality profiles and attitudes towards work (Macky et al., 2008). This makes age a factor that could explain differences in the score on Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. The amount of internationally operating firms has risen over the past decades. It can be assumed that larger firms will have more internal operations and thus more Western influences. This fact makes it interesting to look at company size and the possible influence on Humanness and Knowledge Sharing1_{. Figure 1 shows an} overview of the studied relationship and the variables influencing this relationship.

2.6 Hypothesis and Conceptual Model

As discussed in the literature review the first theory on the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing has been developed in Tanzania. After this study three other studies have been conducted in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Netherlands. All these studies have concluded that

Humanness was present in the specific country and in all countries a strong and positive relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing was found. These results give the impression that the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge sharing is universal and not influenced by cultural context. As described above there are differences regarding the cultural contexts of the studied

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16 countries and this may have an influence on the score of Humanness and its impact on the level of Knowledge Sharing in an organization. As the first studies have shown that the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing holds in countries outside of Africa the next phase will be to search for ways on how to implement the values of Humanness. To do so it is important to know if a country specific approach is needed for implementing the Humanness values in an organization or if the Humanness values are stable across countries and are not influenced by the different cultural contexts. Therefore the main question, hypothesis and conceptual model (Figure 1) of this research are the following:

Main research question: Does the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing remain stable across countries?

H0: Country does not influence the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing H1: Country influences the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing

Figure 1. Conceptual model

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3. Research Methods

In this part the research approach will be described. Next a description of the data and the validity of the scales will be assessed.

3.1 Research Approach

Four research studies that examined the relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Humanness are included in this research. This study involves combining and analyzing quantitative evidence from these four studies in order to create one comprehensive dataset. As Lipsey and Wilson (2001) mention, if the full data sets for the studies of interest are available, it will be most appropriate and informative to analyze this data directly using conventional statistical procedures rather than the summary statistics from the papers itself. The data was collected by contacting the authors of the previous studies. All authors were willing to share their datasets. In all of the studies the data was obtained by conducting surveys using questionnaires. The questionnaires were based on the existing questionnaire on Humanness (Sigger et al., 2010) including extra questions on Knowledge Sharing (Lin et al., 2009). The questionnaire was distributed by the researchers to employees in different companies and with different roles in their organization. In all the questions on Humanness and Knowledge Sharing the respondents needed to choose from a five-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree). Appendix 2 shows an overview of all studies included in this research and the variables that were analyzed and Appendix 3 shows all questions and their associated dimensions. All studies started as a Master Thesis Project of which two became the base for a research paper and the other two for a Journal article.

18 To get an understanding of the stability of the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing the average scores on both concepts will be analyzed. An ANOVA analysis will be performed in order to find out if the scores between countries significantly differ from each other. Next several correlation and regression analyses will be done to analyze the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. These analyses will be done on three levels in order to fully understand the differences between countries that will exist between the main concepts and between the individual dimensions of both concepts. By looking at how the Humanness dimensions are explaining the level of Knowledge Sharing across countries differences between countries may become visible that would not have when only the main concepts are analyzed. In the last part country is entered as a categorical variable into a multiple regression analysis. The most often used strategy for entering categorical variables to a regression is Dummy Coding and this will also be used in this paper. Dummy coding is used for comparing groups of the categorical variable with one specific group of the categorical variable. This specific group is often called the reference group or reference category (Starkweather, 2010). In this research the reference group will be Tanzania, which is further explained in the Analysis and Results section.

3.2 Data Description

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3.3 Validity and Reliability of the Measurement Concepts

To assess whether the measurement tool has been consistently reliable across countries the reliability of the scales is analyzed by using Cronbach’s alpha. A value of 0.7 is considered acceptable and indicates that the questions are measuring the same underlying construct (Lattin et al., 2003). In the total dataset the Knowledge Sharing and Humanness dimensions are, when rounded, all 0.7 or higher. When the reliability of the scales is examined on a country level a comparable result can be found with most values above 0.7. Appendix 6 gives an overview of the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of Knowledge Sharing

4. Analysis and Results

This section starts by analyzing the average score on Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. Next the relationship between both concepts is analyzed across countries.

4.1 The Level of Humanness and Knowledge Sharing in Tanzania, Malaysia,

Indonesia and the Netherlands

20 Figure 2. The Average Score of the Humanness Dimensions per Country

Figure 3. The Average Score of the Knowledge Sharing dimensions per Country

3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4 4.2 4.4 4.6

Compassion Solidarity Survival Respect & Dignity A ve rag e Sc o re o n Hu m an n e ss Dimensions of Humanness Tanzania Malaysia Indonesia Netherlands 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4 4.2 4.4

Employee Motivationss Corporate Culture & Leadership Information Technology A ve rag e Sc o re o n Kn o wl e d ge Sh ar in g

Dimensions of Knowledge Sharing

21 It is expected that the Netherlands will have the lowest score on Humanness as the cultural values are the least in line with the values of Humanness. From the figure we can see that the scores of the Netherlands are the lowest in most of the dimension. In Figure 3 the dimension Information Technology shows a difference between Indonesia and the rest of the countries. This could be caused by the fact that technology applications in Indonesia are not that developed and widespread in the Indonesian business environment (Scholte, 2012).

To find out if the differences that are visible in figure 2 and 3 are significant a one-way ANOVA analysis was run. The objective of an ANOVA is to test for an effect of a factor on the dependent variable. These tests are based on a relative comparison of the mean of the dependent variable across the different treatment group levels (Lattin et al., 2003). The ANOVA analysis gave a statistically significant difference at p< 0.01 for all four dimensions of Humanness. This means that for all of the dimensions the mean score of at least one country is significantly different. . The statistical table of the one-way ANOVA are shown in Appendix 7. To get an idea of the real effect that the difference in country makes, the effect sizes are calculated using Partial Eta Squared (Table 2). The influence of country on the dimensions Survival and Respect & Dignity is moderate. The Tukey Post Hoc test revealed that most significant differences could be found between the Netherlands and the other countries and between Tanzania and the other countries.

Table 2: The Effect of Country on the Dimensions of Humanness

The ANOVA analysis that was performed with the Knowledge Sharing dimensions gave a statistically significant difference at p < 0.01 for the dimensions Corporate Culture & Leadership and Information Technology. These two dimensions also show to have a moderate effect size (Table 3). The Post Hoc test revealed that for the dimension Corporate Culture & Leadership almost all countries significantly differed from each other and that in the case of the dimension Information Technology the differences are found between Indonesia and the other countries.

Dimensions Partial Eta Squared

Effect according to Pallant (2005)

Compassion 0.014 Small effect

Solidarity 0.023 Small effect

Survival 0.113 Moderate effect

22 Table 3: The Effect of Country on the Dimensions of Humanness

The conclusion can be drawn that there are significant differences between the countries for all dimensions of Humanness and especially for the dimensions Survival and Respect & Dignity. For Knowledge Sharing the most differences between countries could be found for the dimension Corporate Culture & Leadership, for the dimension Information Technology only Indonesia significantly differed from the rest. Overall we can conclude that there are significant differences in the score on the dimensions of Humanness and Knowledge Sharing across countries

4.2 Correlation between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing and its

Dimensions

Now that statistically significant differences across countries in the score on the dimension of Humanness and Knowledge Sharing are found it is interesting to see if the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing remains stable across countries. In order to find out if a linear relationship exists between Knowledge Sharing and Humanness the Pearson Correlation Coefficients are calculated. The correlations between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing are analyzed across countries at in three different levels. In level one the relationship between the overall score on Humanness and the overall score on Knowledge Sharing will be analyzed. In level two the relationship between the dimensions of Humanness and the overall score on Knowledge Sharing will be looked at, and in level three the relationship between the dimensions of Humanness and the dimensions of Knowledge Sharing. Looking at the individual dimensions will enable a more in-depth look at the Humanness and Knowledge Sharing relationship as individual dimensions may differ across countries. To measure the correlation between both of the concepts the Pearson Correlation test was used. The Pearson Correlation test will give an indication if both concepts can be associated and if this is a negative or a positive association. To find out whether the relationship is causal the Pearson Correlation test will be followed up with a Regression analysis. Appendix 8 gives a full overview of the Pearson Correlation Analysis.

Dimensions Partial Eta Squared

Effect according to Pallant (2005)

23 Level 1: Humanness on Knowledge Sharing

The Pearson Correlations for the score on Humanness and Knowledge Sharing in the full dataset is given in Table 4. The significant score of 0.748 shows that the variables Humanness and Knowledge Sharing are positively related and that the relationship can be labeled as very strong. A result of -1 is a perfect negative correlation, while a result of 1 is a perfect positive correlation. If the correlation coefficient is positive or negative 0,70 or higher you can speak of a very strong relationship, between 0,40 and 0,69 there is a strong relationship, between 0,30 and 0,39 a moderate relationship, between 0,20 and 0,29 a weak relationship, and between 0,01 and 0,19 there is a negligible relationship.

Table 4: Pearson Correlation Coefficient of Humanness on Knowledge Sharing Knowledge Sharing

Humanness 0,748

Note: All correlations are significant at 0.001 level (2 tailed)

When looking on a country level a very strong relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing in all countries can be found (Table 5). Malaysia and Indonesia have the strongest relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. All the scores are significant with p=0,000. Since all correlations regardless of country are labelled as very strong we can conclude that in level one there are no differences between countries.

Table 5: Pearson Correlation Coefficient of Humanness on Knowledge Sharing per Country

Knowledge Sharing Humanness Tanzania 0,711 Malaysia 0,849 Indonesia 0,792 Netherlands 0,727

Note: All correlations are significant at 0.001 level (2 tailed)

Level 2: Dimensions of Humanness on Knowledge Sharing

24 Table 6. Pearson Correlation Coefficients of the Humanness Dimensions on Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge Sharing

Compassion 0,604

Solidarity 0,598

Survival 0,609

Respect & Dignity 0,647 Note: All correlations are significant at 0.001 level (2 tailed)

To find out if on a country level also all correlations will be positive and strong the same analysis for each country was run. The results can be found in Table 7. On a country level some differences could be found for the dimensions Compassion and Solidarity. However since all correlations are above 0,40 all relations are strong and we can conclude that in level two the correlations remain stable across countries.

Table 7: Pearson Correlation Coefficients of the Humanness Dimensions on Knowledge Sharing per Country _Tanzania Knowledge Sharing Malaysia Knowledge Sharing Indonesia Knowledge Sharing Netherlands Knowledge Sharing Compassion 0,512 0,808 0,651 0,507 Solidarity 0,550 0,720 0,622 0,453 Survival 0,615 0,757 0,640 0,642

Respect & Dignity 0,660 0,726 0,629 0,672

Note: All correlations are significant at 0.001 level (2 tailed)

Level 3: Dimensions of Humanness on the Dimensions of Knowledge Sharing

25 Table 8: Pearson Correlation Coefficients of the Humanness and Knowledge Sharing Dimensions

Employee Motivations

Corporate Culture &

Leadership Information Technology

Compassion 0,580 0,574 0,322

Solidarity 0,587 0,455 0,380

Survival 0,593 0,593 0,283

Respect & Dignity 0,456 0,757 0,354

Note: All correlations are significant at 0.001 level (2 tailed)

To find out if the same pattern can be found for the individual countries the same analysis has been done on a country level, the results can be found in Table 9. For the correlations on country level we can find no big differences between countries. For all of the countries the dimensions of Humanness and Employee Motivations are strong with almost all scores above 0,40. The same counts for the correlations with Corporate Culture & Leadership. For the dimension Information Technology we can find a moderate or a weak relationship in most of the countries. Only in the case of Malaysia all the relations between the Humanness dimensions and Information Technology are strong. Overall in level 3 the same pattern is found across countries, so based on these four countries the correlations seem to be stable across countries.

Table 9: Pearson Correlation Coefficients of the Humanness and Knowledge Sharing Dimensions per Country

Employee Motivations

Corporate Culture &

Leadership Information Technology

Tanz. Mal. Ind. Neth. Tanz. Mal. Ind. Neth. Tanz. Mal. Ind. Neth.

Compassion 0,467 0,767 0,514 0,540 0,557 0,787 0,604 0,397 0,256 0,528 0,411 0,281

Solidarity 0,636 0,629 0,532 0,506 0,476 0,643 0,547 0,305 0,246 0,542 0,390 0,276

Survival 0,669 0,716 0,552 0,517 0,488 0,760 0,707 0,564 0,307 0,457 0,306 0,414

Respect & Dignity 0,360 0,624 0,369 0,523 0,781 0,746 0,668 0,726 0,455 0,517 0,414 0,333

26

4.3 Regression Analysis

The results of the correlation analysis make it possible to perform a one-on-one Regression Analysis and a Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. These tests will show to what extend Knowledge Sharing is influenced by the dimensions of Humanness and if this differs per country. In this part we will work with the same three levels and conduct the research on the full dataset and for the individual countries. Appendix 9 gives the full overview of Regression statistics.

Level 1: Humanness and Knowledge Sharing

The one-on-one Regression analysis between the main concepts is performed with Humanness as the independent variable and Knowledge Sharing as the dependent variable. The results showed that 56% of all variability in Knowledge Sharing can be explained by the variance in Humanness. For the individual countries the variability in Knowledge Sharing that is explained by variance in Humanness is 55% for Tanzania, 72% for Malaysia, 63 % for Indonesia and 53% for the Netherlands. All related F values are significant. Figure 4 and 5 show the contribution of Humanness to the level of Knowledge sharing by giving the Standardized Beta coefficients for the full dataset and on a country level. The highest results are found for Malaysia and Indonesia, but no remarkable changes between countries are found. That Malaysia and Indonesia show comparable results is not remarkable since their cultural values are comparable. The GLOBE study on culture confirms this as both of the countries fall in the same cluster, namely South East Asia (House et al., 2004).

27 Figure 5: Influence of Humanness on Knowledge Sharing per Country

(Standardized Beta Coefficients, significant at p< 0.05)

Level 2: Humanness Dimensions on Knowledge Sharing

28 Figure 6: Influence of the Humanness dimensions on Knowledge Sharing

(Standardized Beta Coefficients, significant at p< 0.05)

Figure 7 : Influence of the Humanness dimensions on Knowledge Sharing per country (Standardized Beta Coefficients, significant at p< 0.05)

Tanzania Malaysia Indonesia Netherlands 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 H u m an n e ss d im e n si o n p e r Co u n tr y

Standardized Beta Coefficients

Respect & Dignity Survival

29 Level 3: Dimensions of Humanness on the dimensions of Knowledge Sharing

Now that the main relationship between Knowledge Sharing and the dimensions of Humanness has been studied it is interesting to take a closer look at the Knowledge Sharing dimensions Employee Motivations, Corporate Culture and Leadership, and Information Technology.

Employee Motivations

In the full dataset 47% of all variability in Employee Motivations can be explained by variance in Humanness. On a country level the following percentages could be found; 56% for Tanzania, 64 % for Malaysia, 41 % for Indonesia, and 44% for the Netherlands. Figure 8 shows how much the dimensions of Humanness are influencing the level of Employee Motivations and Figure 9 gives an overview per country. A remarkable finding in the graph of Employee Motivations is that Respect and Dignity has a negative impact in Tanzania, Malaysia and Indonesia and a strong positive impact in the Netherlands. This may be caused by the fact that in the Netherlands the employee’s motivation is more focused on earning respect and saving face as the Netherlands is more individualistic compared to the other countries.

30 Figure 9: Influence of the Humanness Dimensions on Knowledge Employee Motivations per Country

(Standardized Beta Coefficients, significant at p< 0.05)

Corporate Culture & Leadership

In the total dataset 62% of all variability in Corporate Culture & Leadership can be explained by variance in Humanness. On a country level the percentages are 61% for Tanzania, 71 % for Malaysia, 65% for Indonesia, and 56 % for the Netherlands. Figure 10 and 11 give an overview of how much the dimensions of Humanness are influencing Corporate Culture & Leadership in the full dataset and on a country level. For the dimension Corporate Culture and Leadership the dimension Respect and Dignity has a high impacting in all four countries. Respect and Dignity is about mutual trust and regard for the values and beliefs of the company. These aspects are important elements of building a corporate culture that encourages Knowledge Sharing.

-0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 Tanzania

Malaysia Indonesia Netherlands

Standardized Beta Coefficient

Hu m an n e ss Di m e n sio n s p e r co u n tr y

31 Figure 10 Influence of the Humanness Dimensions on Corporate Culture and Leadership

(Standardized Beta Coefficients, significant at p< 0.05)

Figure 11: Influence of the Humanness Dimensions on Corporate Culture and Leadership per Country (Standardized Beta Coefficients, significant at p< 0.05)

-0.1 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.7

Tanzania Malaysia Indonesia Netherlands

Standardized Beta Coefficients

H u m an n e ss D im e n si o n s p e r Co u n tr y

32 Information Technology

In the full dataset 18% of all variability in Knowledge Sharing can be explained by variance in Humanness. On a country level the percentages are 19% for Tanzania, 42% for Malaysia, 23 % for Indonesia and 17% for the Netherlands. The low percentages tell that in the case of Information Technology, Humanness is not the most reliable predictor. Increasing the level of Humanness will not have a major impact on the dimension Information Technology. Figure 12 shows how much the Humanness dimensions are influencing Information Technology and Figure 13 shows the differences per country. The Netherlands is the only country where all variables have a positive influence. Overall we can conclude that in level three some differences between countries can be found in how much the dimensions of Humanness are contributing to the motivation of an employee to share knowledge, and to a corporate culture en information technology that enables knowledge sharing.

33 Figure 13: Influence of the Humanness Dimensions on Information Technology per Country

(Standardized Beta Coefficients, significant at p< 0.05)

4.4 Entering Country to the Regression model

In order to find out what the impact is of adding the categorical variable to the regression model dummy variables are created in the data set, each of them representing a different country. As mentioned in the research approach the strategy that will be used is Dummy Coding. The Dummy Coding Strategy is compatible with multiple predictors, either continuous or categorical what means that the dummies can be added to the model next to the Humanness variables. When creating the dummy variables it is only necessary to create k – 1 dummy variables where k is the number of categories of the variable (Starkweather, 2010). Creating K-1 dummies shows the meaning of the reference category, because it is always coded as 0. If there would be one dummy variable for each category a case of perfect collinearity would exist (Hardy, 1993). The reference category needs to have some clear distinction. As the theory on the relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Humanness has been based on the research findings in Tanzania, this country is the most suitable for being the reference category.

The Standardized Beta Coefficients are shown in Figure 14, the full statistical tables can be found in Appendix 10. When the dummy variables are added to the Multiple Regression Equation next to the Humanness dimensions the first finding is that that the R-square value goes up from 0.559 to 0.617. The corresponding F-value = 136.097, which is significant with p<0.01. This result shows that when country is

-0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

Tanzania Malaysia Indonesia Netherlands

Standardized Beta Coefficients

H u m an n e ss D im e n si o n s p e r Co u n tr y

34 added to the model it improves in how well it is explaining the variance in Knowledge Sharing from 56% to 62%. Because the dummy variables are used to compare the countries to Tanzania, the intercept term is equal to the mean of Tanzania (Starkweather, 2010). As we used the standardized Beta the intercept is 0. Each regression coefficient represents the amount of deviation of the group identified in the dummy variable from the mean of the reference category (Pedhazur, 1997). So the deviation from Tanzania is +0.103 in the case of Malaysia, -0.125 for Indonesia and +0.168 for the Netherlands. This means that when a company is situated in Malaysia and the Netherlands the employees are more willing to share knowledge than in Tanzania and Indonesia. As the Humanness variables are still significant after entering country the regression we can speak of a partially mediating or intervening variable. Country changes the relation between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing as it is related to both variables, but is not theoretically in a causal sequence (MacKinnon & Luecken, 2008). As country has a significant impact in the model it needs to be taken into account in future studies.

The impact of the control variables gender, age and company size was also tested. When the variables were added to the model together with the dimensions of Humanness and country, no significant impact for all three variables was found. In future research it can be taken into account that these variables will most likely not impact the model significantly.

Figure 14. The influence of the Humanness Dimensions and Country on Knowledge Sharing (Standardized Beta Coefficients, significant at p< 0.05)

35 Finally after the ANOVA, Pearson Correlation and the Regression analyses we can conclude that the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing is influenced by country, despite the fact that the relationship is strong and positive in all four countries. The ANOVA analysis showed significant differences between the countries in the score on Humanness and the score on Knowledge Sharing. This means that country is influencing both the dependent and the independent variable. When looking at the Pearson correlations a strong and positive relationship is found across countries. So the variables Humanness and Knowledge Sharing show to have a statistical dependence which is strong in all four countries. However this statistical dependence does not show the presence of a causal relationship. This causal relationship has been confirmed with the regression equation. On the overall concepts of Humanness and Knowledge sharing a similar outcome was found. When performing the regression analysis on the level of the dimensions (level 2 and 3) some bigger differences could be found. This means that how the different dimensions are contributing to the level of Humanness differs across countries. When country was added as a categorical variable to the regression model it shows that the country where the company is located does have a significant influence in the model next to the significant influence of the Humanness variables. The fact that both Country and the Humanness Dimension are significant predictors of Knowledge Sharing and the ANOVA Analysis showed that country impacts both Humanness and Knowledge Sharing it indicates that country is mediating or intervening the Humanness and Knowledge Sharing relationship.

These results show that country is influencing the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. Despite the fact that the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing is positive and strong in all four countries there is a significant influence of country on both of the concepts and when this variable is included in the regression model. The 0 Hypothesis cannot be accepted and therefore H1: Country influences the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing is accepted. This result shows that country is a variable that needs to be taken into account when managers want to implement a Humanness Leadership style.

5. Discussion and Implications

36 However country does have an influence on Humanness, Knowledge Sharing and the relationship between both concepts. The results of the four countries that are researched tell that a Humanistic form of Leadership and its relation to Knowledge Sharing is not exclusive to Africa. This finding is in line with the arguments of Saunders (2012) that Humanness displays many synergies with other leadership models and cannot claim to be unique. Transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1985), servant Leadership Theory (Greenleaf, 1977) and Authentic Leadership (George, 2003) all embrace strongly humanistic values that are in common with Humanness. However due to the essence of the ancient African cultural values that are reflected in the management style of Humanness, this management style has the potential to deal with current challenges in organizations better than the westerns theories. This is because the Humanness management style has been build upon concepts such as the importance of relationships and dialogue, interdependence, balance, teamwork and spirituality (April & Hill, 2000). One mayor challenge that organizations currently face is utilizing and sharing all available Knowledge in the organization. Humanness has proved to develop higher levels of Knowledge Sharing in an organization and therefore it is important to develop the Humanness management style further and create specific guidelines for managers on how to incorporate the Humanness values into their company. As Khoza (2006) also recognizes similarities with Humanness and transformational leadership which both utilize diversity management, empowerment and consensus in decision making it is important that a unique Humanness leadership style will be identified. This Humanness leadership style can however evolve out of previous Westerns theories and experience of managers and does not need to be a purely unique African leadership style (Saunders, 2012).

37 Leadership style on the behaviors and therefore also the knowledge sharing behaviors will be bigger in collectivist cultures. As a result of socialization, collectivists subject to leadership through group orientation. Individualists on the contrary do not readily follow leaders, they are self motivated to lead and be led (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

A strong relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing was found in all four countries. Similar patterns of correlations were found across countries and the overall regression equations showed comparable results. Besides the similarities, the results of the regression analysis per country did show differences in how much the dimensions individually contribute to the level of Knowledge Sharing. This implies that the dimensions of Humanness that contribute to Knowledge Sharing are different according to the country where the organization is located. Finally, when country was added to the regression model it showed that the country where the company is located had a significant influence on the willingness to share Knowledge and the impact differed across country. How well the model predicted the level of Knowledge Sharing also improved so in further research this variable will need to be included in the model. With this finding the statement of Karsten & Illa (2005) that Humanness will strengthen the attitude of open conversation and creates an environment that enables Knowledge Sharing is supported in all four countries however the external context of a country is influencing the relationship. The effect of the external contexts on a management style has been recognized by multiple leadership theories (Northouse , 2004). Also the effectiveness of a management style varies within the external context of a country (Zoogah, 2012).

38 Something that is important to recognize is that a higher level of popularity of a Humanness management style amongst researchers and managers needs to be created. A higher level of popularity will enable managers to recognize the concept of Humanness and its relation to Knowledge Sharing and start operationalizing Humanness into the core values for their corporate culture. A better understanding on how to operationalize the Humanness values can be created by more studies on the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing and documentation of success stories. A better understanding on how to create higher levels of Humanness and Knowledge Sharing within an organization will enable managers to recognize the usefulness of the concept in their own situation.

6. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research

The relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing has so far been tested in four countries. This is just a start in understanding the real impact of the relationship between Knowledge Sharing and Humanness on a global level. As this study focused on the external context of a country on the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing it will be interesting for further research to look deeper into the effects of the internal context. So discover the impact of situational factors within organizations that influence the relationship. Furthermore Knowledge Sharing is only a part of Knowledge Management, so understanding the real influence of Humanness on everything that includes Knowledge Management will need further examination.

39 theory on the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. The goal of qualitative research is to explore the behavior, processes of interaction, and the meanings, values and experiences of sampled individuals and groups (Liamputtong and Ezzy, 2005). These types of information are currently lacking on the precise interaction between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing. Qualitative research on the practical implications of a Humanness management style will make managers understand how higher levels of Humanness can be established within an organization. A Humanness management style is only one way of establishing an organization culture based on the values of Humanness and there may be other ways to create higher levels of Humanness amongst all members of the organization. If managers get more explanation, concrete examples and guidelines on how higher levels of Humanness can be installed in the organization this could lead to global adoption and recognition of a Humanness management style.

7. Conclusion

The main goal of this research was to find out if the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing is universal and if this relationship is influenced by county. As previous studies have shown that the relationship between Humanness and Knowledge Sharing holds in countries outside of Africa the next phase is to search for ways on how to implement the values of Humanness in an organization to enable higher levels of Knowledge Sharing. To get to this next phase it is important to know if a country specific approach is needed for implementing the Humanness values in an organization.

41

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