A Study On The Mechanism And Effect Of Internalization Of Enterprise Employees' Knowledge Contributing Motivations

How to motivate employees to contribute knowledge more effectively?It's a problem that managers often encounter in the practice of knowledge management.It has been proved that it is not feasible to promote knowledge contribution through economic rewards,but totally depending on the employees' commitment seems too idealistic.-the complexity of individuals' knowledge contribution motivations makes the traditional incentive theory inactive.The author thinks in order to solve this problem,the key is to deeply understand the motivations behind individuals' knowledge contribution behavior.The motivations of employees' knowledge contribution are very complex,including extrinsic motivations(such as economic interests,reciprocity,reputation,etc.),and intrinsic motivations(such as achievability,altruism,collective responsibility,etc.),these motivations often appear and change at the same time,and there exists complicated interactions between each other,which makes managers often face a lot of difficulties on designing and implementing incentive plans.This dissertation holds that scholars may have two omissions in previous studies:,rst,ignoring the diversity of motivations.In previous studies,scholars often make the analysis through selecting some representative ones from various motivations,it is inevitable to have omissions or errors.Second,ignoring the dynamics and interactions of motivations.Most of the previous studies treat individuals' knowledge contribution motivations as static and isolated,in fact,individuals' various motivations are developing and changing under the influence of the outside world,motivations will also have complicated interactions(such as crowding-out effect of extrinsic motivations on intrinsic motivations).In light of this,the author studies individuals' knowledge contribution behavior from the perspective of motivations,construct theoretical model and put forward relevant research hypotheses based on self-determination theory(SDT).SDT holds that the supportive environment promotes the internalization of motivations by satisfying individuals' basic psychological needs,with the degree of autonomy of motivations increasing,individuals'performance will be better off.The discussion of internalization of motivations within SDT framework helps managers find a way to avoid crowding-out effect and solve the dilemma faced by incentive plans for knowledge contribution.To validate the research hypotheses,the author collects data by questionnaires,uses SPSS,AMOS and Mplus to analyze 386 valid sample data obtained from formal investigation.The results show that out of 22 hypotheses proposed,17 are supported,the desired purpose is achieved.The innovation of this study is mainly reflected in the following 4 aspects:(1)To study employees' knowledge contribution behavior in Chinese enterprises based on SDT,expand the application scope of SDT,so managers can use it to encourage employees to contribute knowledge.SDT starts from motivations,and gains success in education,physical training,healthcare fields.But SDT stresses the effect of intrinsic motivations,holds cautious attitudes about the use of money and other material rewards,this conflicts with real working situations.Compared with general working behavior,economic motivations behind knowledge contribution aren't so prominent,the contribution behavior is obviously helpful and prosocial in nature,similar to the organizational citizenship behavior.The author suggests that when applying SDT to the working situation,knowledge contribution is a good breakthrough.This study shows that supports from supervisors and colleagues promote the internalization of employees' knowledge contribution motivations by satisfying their basic psychological needs,and finally promote employees to contribute knowledge more proactively.Overall,it is feasible to study employees' knowledge contribution behavior in Chinese enterprises based on SDT.(2)Based on the working situation in Chinese enterprises,the universality of the three basic psychological needs is verified,and the author further brings forward the Chinese value needs for relatedness rather than needs for autonomy.SDT holds that individuals generally have three basic psychological needs,they are needs for autonomy,needs for competence and needs for relatedness.Of these three needs,it is generally believed that needs for autonomy are more important.But some scholars think that this is not true under the background of oriental culture.This dissertation shows Chinese employees in the working situation also have these three psychological needs,and they value needs for relatedness most.(3)To extend and embody the connotation of support from significant others in knowledge contribution situations,results show that there is a positive correlation between extended support from significant others and employees' knowledge contribution behavior.Within the framework of SDT,the concept of support from significant others is of great importance,but scholars tend to understand the significant others in the working situation as leaders or supervisors.Research in this dissertation implies that unlike general working behavior,a lot of knowledge contribution happen in an informal setting with leaders or supervisors being absent,so the supportive response from colleagues as knowledge receiver or bystander has a positive influence on knowledge contributors' motivations and behavior,so when it comes to talk about employees' knowledge contributing behavior,colleagues should also be treated as significant others.Furthermore,research in this dissertation implies that support from supervisors and colleagues should fully respond to individuals' three basic psychological needs,instead of only emphasizing needs for autonomy.(4)Employees' knowledge contributing motivations under the Chinese cultural background are fully and dynamically analyzed within the framework of SDT SDT divides extrinsic motivations into four categories according to its degree of autonomy:externalregulation,introjected regulation,identified regulation and integrated regulation,respectively.Most previous research simply lists contents of extrinsic motivations for knowledge contribution,the degree of autonomy is neglected.Based on the literature review,this dissertation summarizes seven employees' knowledge contributing motivations in Chinese enterprises,and divides them between autonomous motivations and controlled motivations according to the degree of autonomy,this work is expected to provide some convenience for future research.