Examining intellectual stimulation, idealised influence and individualised consideration as an antecedent to knowledge sharing: Evidence from Ghana

Transformational leadership and its relationship with knowledge sharing have been well noted in knowledge management literature. However, how the individual dimensions within Transformational leadership theory contribute to knowledge sharing has been scarcely investigated. This paper explores whether Intellectual stimulation, Idealised Influence and individualised consideration affect knowledge sharing among employees in Ghana. A cross–sectional survey design was employed. The study employed a convenience sampling technique to select a sample size of 500. However, out of the 500 questionnaires distributed, 283 were used in the final analysis; thus, those that were correctly filled. Data was analyzed using multiple regression. The study found that there is a significant positive relationship between idealised influence and knowledge sharing. However, the relationship between intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration and knowledge sharing was found to be insignificant.

Transactional and transformational leadership are leadership theories that are mostly used to assess the role of leadership in knowledge sharing with transformational leadership theory dominating (Politis, 2001;García-Morales, Lloréns-Montes, & Verdú-Jover, 2008).Studies that have investigated the role of transformational leadership have mostly treated the four dimensions of transformational leadership; intellectual stimulation, inspiration (motivation), idealised influence and individualised consideration as a composite dimension (Bryant, 2003;Chen & Barnes, 2006;Analoui, Doloriert, & Sambrook, 2013).This makes it difficult to identify the contribution of the individual dimensions to knowledge sharing.Meanwhile, these four dimensions can be separated (Avolio, 1999).It is possible that a leader might have one or two of these dimensions and not all the four.There is the need for scholars to ascertain the effect of the dimensions on knowledge sharing.The question now is; do the four dimensions of transformational leadership theory individually influence knowledge sharing?Although some attempts have been made in this regard, the concentration has usually been on inspiration (motivation) (Hendriks, 1999;Ardichvili, Page, & Wentling, 2003;Wang, Noe, & Wang, 2014;Shoemaker, 2014).Hence the motivation dimension is ignored by this research.The objective of this study is to ascertain whether intellectual stimulation, idealised influence and individualized consideration affect knowledge sharing among employees.The rest of the paper is divided into four parts.The next section is the review of relevant literature on the subject, followed by the methodology employed for the study.The findings of the study are then presented.The paper ends with the discussion, conclusion and research implications.

Theoretical framework: Transformational leadership
The theoretical study of this research is based on the transformational leadership theory.Burns was the first scholar who proposed the theory of transformational leadership (Burns, 1978).Bass and Avolio further developed this theory (Bass & Avolio, 1996).Research demonstrates that transformational leadership theory predicts knowledgesharing behaviour (Bass 1985;Conger & Kanungo, 1987;Chen & Barnes, 2006;Analoui, Doloriert, & Sambrook, 2013).Several elements of transformational theory fit well with managing knowledge.Employees are more productive when they have the freedom to create new ideas, share those ideas with co-workers and test their new ideas (Sosik, 1997).Transformational leadership creates an atmosphere conducive to knowledge creation, sharing and exploitation.In particular, by using charisma, encouraging intellectual development and by paying individual attention to workers, transformational leaders motivate their workers to create and share knowledge (Conger & Kanungo, 1987).According to Bass (1999, p. 11), "Transformational leadership refers to the leader moving the follower beyond immediate self-interests.It elevates the follower's level of maturity and ideals as well as concerns for achievement, self-actualisation, and well-being of others, the organisation, and society".Transformational leaders are able to inspire their followers because of four unique but interrelated behavioral componentsidealised influence, individualised consideration, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation (Bass & Avolio, 1996;Jung, Chow, & Wu, 2003).

Intellectual stimulation
Intellectual stimulation is the frequency with which leaders encourage employees to be innovative in problem solving and solutions (Bass, 1985;Bass, 1990).Intellectual stimulation is the ability of the leader to inspire followers to "think out of the box" when solving problems, thereby resulting in creativity and innovation (Bass & Avolio, 1996;1997).Leaders kindle their followers' effort to be innovative and creative by questioning assumptions, reframing problems and approaching old situations in new ways (Avolio & Bass, 2004).There is no public criticism of individual members' mistakes.New ideas and creative problem solutions are solicited from followers, who are included in the process of addressing problems and finding solutions.Followers are encouraged to try new approaches, and their ideas are not criticized simply because they differ from the leaders' ideas (Bass, 1998).

Idealised influence
The idealised influence dimension is subdivided into two perspectives: idealised influence attributed and idealised influence behavior (Bass & Avolio, 1997;Loon, Lim, Lee, & Tam, 2012).Idealised influence is defined with respect to both the leader's behaviour and the followers' attributions about the leader (Bass & Avolio, 1996).Under idealised influence attributed, transformational leaders exhibit confidence and instill emotions (such as dignity, integrity, and honor), a sense of selflessness, and respect in their followers (Loon et al., 2012).With this dimension, leaders are admired and trusted.Leaders have high standards for ethical and moral conducts.This engenders loyalty from followers.Attributes include instilling pride in others for being associated with the leader; going beyond self-interest for the good of the group and displaying a sense of power and confidence (Avolio & Bass, 2004).Under idealised influence behavior, transformational leaders are goal-oriented, and they encourage the completion of work based on a collective sense of beliefs, values, purpose, and mission (Loon et al., 2012).Emphasis is put on behaviours including the leader talking about his/her most important values and beliefs, specifying the importance of having a strong sense of purpose and considering the moral and ethical consequences of decisions (Avolio & Bass, 2004).

Individualised consideration
Individualised consideration is the degree to which a leader pays personal attention and encourages employees (Bass, 1985;Bass, 1990).Avolio and Bass (1995) assert that the behavioral component of individualised consideration (coaching and mentoring) focuses not only on the greater good of the organisation but also the attention to the specific needs of individuals, where equity rather than equality is emphasized.Bass, Avolio, Jung, and Berson (2003) further explained that, as an antecedent to cultivating a learning culture, individualised consideration develops a supportive climate that fosters trust and learning within the organisation (Loon et al., 2012).The leader's behavior demonstrates acceptance of individual differences (e.g., some employees receive more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure).A two-way exchange in communication is encouraged, and "management by walking around" workspace is practiced.Interactions with followers are personalized (e.g., the leader remembers previous conversations; he is aware of individual concerns, and sees the individual as a whole person rather than as just an employee).This implies that such leaders pay attention to their followers' needs and concerns as individuals and develop their strengths through behaviour such as coaching and consulting (Avolio & Bass, 2004).

Inspiration (motivation)
Inspiration is the ability to motivate followers largely through communication of high expectations (Bass, 1985;Bass, 1990).Inspiration is the leaders' ability to formulate and express vision that work teams or the entire organisation can identify with from both the commercial and personal perspectives.This vision is operationalized at the individual level, and the process takes into consideration the capabilities of the individuals by considering the manner in which they can contribute to the vision and simultaneously fulfill their personal ambitions (Bass & Avolio, 1996;1997).Leaders behave in ways that motivate those around them, providing meaning and challenges for their followers.Such leaders arouse individual and team spirit, and encourage followers to envision attractive future states by making use of persuasive language and actions, building confidence and stimulating enthusiasm (Avolio & Bass, 2004).Leaders create clearly communicated expectations that followers want to meet and also demonstrate commitment to goals and the shared vision.Charismatic leadership and inspirational motivation usually form a combined single factor of charismatic-inspirational leadership (Bass, 1998).This dimension makes leaders motivate their followers in order to fulfill ambitious goals.They encourage followers to have confidence in their own abilities.The leader develops an attractive vision for the future, using symbols and emotional arguments to persuade the followers to accept the vision with full commitment, faith and optimism.Leaders, according to Bass (1997) articulate an interesting vision of the future, setting high standards for followers, while providing them encouragement that such a vision can be accomplished.Bartol and Srivastava (2002) define KS as the process through which employees diffuse relevant knowledge to others across the organisation.It is the process of mutually exchanging knowledge and jointly creating new knowledge (van den Hooff & de Ridder, 2004).It implies synergistic collaboration of individuals who work toward a common goal (Boland & Tenkasi, 1995).Knowledge Sharing is important by moving knowledge that resides with individuals to organisational level; that, it is knowledge converted into economic and competitive value for the organisation (Hendriks, 1999).Knowledge sharing is a central process of knowledge management (Eisenhardt & Santos, 2002) and has received considerable attention (Cabrera et al., 2006;Cummings, 2004;Mir & Mir, 2009).Knowledge sharing occurs when an individual is willing to assist as well as learn from others in the development of new competencies (Sawhney & Prandelli, 2000;McDermott, 1999).The ultimate goal of knowledge sharing is the attempt at transferring all individuals' experiences and knowledge to organisational assets and resources, in order to advance the overall organisational effectiveness (Senge, 1998;Yang & Wan, 2004).Wah (2000) claims that a major obstacle to knowledge management is the propensity of people to hoard knowledge.Hoarding knowledge does seem to be natural, particularly under conditions of economic competition where ''knowledge is power''.For example, sales staff may face quota pressures and strong competition with each other and therefore may decide to hoard their knowledge.

Intellectual stimulation, idealised influence, individualised consideration and knowledge sharing
Chen and Barnes (2006) recognize the positive effect of inspiration, intellectual stimulation, and individualised consideration on the internal knowledge sharing.Intellectual stimulation, inspiration and confidence among members of the organisation can encourage organisational learning (Coad & Berry, 1999).In the view of Yukl (2006), leaders who intellectually stimulate employees, encourage them to solve task-oriented problems in new and different ways.Thereby leaders encourage their employees in challenging organisation-held beliefs and values.Against this backdrop, Chen and Barnes (2006) assert that knowledge sharing process will be effective if an individual is intellectually stimulated.Intellectual stimulation has been found to have a positive and significant impact on tacit knowledge sharing and explicit knowledge sharing (Chen & Barnes, 2006).The psychological barriers that prevent employees from sharing knowledge and experience can be mitigated through intellectual stimulation of transformational leaders.By sharing their knowledge with others, transformational leaders become models for the subordinates (Utami, 2013).They promote high interpersonal relationships among employees to avoid any conflict, and ensure enhanced employee productivity in the organisations (Nemanich & Keller, 2007).Knowledge sharing takes place in the organisations formally or informally through mentoring and professional meetings (Filius, De Jong, & Roelofs 2000).Owing to the individualised consideration, transformational leaders act as mentors to those employees who wish to develop their potential (Bass, 1990).As leaders will have to show a keenness to share information and knowledge generously and to seek it from others in the organisation, leaders who are perceived to possess the characteristic of idealised influence always have more willingness to be involved in risk-taking job activity and thus, they are more influential, effective, and willing to trust their employees (Bass & Riggio, 2006;Sgro, Worchel, Pence, & Orban, 1980;Jahani, Ramayah, & Abdullah, 2011).Such attitudes create an environment of trust, and effective attitudes throughout the organisation which is critical for knowledge sharing and collaboration (Jahani et al., 2011).Leaders who are characterized by intellectual stimulation feature influence their people to look at old problems in new ways, encourage them to think differently and legitimacy creativity and innovation.Through their conversations and discussions, the followers acquire knowledge to solve problems and they regularly examine basic assumptions to see whether they are still viable (Popper & Lipchitz, 2000).Hence, intellectual stimulation can be considered as a predictor of knowledge sharing among employees.A leader with an idealised influence feature shows models to his/her employees; This is done through his or her willingness to sacrifice private interest for good of the organization, which the followers may imitated and through the sensitization of employees on the ideological and moral implication of their decisions (Popper & Lipchitz, 2000).This has been proven in a study by Boateng and Agyemang (2016) where it was found that some employees in some public-sector organisations in Ghana share their knowledge to promote the overall organisations' success.A recent study by Dzandu, Boateng, and Tang (2014), examined the effect of transformational leadership style and communal organisational culture on knowledge sharing and noted that the relationship between transformational leadership style and knowledge sharing is not significant.One shortcoming of this study is that it did not probe further to ascertain why the relationship was not significant.Furthermore, the study combined the transformational leadership style constructs with other concepts (communal organisational culture) which might have contributed to that.This study, thus examine the impact of the individual dimensions of the transformational leadership on knowledge sharing.

Methodology
This study is a survey research and therefore adopted a quantitative approach.Specifically, this study used the cross-sectional survey technique, as the study did not intend to collect multiple data from the respondents over a period of time; the data was gathered once.Cross-sectional survey technique involves the collection of data once at a point in time rather than over a period of time (Rindfleisch, Malter, Ganesan, & Moorman, 2006;Barnett et al., 2012;Lindell & Whitney;2001).In this study, data was collected at one point in time over a period of 3 weeks.Questionnaire is used as data-collection instrument.This approach enabled the researchers to perform statistical analysis and test the relationship between intellectual stimulation, idealised influence and individualised consideration and knowledge sharing.The target population of the study was made up of employees in selected industries in Ghana.This population was chosen because most of these industries (see Table 1) engage in knowledge sharing and particularly because of the somewhat competitive nature of the industries demands proper management of knowledge by the firms and employees (Spender, 1996).Due to the large number of industries, firms, employees, and lack of a sample frame, the study employed a convenience sampling technique to select a sample size of 500.Out of the 500 questionnaires distributed, 283 were used in the final analysis; that is those that were correctly filled.The number used in the final analysis also excludes those for which all the items on the instrument were not answered.We have provided the demographic characteristics of the respondents.As indicated earlier, the data was collected in Ghana.
The questions were all closed ended questions.There were four constructs; three (intellectual stimulation, idealised influence and individualised consideration) were used as the predictor constructs while the fourth; knowledge sharing was used as the dependent construct.These constructs were derived from the extant literature.The constructs were measured on a five-point Likert scale where 1-strongly disagree, 2disagree, 3-niether agree nor disagree, 4-agree and 5-strongly agree.The questionnaire was self-administered by one of the researchers to the respondents.This was to ensure data quality and integrity.Data was analyzed using multiple regression.This was because the number of predictor variables was more than one.Additionally, it was to enable the researchers to establish how each of the predictor variable explains the variations in knowledge sharing.

Descriptive analysis of findings
The analysis shows that majority 173 (61.1%) of the respondents were male while 110 (38.9%) were females.Also, the results show that 16.3% of the participants work in Accounting department while 5.7% were in Human Resource department.Additionally, participants who worked in marketing and sales department constitute 47.0%.Also, 9.9% were in finance department; participants who work in production and operation department accounted for 20.8% and those in Information Technology constitute 0.4%.It obvious from above that participants who work in marketing and sales department are more than those from the other departments.The industry in which the participants work was also ascertained.The findings show that quite a proportion (42.2%) of the participants were employed in the financial service industry while those in the telecommunication industry were the least (4.2%).From Table 2, it can be observed that all the variables have mean values ranging from 3.07 to 3.97 indicating that the respondents agree that their leaders sometime and often show traits of individualised consideration, intellectual stimulation and idealised influence.Similarly, it indicates that, the respondents agree that they share knowledge with their colleagues.Again, from Table 2, it can be observed that all the standard deviation variables were less than the mean variables indicating that the variables were different from each other.
The reliability of the four constructs was tested using Cronbach's alpha.As shown in Table 3 all the constructs have Cronbach's alpha exceeding 0.6 and this was found to be reliable based on Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, and Tatham (2006)'s assertion that the Cronbach's alpha coefficient 0.6 is acceptable for regression analysis.This indicates that there is a higher internal consistency, which is good for multiple regression analysis.

Multiple regression analysis
In determining whether individualised consideration, idealised influence and intellectual stimulation influence knowledge sharing among employees, a multiple regression was employed.The R-square value (see Table 4) for the model was .137.This means that individualised consideration, idealised influence and Intellectual stimulation explains 13.7% of the variations in knowledge sharing.Although this figure is significant [F (3, 279) = 15.887);(p<0.000)](see Table 5), it is somewhat not substantial.It can be argued that, other factors predict knowledge sharing better than these three variables.The data for the study revealed that Intellectual stimulation (β=0.086,p>0.05) and individualised consideration (β=0.132,p>0.05) are positively related to knowledge sharing and these accounted for 8.6% and 13.2% respectively of the variation in knowledge sharing in the model.However, these contributions are not significant at the 95% significance level.The results also show that idealised influence significantly accounted for 20.2% (β=0.202,p<0.05) of the model (Table 6).This means that there is a significant positive relationship between idealised influence and knowledge sharing; and 20.2% of the variation in knowledge sharing can be explained by idealised influence.Thus, a unit change in the idealised influence by the leader will impact positively and significantly (p<0.05) on knowledge sharing among the employees by 20.2%.

Discussion, conclusion and research implication
The extant literature has treated the four transformational leadership dimensions as composite subject, even though they can be assessed distinctly.To bridge this gap in knowledge, this study investigated how three of the four dimensions of transformational leadership theory individually influence knowledge sharing.Intellectual stimulation was found not to be a significant contributor (β=0.086,p>0.05) to knowledge sharing.It can be argued that a leader's skill of promoting creativity and innovation among employees is not enough to encourage them to share knowledge among themselves.Though, Chen and Barnes (2006) recognize a positive effect of intellectual stimulation on internal knowledge sharing; the positive effect of intellectual stimulation on knowledge sharing in this study does not mean it impacts knowledge sharing palpably.Thus, the effect of the intellectual stimulation dimension on knowledge sharing among employees in this study can be said to be positive yet insignificant (p>0.05) to urge employees to share knowledge among themselves.
The study found that the seeking of deferring views when solving problems does not urge many employees to share knowledge among themselves.Therefore, it is opposing to Utami's (2013) point that intellectual stimulation has a positive and significant impact on experiential sharing and explicit knowledge sharing.This study shows that intellectual stimulation has insignificant influence on knowledge sharing among employees and as a result does not agree with point that the psychological barriers to employees sharing knowledge and experience can be reduced through intellectual stimulation (Utami, 2013).Idealised influence was found to be a predictor of knowledge sharing (β=.202, p<0.05).The results are an attestation that the leader emphasizing on the most important values and beliefs, specifying the importance of having a strong sense of purpose and considering the moral and ethical consequences of decisions (Avolio & Bass, 2004) would encourage knowledge sharing among employees.The leader instilling pride in others for being associated with him; going beyond self-interest for the good of the group and displaying a sense of power and confidence (Avolio & Bass, 2004) would influence knowledge sharing among employees.This study can be said to have agreed with Jahani et al. (2011) as the environment of trust and effective attitudes that promote knowledge sharing is always promoted by a leader with the idealised influence dimension.The positive and significant impact of idealised influence on knowledge sharing can be explained that; as a leader sacrifices private interest for good of the organisation (Popper & Lipchitz, 2000), the followers would imitate.The selfless attitude of the leader can make the followers morally inclined and selfless as well, thereby sharing their knowledge with each other.Individualised consideration was found to have made an insignificant impact on knowledge sharing.The contribution of (β=.132, p>0.05) is an attestation that leaders' personal attention and encouragement of self-development to the employees would not necessarily push employees to share knowledge among themselves.Contrary to Nemanich and Keller (2007), this study found that, the promotion of cordial relationship alone does not promote knowledge sharing among employees; there must be trust among the individuals before they will share their knowledge (Wang et al., 2012;Boateng & Agyemang, 2016).Our findings, however is in consistent with Dzandu, Boateng, and Tang (2014), who noted that transformational leadership style does not affect knowledge sharing.This paper concludes that idealised influence has a positive and significant impact on knowledge sharing.Employees' decision to share knowledge among themselves is influenced mainly by the idealised influence provided by the leadership.Leader who instills confidence, dignity, integrity, honour, collective sense (beliefs, values, purpose, and mission) influences the employees to share knowledge among themselves.Hence managers are entreated to instil confidence, dignity and integrity in employees if they want to build a knowledge sharing culture in an organisation.The way to instil confidence, dignity and integrity is by the manager being loyal, selfless, and trustworthy.The empirical result suggests important findings for leaders (managers).This study attests that not all the dimensions are of the same importance as far as knowledge sharing among employees is concerned; some predict knowledge sharing more than others do.Managers should encourage or instil the beliefs, values, purpose, and mission into their employees in order to encourage knowledge sharing among them.
The study is not without limitations.One limitation of the study is the use of convenient sampling technique.However, the results of the study are still valid and relevant although probabilistic sampling method would have ensured that all potential respondents had equal chance of being selected for the study.However, in the absence of a known sampling frame for the study, the respondents were conveniently chosen but the administration of the questionnaire was somewhat randomly done and the diversified nature of the respondents as evident in their background information (Table 1) lend the data to the use of inferential test albeit with caution.Also, some studies have used a similar approach and recommended (see Bush, & Hair 1985;Landers & Behrend, 2015) for researchers.Due to this limitation, we recommend that future studies should employ a probabilistic sampling technique in order to provide a good basis for generalisability of the findings in settings other than those similar to Ghana.Again, future studies may control the demographic factors to see if the same results would be obtained.

Table 1
Presents the gender, department and industry of the respondents

Table 2
Means and standard deviation of the variables

Table 3
Reliability test

Table 6
Model coefficients for the relationship between the test variables