The Impact of Transformational Leadership on Employee Knowledge Sharing at Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Danang City

Abstract

In today's competitive and dynamic economy, knowledge is considered one of the critical strategic resources that help organizations build sustainable competitive advantages. How to effectively exploit knowledge resources and promote knowledge sharing has received more recognition from researchers in recent years because leadership is the key to improving knowledge-sharing behavior in the organization, and the vital role of leadership is expressed in the organization's knowledge-sharing process. In fact, in Danang City, Vietnam, many administrators at small and medium-sized enterprises have focused on developing a transformational leadership style to increase employee knowledge sharing and retain customers from project to project. However, organizations have not highly appreciated the significance of promoting the role of transformational leadership style and mediating factors to increase employee knowledge sharing. The study's objective is to measure the impact of the relationship of transformational leadership style on knowledge sharing and the intermediary role of psychological empowerment, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior of employees at small and medium-sized enterprises in Danang City, by using data from 425 survey samples at small and medium-sized enterprises in Danang City in April 2024 and analyzing the data using SPSS 24.0 software. The proposed research model includes four factors: Transformational leadership style is the independent variable; the intermediate variables are psychological empowerment, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior; and the dependent variable is knowledge sharing. This study uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to establish a scientific basis for the impact relationship of transformational leadership style on knowledge sharing - the mediating role of psychological empowerment, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior of employees. Based on that, the planning management policies are developed to promote the role of transformational leadership style and intermediary factors to increase employee knowledge sharing.