The Relationship Between Cognitive Conflict And Tacit Knowledge Sharing: An Adjusted Mediator Model

We did a research about team tacit knowledge sharing mechanism which was rarely seen in previous researches that focused on the cause and outcome variables affecting tacit knowledge sharing in team. On the basis of carding literature from domestic and overseas, we adopted the methods of open questionnaire and interview to collect some relevant items and compiled the questionnaire of software developers’ shared mental models with good reliability and validity. Self-complied questionnaire of software developers’ shared mental model and other measurements were adopted to investigate 48 teams to examine the relationships between cognitive conflict and tacit knowledge sharing of knowledge-based employee, and to explore the mediation of shared mental model between cognitive conflict and tacit knowledge sharing, and the moderation of team psychological safety in the mediation of shared mental model. Main conclusions are as follows.(1) Self-complied questionnaire of the software developers’ shared mental model consist of four dimensions, professional knowledge model, team knowledge model, task belief model and team belief model, 13 items in total. It is an effective tool to measure the shared mental model of software developers with good reliability and validity and the coefficient of internal consistency is 0.85, which reached the request of psychometrics.(2) Cognitive conflict is positively related to the tacit knowledge sharing and the shared mental model. Shared mental model is positively related to the sharing of tacit knowledge. Team psychological safety is positively related to cognitive conflict, shared mental model and tacit knowledge sharing.(3) The mediating effect of shared mental model between cognitive conflict and tacit knowledge sharing is regulated by the team psychological safety. Compared to the team with lower psychological safety, the mediating effect of shared mental model are more significant in higher psychological safety team, where cognitive conflict affect the effect of tacit knowledge sharing through the team knowledge model and the team belief model respectively.The results verify the theoretical hypothesis and reveal the mechanism of the effect of tacit knowledge sharing in knowledge-based team.