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Despite the strong focus on virtues in firms, humility is little recognized in the management literature and, more particularly in the literature about knowledge sharing (KS). Despite efforts to foster KS among employees in firms, the effectiveness of this process narrows down to the dyadic relationship between the knowledge seeker and provider within firm. This paper aims to investigate the role of humility in the KS process in dyadic activity.

The authors undertake an exploratory investigation to fill some of the gaps found in the literature. The paper draws insights from psychology, history, religion, current events and management literature.

The authors identify several individual propensities that help predict humility towards sharing knowledge from seeker (humble knowledge-inquiry) and provider perspectives (humble response). They propose a new conceptual process model of KS with humility as an important variable to consider. This work highlights several promising directions for future research.

As per the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that investigates the role of humility in knowledge sharing from dyadic perspective. The authors also introduce concepts of humble knowledge inquiry and humble response in a dyadic context for effective knowledge sharing process.

Successful knowledge transfer (KT) between younger and older workers (YW and OW, respectively) is critical for organizational success, especially in light of the recent surge in employment volatility among the youngest and oldest segments of the workforce. Yet, practitioners and scholars alike continue to struggle with knowing how best to facilitate these exchanges. The qualitative study offers insight into this phenomenon by exploring how KT unfolds in YW/OW dyads.

The authors performed a reflexive thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with two samples of blue- and white-collar younger/older workers from the USA (N = 40), whereby the authors interpreted the “lived experiences” of these workers when engaged in interdependent tasks.

The analysis, informed by social exchange theory and exchange theories of aging, led to the development of the knowledge transfer process model in younger/older worker dyads (KT-YOD). The model illustrates that, through different combinations of competence and humility, KT success is experienced either directly (by workers weighing the perceived benefits versus costs of KT) and/or indirectly (through different bases of trust/distrust perceived within their dyads). Further, humility in dyads appears to be necessary for KT success, while competence was insufficient for realizing KT success, independently.

In exposing new inner workings of the KT process in YW/OW dyads, the study introduces the importance of humility and brings scholars and organizations a step closer toward realizing the benefits of age diversity in their workplaces.

Wicked problems, cross-sectoral and transregional collaborations, emerging technologies and calls for innovation generate exciting but unpredictable transformations in governance. Emerging research suggests humility, rather than certitude, represents a promising ethos for public leaders working to solve problems in tumultuous times. This study examines the nature, value and practice of humility in public administration (PA) leadership.

This study reviews cross-disciplinary research on the nature and value of humility and emerging findings and debates on humility assessment measures. It analyzes discourse among graduate students in US PA classes and uses ethnographic analysis from workshops with local government leaders to identify institutional dynamics that may influence leaders' willingness to act with humility.

Findings suggest that although PA students and leaders may value humility, they encounter institutional constraints related to public sector legitimacy and narratives about expertise and risk. The author proposes a framework to guide future research and practice in humility and public leadership.

Potential constraints emerged from a modest study of courses and workshops; further research is required to test the prevalence of themes across public leadership environments.

Public leaders, teachers and coaches may apply these practices and assessment measures to cultivate humility in PA classes and organizations.

This study is among the first to explore leadership humility with attention to how PA context may influence practice.

Though humble leaders can draw from their own resources to nurture employees' sense of well-being, this impact appears neglected in the leader humility literature. The aim of this study is to unfold how and when leader humility contributes to the well-being of employees in the public sector.

Participants in our research came from wards (grassroot level governments) in Vietnam.

The results lent credence to role of job crafting in mediating the relationships between leader humility and the physical, psychological and social well-being among public employees. The positive nexus between leader humility and job crafting was found to be stronger when employees demonstrated low levels of public service motivation.

This study advances the understanding of public sector employees' well-being via the predictive role of leader humility and the mediation mechanism of job crafting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the design and implementation of learning models for performance management can foster continuous learning and quality improvement within a publicly funded, multi-site community hospital organization.

Niagara Health’s patient flow performance management system, a learning model, was studied over a 20-month period. A descriptive case study design guided the analysis of qualitative observational data and its synthesis with organizational learning theory literature. Emerging from this analysis were four propositions to inform the implementation of learning models and future research.

This performance management system was observed to enable: ongoing performance-related knowledge exchange by creating opportunities for routine social interaction; collective recognition and understanding of practice and performance patterns; relationship building, learning for improvement, and “higher order” learning through dialogue facilitated using humble inquiry; and, alignment of quality improvement efforts to organizational strategic objectives through a multi-level feedback/feed-forward communication structure.

The single organization and descriptive study design may limit the generalizability of the findings and introduce confirmation bias. Future research should more comprehensively evaluate the impact of learning models on organizational learning processes and performance outcomes.

This study offers novel insight which may inform the design and implementation of learning models for performance management within and beyond the study site.

Few studies have examined the mechanics of performance management systems in relation to organizational learning theory and research. Broader adoption of learning models may be key to the development of continuously learning and improving health systems.

Wicked problems require holistic and systemic thinking that accommodates interdisciplinary solutions and cross-sectoral collaborations between private and public sectors. This paper explores how public relations (PR) – as a boundary-spanning function at the nexus of corporate and political discourse – can support societies to tackle wicked problems.

This conceptual paper synthesizes literature on PR with a service ecosystem perspective. The authors use the service ecosystem design framework to structure the PR literature and develop a model of service ecosystem shaping for social change, which highlights the important role that PR can play in shaping processes.

The authors explicate how PR can (1) facilitate value cocreation processes between broad sets of stakeholders that drive positive social change, (2) shape institutional arrangements in general and public discourse in particular, (3) provide a platform for recursive feedback loops of reflexivity and (re)formation that enables discourse to ripple through nested service ecosystems and (4) guide collective shaping efforts by bringing stakeholder concerns and beliefs into the open, which provides a foundation for collective sense-making of wicked problems and their solutions.

This paper explains the complexity of shaping service ecosystems for positive social change. Specifically, it highlights how solving wicked problems and driving social change requires reconfiguration of the institutional arrangements that guide various nested service ecosystems. The authors discuss in detail how PR can contribute to the shaping of service ecosystems for social change and present a future research agenda for both service and PR scholars to consider.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the moderating effect of humble leadership on the relationship between different intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors and employee’s knowledge-sharing intention.

Responses of 236 employees in public organisations in the country of Jordan were collected via the completion of an online survey. The study data was analysed using structural equation modelling.

This study found that humble leadership support positively moderated the effect of intrinsic motivational factors (i.e. self-efficacy and enjoyment) on KS intention, while such leadership does not moderate the relationship between extrinsic motivational factors (i.e. rewards and reciprocity) and KS intention.

This study increases the understating of the conditions under which employees’ knowledge-share by exploring the moderating effect of humble leadership behaviour on motivational factors and KS intention in public organisations, particularly in the context of a developing country.

This paper aims to examine the impact of humble leadership on project success. The mediating effects of psychological empowerment and innovative work behavior on the relationship between humble leadership and project success are tested.

Data were collected from 337 individuals employed in the civil construction sector of Pakistan.

The results showed that humble leadership is positively related to project success. Furthermore, psychological empowerment and innovative work behavior partially mediate the relationship between humble leadership and project success.

Drawing on conservation of resource theory, this study found that how humble leadership is important for project success and thus extends the utility of the concept of humble leadership to the project literature.

The concept of knowledge-hiding starkly contradicts the notions with which it is closely associated, such as knowledge-hoarding and knowledge-sharing. The understanding of the effect of humble leadership on follower knowledge-hiding behaviour is particularly limited, as it is significantly underdeveloped owing to its distinct nature. Ergo, this paper aims to explore the role of humble leadership and its ability to mitigate employee knowledge-hiding behaviour. Moreover, this study aims to investigate the mediating effect of employee self-efficacy and the trust that they have in their leader, based on the relationship between humble leadership behaviour and knowledge-hiding in Jordanian health-care organisations.

This study used a quantitative method, and 260 employees of Jordan’s health-care organisations completed an online self-report questionnaire. Further to this, structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesised correlations.

According to the findings of this study, the leaders who exhibited humble behaviour mitigated their employees’ tendencies to engage in the two dimensions of knowledge-hiding (evasive hiding and playing dumb); however, they increased the tendency to practice rationalised hiding. Furthermore, the self-efficacy of employees and trust in their leader mediated the relationship between humble leadership and employees’ knowledge-hiding behaviour.

This study contributes to the literature by proposing and empirically demonstrating the impact of humble leadership across all three dimensions of knowledge-hiding behaviour, which in turn facilitates new discoveries in a developing country setting. This research expands and sheds light on the theory of humble leadership by proposing a motivational aspect in the negative relation between humble leadership and employees’ knowledge-hiding behaviour: employees’ self-efficacy and trust in their leader.