Towards an integrated framework of
intrinsic motivators, extrinsic motivators
and knowledge sharing
Kuok Kei Law, Andrew Chan and Muammer Ozer
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Kuok Kei Law is Assistant
Professor at the Lee Shau
Kee School of Business
and Administration, The
Open University of Hong
Kong, Hong Kong, Hong
Kong. Andrew Chan is
Associate Professor at
the Department of
Management, City
University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Muammer Ozer is based
at the Department of
Management, City
University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Received 16 March 2016
Revised 8 November 2016
9 January 2017
18 June 2017
Accepted 11 August 2017
PAGE 1486 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to develop an integrated framework to demonstrate the individual and
combined effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators on two forms of knowledge sharing behaviors –
in-depth knowledge sharing and routinized knowledge sharing.
Design/methodology/approach – A range of work on the use of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and
the differential degrees of costs and risks involved in the two forms of knowledge sharing is being
reviewed with the aim to locate gaps and problems arising from propositions of different scholars. An
integrated framework is then proposed to connect different schools of thoughts into a single, unifying
framework.
Findings – Knowledge sharing behaviors among employees are subject to both attractive and
distractive forces. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators might interact positively or negatively depending on
the type of extrinsic motivator and the form of knowledge sharing. While enhancing the intrinsic
enjoyment of employees along with outcome-based extrinsic motivators can promote in-depth
knowledge sharing, the use of behavior-based extrinsic motivators is more appropriate for fostering
routinized knowledge sharing.
Research limitations/implications – This paper mainly focuses on the sharing of knowledge without
examining the receiver side in knowledge sharing. Also, the use of punitive means by superiors in
encouraging knowledge sharing is not discussed in the framework. Future research can also add into
the authors’ integrated framework the effects of personal traits in knowledge sharing.
Originality/value – This paper narrows the gap between existing theories on the use of extrinsic and
intrinsic motivators and offers an integrated theoretical framework for those interested in examining the
inter-relationship among intrinsic motivators, extrinsic motivators and knowledge sharing behaviors.
Keywords Motivation, Knowledge management, Knowledge transfer, Knowledge sharing
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
Knowledge sharing (KS), defined as the provision and reception of know-what and
know-how for performing tasks among organizational members (Foss et al., 2010), is the
quintessence of organizational knowledge management (KM) systems (Davenport and
Prusak, 1998; Zack et al., 2009) and “an essential source of firms’ sustainable competitive
advantage” (Osterloh and Frey, 2000, p. 538). There is an abundance of evidence
suggesting that organizations and their members are more productive when knowledge is
successfully shared and then learnt by the organizational members (Agrawal, 2006; Argote
et al., 2003; Haas and Hansen, 2007; Mon et al., 2007; Reychav and Weisberg, 2009). The
central question faced by managers therefore becomes “How to motivate employees to
share their knowledge with other organizational members?”
Different motivational mechanisms including individual, organizational and
technological drivers have been identified and discussed in past studies (Cavaliere
VOL. 21 NO. 6 2017, pp. 1486-1502, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270 DOI 10.1108/JKM-03-2016-0119
 et al., 2015; Ghobadi, 2015; Stewart et al., 2015; Wang and Noe, 2010). However, the
relationship between motivation and KS has remained ambiguous (Lam and
Lambermont-Ford, 2010; Stenuis et al., 2016) and scholars have repeatedly criticized
the extant literature for the lack of managerially relevant KS research that can inform
managers on how to govern KS behaviors in organizations (Alvesson and Karreman,
2001; Foss et al., 2010).
Motivation is the basis for individual behavior and performance according to the classic
theory of reasoned action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). The motivation to perform can be
affected by two broad categories of motivators – intrinsic motivators (IMs) and extrinsic
motivators (EMs). In essence, employees can be said to be intrinsically motivated to share
knowledge if they perceive that the value of sharing is high and that this action satisfies their
needs; on the contrary, they are said to be extrinsically motivated to share knowledge if
some separable outcomes (e.g. rewards and recognition) are obtained through engaging
in the sharing behavior (Deci, 1975).
How managers can effectively make use of both IMs and EMs to promote employees’
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KS behaviors remains under-explored in the extant literature (Lam and

Lambermont-Ford, 2010; Rode, 2016; Stenuis et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2015). While
there have been records of comparison studies between the effects of IMs and EMs,
few studies have attempted to put the two types of motivators into a coherent and
integrated framework that is managerially relevant (Lam and Labermont-Ford, 2010;
Osterloh and Frey, 2000). Moreover, past studies have usually over-emphasized the
undermining effects of EMs on IMs, downplaying the way EMs complement IMs in a
synergistic way (Lam and Lambermont-Ford, 2010). As a result, the use of IMs has
gained dominance in KS studies over the use of EMs. Such a dominance, however, has
been criticized to be impractical as “[t]o some degree, both intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation are functional in performance contexts” and “it is likely that intrinsic
motivation accompanies the presence of incentives in most applied domains (e.g. work,
school, health care)” (Cerasoli et al., 2014, pp. 981-983). Instead, it is suggested that
IM researchers should “move beyond the undermining effect body of research”
(Cerasoli et al., 2014, p. 981) to examine when and how IMs and EMs can be optimally
utilized together to achieve the motivating effect.
In this paper, we aim to develop a framework to integrate the distinctive effects of IMs, EMs
and KS. Specifically, we focus on when and how different types of EMs undermine or
facilitate the effect of IMs on initiating two forms of KS behavior, namely, in-depth KS and
routinized KS. In-depth KS involves the sharing of the more precious personal tacit
knowledge for exploration purposes, whereas routinized KS involves the sharing of more
explicit task-related knowledge for daily operation. Such a differentiation between the two
forms of KS is crucial in this paper because the different natures of the two forms of KS
impinge on the degrees of costs and risks involved in the KS behavior, which in turn will
influence the effects of IMs and EMs on the willingness of the employees to provide what
they know. These inter-relationships among IMs, EMs and two forms of KS will be fully
explored in the remaining of the paper. In doing so, the paper is aimed to contribute to the
KM literature by better rectifying the “M” of KM (Alvesson and Karreman, 2001) – showing
when and how different KS behaviors can be effectively fostered by manipulating the
functions of IMs and EMs appropriately (Osterloh and Frey, 2000).
Our paper is structured as follows. First, we examine the conception of KS as both an
intrinsically motivated behavior and a social dilemma to employees. We then examine how
the introduction of different types of EMs can influence employees’ motivation to engage in
different forms of KS. Next, theoretical propositions are developed to illustrate the
inter-relationships among IMs, EMs and KS. Finally, contributions and implications of the
paper are discussed.

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 2. Literature review
The motivation of employees toward KS can be induced by the intrinsic enjoyment derived
from the sharing behavior (i.e. IMs), the extrinsic rewards gained from the sharing behavior
(i.e. EMs) as well as the presence of a facilitative environment (e.g. technological and
co-worker support) (Carvalho de Almeida et al., 2016; Cavaliere et al., 2015; Ghobadi,
2015; Lam and Lambermont-Ford, 2010; Lin and Lo, 2015; Razmerita et al., 2016; Rode,
2016; Sedighi et al., 2016). While researchers have ascertained the positive influences of
a facilitative environment in promoting employees’ KS behaviors, the roles of IMs and EMs
are not very clear and their interactive effects have been recognized as an
under-researched area in both the motivation (Cerasoli et al., 2014; Ryan and Deci, 2000a;
Vallerand, 1997) and the KM literatures (Lam and Lambermont-Ford, 2010; Osterloh and
Frey, 2000; Sedighi et al., 2016; Stenuis et al., 2016). In this section, we review the current
research and highlight the research gap regarding an integrated study among IMs, EMs
and KS. We summarize the main findings in the current literature in Table I and major IMs
and EMs used in previous studies in Table II.
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2.1 Intrinsic motivation and knowledge sharing

KS, according to the self-determination theory (SDT), is considered as an intrinsically
motivating behavior, as it can fulfill employees’ psychological needs for competency
(enhancing one’s self-efficacy), autonomy (decide what to share and whom to share with)
and relatedness (a social activity with co-workers) (Carvalho de Almeida et al., 2016; Deci
and Ryan, 1985; Ryan and Deci, 2000b; Sedighi et al., 2016). The intrinsically motivated
nature of KS is however contingent upon various personal traits of employees such as
personality (Matzler et al., 2008), commitment (Li et al., 2015) and goal orientation (Matzler
and Mueller, 2011). For example, Bock and Kim (2002) found that employees’ expectation
of relationship improvement with other co-workers (i.e. sense of relatedness) and making
contributions to the organization (i.e. sense of competency) had positive effects on their
attitudes toward KS. Similarly, Kankanhalli et al. (2005) found that the gain of sense of
self-efficacy and the enjoyment of helping others significantly impacted employees’
engagement in KS via the use of an electronic knowledge repository (EKR). More recently,
Martin-Perez et al. (2012) showed that intrinsic rewards, such as the improvement of
self-fulfillment and self-identification, had a positive influence on employees’ willingness to
share their knowledge.
From a managerial perspective, a heavy reliance on employees’ intrinsic motivation to
share knowledge is however quite uncertain and risky. Osterloh and Frey (2000, p. 540)
once noted that “intrinsically motivated employees do not always work to the benefit of their
employers [. . .]. Rather employees must be motivated to perform in a coordinated and goal
oriented way”. Otherwise, negative consequences such as infinite procrastination will
occur if employees are managed only through IMs (Malott, 2005). Furthermore, Kamoche
(2006) and Wilkesmann et al. (2009) warn that one should not assume that employees
ought to share naturally what they know with their co-workers given the costs and risks
associated with the sharing behavior. Connelly et al. (2012) and Husted and Michailova
(2002) even argue that hiding or withholding, rather than sharing, knowledge is often a
more favored choice of employees due to self-interest.

2.2 The dual effects of extrinsic motivators

The basic rationale of the provision of EMs such as public recognition, monetary rewards
or promotion chances is likely to alter employees’ perceived benefits and costs of KS
(Sedighi et al., 2016). When employees’ perceived benefits outweigh their perceived costs,
they will likely to be motivated to engage in KS. This is an economic path how EM can
directly contribute to employees’ KS behavior. The presence of EM, at the same time,
affects employees’ IM toward KS as well. The relationship between EM and IM has been

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 Table I A summary of empirical studies of motivation and knowledge sharing
Empirical studies of motivation and KS Key findings

The effect of IMs on KS

Bock and Kim (2002) Evidences of IMs enhancing
Bock et al. (2005) employees’ KS
Cavaliere et al. (2015)
Kankanhalli et al. (2005)
Ko et al. (2005)
Lam and Lambermont-Ford (2010)
Martin-Perez et al. (2012)
Razmerita et al. (2016)
Sedighi et al. (2016)
Wang et al. (2015)
Stenuis et al. (2016) Weak or insignificant effect between IMs and
Wasko and Faraj (2005) employees’ KS
The effect of EMs on KS
Burgess (2005) Evidences of EMs enhancing employees’ KS
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Ding et al. (2016)

Lin and Lo (2015)
Martin-Perez et al. (2012)
Razmerita et al. (2016)
Sedighi et al. (2016)
Stenuis et al. (2016)
Wang et al. (2015)
Wasko and Faraj (2005)
Kankanhalli et al. (2005) Weak or insignificant effect between EMs and
Ko et al. (2005) employees’ KS
Lam and Lambermont-Ford (2010)
Quigley et al. (2007)
Stenuis et al. (2016)
Bock and Kim (2002) Evidences of EMs impeding employees’ KS
Bock et al. (2005)
Wang et al. (2015)
Comparison between IMs and EMs
Bock and Kim (2002) Evidences of IMs outweighing Ems
Bock et al. (2005)
Kankanhalli et al. (2005)
Ko et al. (2005)
Stenuis et al. (2016)
Wasko and Faraj (2005) Evidences of EMs outweighing IMs
Martin-Perez et al. (2012) No evidences of outweighing
Razmerita et al. (2016)
Sedighi et al. (2016)
Interaction between IMs and EMs
Lam and Lambermont-Ford (2010) Financial extrinsic incentives may crowd-out other
motivators
Wang et al. (2015) No evidence of EMs crowding-out IMs

mostly explained by the motivation crowding theory (MCT) (Deci, 1972) in the existing
literature.
Traditional MCT predicts that people’s intrinsic motive to engage in a certain behavior
would be corrupted by the introduction of external interventions as the reason to perform
shifts from inside to outside the individual. The SDT also supports such a “crowding-out”
effect of EM on IM in that the controlling effect of EM often diminishes the autonomy of
individuals in determining their exhibited behavior, thus harming their continual intention to
perform (Ryan and Deci, 2000b). There are nevertheless two underlying assumptions in the
crowding-out argument. First, the behavior has to be initially intrinsically motivated, which
is somehow true for the case of KS as discussed in the previous sub-section. Second, there

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 Table II The types of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators adopted in previous studies
Studies IMs EMs

Bock and Kim (2002) Associations Economic incentives

Contribution
Bock et al. (2005) Reciprocity Economic incentives
Self-worth
Burgess (2005) N/A Career progression
Economic incentives
Cavaliere et al. (2015) Knowledge self-efficacy N/A
Self-enjoyment
Ding et al. (2016) N/A Economic incentives
Relational incentives
Kankanhalli et al. (2005) Knowledge self-efficacy Economic incentives
Self-enjoyment Reciprocity
Reputation
Ko et al. (2005) Self-enjoyment Career progression
Economic incentives
Recognition
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Lam and Lambermont-Ford (2010) Normative intrinsic motivation Career progression

Hedonic intrinsic motivation
Lin and Lo (2015) N/A
Martin-Perez et al. (2012) Self-fulfillment
Quigley et al. (2007) N/A
Razmerita et al. (2016) Self-enjoyment
Sedighi et al. (2016) Altruism
Knowledge self-efficacy
Stenuis et al. (2016) Intrinsic regulation
Wang et al. (2015) Self-enjoyment
Wasko and Faraj (2005) Self-enjoyment
Economic incentives
Training
Economic incentives
Flexibility
Job stability
Training
Economic incentives
Economic incentives
Recognition
Economic incentives
Reciprocity
Reputation
External regulation
Introjected regulation
Identified regulation
Integrated regulation
Career progression
Economic incentives
Reputation

was no external intervention prior to the introduction of EMs. This second assumption has
been criticized by motivation scholars by arguing that in real life, as opposed to
experimental settings, it is impossible to isolate IMs and EMs (Cerasoli et al., 2014; Ryan
and Deci, 2000a). In other words, employees are always subject to the simultaneous
influences of IMs and EMs. As a result, the crowding-out effect of EMs on IMs seems to be
an inherently contradictory argument. On one hand, EMs are supposedly used to overcome
the self-interests and other external concerns of employees in KS. On the other hand, the
use of EMs are criticized for the crowding-out of IMs based on the assumption that
employees are initially intrinsically motivated without being subject to any external
interventions or distractions. Gerhart and Fang (2014, p. 47) shared the same view that it
is important to consider EMs and IMs together, especially in workplaces and that “even if
PFIP [pay for individual performance] decreases intrinsic motivation, what matters more is
PFIP’s effect on total (intrinsic ⫹ extrinsic) motivation and this basic question had received
surprisingly little attention”.
In MCT, however, “the potential for positive effects of extrinsic rewards has been mostly
overlooked, while the potential negative effects on intrinsic outcome have been the focus”
(Gerhart and Fang, 2014, p. 47). When discussing the mechanisms of interaction between EM
and IM, Amabile (1993, pp. 194-195) proposed that there is one potential underlying
mechanism called “extrinsics in service of intrinsics”, which means “any extrinsic factors that
support one’s sense of self-determination should positively contribute to intrinsic motivation”.

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 As a result, “monetary reward itself does not necessarily undermine [crowd out] intrinsic
motivation and creativity”. From an economics perspective, Frey and Jegen (2001, p. 606)
proposed a “crowding-in effect” of EM on IM and their survey of the literature shows that “strong
empirical evidence indeed exists for [both] crowding-out and crowding-in”. With reference to
both Amabile and Frey and Jegen, Lam and Lambermont-Ford (2000, p. 53) summarized the
two interaction mechanisms between EMs and IMs in the sphere of KS in that “[e]xtrinsic
rewards may undermine intrinsic motivation for interesting tasks and encourage knowledge
hoarding [. . .] extrinsic motivators in terms of goal and task constraint may circumscribe the
individual’s autonomy and lessen intrinsic motivation [. . .]. In an organizational setting, this can
be seen where employees are rewarded for contributing to knowledge-bases and make only
sufficient contribution to gain the payoff”. Therefore, there is a potentially positive path in which
EM contributes to IM when EMs can “provide feedback, recognition and reward which confirm
or improve competences”, leading to “increased self-esteem. [Thus] extrinsic motivators such
as career progression or increased involvement that aligns with the individual’s normative and
hedonic motivators can have a synergistic effect”. Figure 1 below summarizes the dual effects
of EM on IM and the desired behavior.
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Empirically, past studies seemed to confirm the dual effect of EM on IM. While Cameron
and Pierece’s (1994) meta-analysis of MCT in education and social psychology
experiments “concluded that financial rewards did not diminish a person’s intrinsic
motivation”, “a meta-study of motivation crowding theory by Weibel et al. (2007) showed
that tangible rewards had a significant and positive effect on the performance of individuals
who worked on extrinsically motivated tasks, but a negative relationship with tasks that
were intrinsically motivated” (Putra et al., 2017, p. 233). Moreover, Frey and Jegen’s (2001)
survey of “circumstantial evidence, laboratory evidence by both psychologists and
economists, as well as field evidence by econometric studies” provided strong empirical
evidence for the existence of both crowding-out and crowding-in effects of EM on IM.
These findings suggest that the dual nature of EM in affecting employees’ intrinsic motive
in engaging in KS – one diminishing and one facilitating. The duality in the motivating effect
of EM thus leads to mixed findings of the relationship between EM and KS. While Burgess
(2005), Martin-Perez et al. (2012) and Wasko and Faraj (2005) found a positive relationship
between a range of EMs (including organizational rewards, job stability, training
opportunity, work flexibility, personal reputation) and KS, Hung et al. (2011) and Quigley
et al. (2007) found incentives as a rather weak influence on KS when used alone. Bock
et al. (2005) even found a significant negative relationship between EMs and employees’
attitudes toward KS. Lucas and Ogilvie (2006, p. 19-20) explain the insignificant role of
incentives on KS by stating that incentives “were commonly perceived as “feel good”
rewards rather than carefully designed tools to generate action”. In other words, the mere
provision of incentives lacked the function of competence-affirming or enhancing
self-determination. As a result, it has been suggested that research on the effects of
incentives and other EMs on KS should further consider the EMs’ nature as well as their

Figure 1 Dual effects of EM on IM and desired behavior

IM
controlling path
affirming path

Desired
+ -
Behavior

EM

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 timing and criteria so as to distinguish synergistic EMs from non-synergistic ones (Amabile,
1993; Cerasoli et al., 2014; Pierce et al., 2003; Ryan and Deci, 2000a, 2000b).

2.3 Comparison between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators

Overall there seems to be a stronger evidence in supporting the dominant role of IMs over
EMs when their individual effects on KS intentions are compared. Examples include
Bassett-Jones and Lloyd’s (2007) findings that motivators associated with intrinsic drivers
outweighed motivators linked to financial inducement of employees’ willingness to
contribute ideas and Kankanhalli et al.’s (2005) findings that employees’ enjoyment in
helping others (an IM) was more effective in terms of encouraging EKR contributors than
organizational rewards. Moreover, studies of Bock and Kim (2002), Ko et al. (2005) and
Lucas and Ogilvie (2006) provided consistent evidence that while IMs had significant
positive effects on KS, no support was found for the role of EMs. There was a rare exception
in Wasko and Faraj’s (2005) study that the effect of EMs outweighed that of IMs on
motivating KS.
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2.4 Research gaps

This comprehensive literature review highlights the following research gaps:
 The weaknesses of IMs: Despite the dominant role of IMs in motivating employees’ KS
behaviors, employees’ IMs are difficult for managers to control and manage and
reliance on employees’ IMs to encourage them to share knowledge is too uncertain and
risky.
 The ambiguous role of EMs: Both the crowding-out and the crowding-in arguments are
present in the literature. The mixed findings regarding the effect of EMs on KS may be
attributed to the presence of different types of EMs, which was mostly overlooked in
past motivation and KS studies.
 The lack of an integrated framework of IMs, EMs and KS: The effects of IMs and EMs
were tested separately in most past studies. Their interactivity as well as their combined
usage by managers to promote KS is not well-understood.
To address these research gaps, we propose an integrated framework that can provide
managers with a genuine guidance on how to make use of both IMs and EMs to promote
employees’ KS behaviors. The essence of managing KS, as indicated by Osterloh and Frey
(2000, p. 544), is about “balancing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation” which when achieved
represents “an important and hard-to-imitate competitive advantage” for the organization.

3. Toward an integrated framework of intrinsic motivators, extrinsic motivators

and knowledge sharing
Our integrated framework explains the interactions among IMs and EMs and their
combined effect on promoting employees’ KS behaviors. There are several unique
characteristics of our framework as compared with previous frameworks in the existing
literature. First, we argue that EMs always exist in the workplace and are influencing
employees’ attitudes and perceptions toward their job and that employees are subject to
simultaneous attractive and distractive forces toward KS. Second, we differentiate
employees’ motivation toward two forms of organizational KS – in-depth and routinized KS.
Third, we distinguish the use of two types of EMs by managers to monitor and promote
employees’ KS behaviors – behavior-based EMs and outcome-based EMs. We begin our
framework by first discussing the duality of KS behaviors.

3.1 The duality of knowledge sharing behaviors

As we discussed in the literature review, employees may be inherently attracted to KS
because of an intrinsic enjoyment derived from the sharing behavior and extrinsically

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 attracted to KS because of any potential gains provided by the organization. In addition
to these attractive forces, employees are simultaneously distracted away from KS by
the concerns on the costs and risks of KS (Constant et al., 1994; Kamoche, 2006;
Sedighi et al., 2016). The costs of KS mainly involve the amount of time spent that
employees can otherwise put into use in other production activities. The risk of KS
involves the subsequent appropriation problem as the shared knowledge will
immediately become a public good that can be appropriated and benefited by anyone
who learnt it. Employees are therefore likely to experience dual forces toward KS
(Figure 2).
Different terminologies have been used to conceptualize such a duality of KS behaviors in
the extant literature. For example, Cabrera and Cabrera (2002) and Razmerita et al. (2016)
used the concept “social dilemma” to characterize KS, denoting the trade-off between
sharing and withholding one’s knowledge. Ghobadi and D’Ambra (2012) and Law and Ng
(2016) conceptualized KS as coopetition among employees. On one hand, employees
need to cooperate and share knowledge with one another to generate collective outputs
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and rewards. On the other hand, they tend to compete with one another for promotions or
any other benefits based on the quantity and quality of the proprietary knowledge they
possess.
The social dilemma or coopetitive arguments are supported by the economic exchange
theory (Constant et al., 1994; Kelley and Thibaut, 1978) and the prospect theory
(Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Tversky and Kahneman, 1992). The economic
exchange theory emphasizes rationalized self-interest in explaining individual
behaviors. Following this theory, employees’ concerns on time investments and
subsequent appropriation issues are expected to undermine the intrinsic and extrinsic
gains of KS, rendering them to be reluctant to share what they know. Moreover,
according to the prospect theory, people generally possess a risk averse tendency
when deciding whether to engage in a certain behavior. They would rather sacrifice the
present enjoyment or fulfillment of needs to avoid potential losses. Nevertheless, the
presence of a psychologically safe work environment can attenuate the risk averse
tendency of employees (Newman et al., 2017). Psychological safety is generally
defined as “a shared belief amongst individuals as to whether it is safe to engage in
interpersonal risk-taking in the workplace” (Newman et al., 2017, p. 522). Interpersonal
risk-taking here refers to a range of work behavior that may enable organizational
learning and improvement, for example, voicing new ideas, experimenting new ways of
doing things and sharing proprietary knowledge with co-workers (Edmondson, 1999;
Nembhard and Edmondson, 2011). Psychological safety not only shares some overlap
with but also represents the presence of other important facilitators of KS in the
workplace such as trust and justice: when employees trust their co-workers and
managers and perceive fairness in how their effort has been awarded, they feel
psychologically safe to continue contributing themselves to the continuous
improvement of the organization. Empirical evidences have shown that employees’
psychological safety is positively related to more interpersonal communication (Leroy
et al., 2012; Peltokorpi, 2004) and greater KS among team members (Mu and Gnyawali,
2003; Siemsen et al., 2009; Xu and Yang, 2010; Zhang et al., 2010). As a result, we offer
the following propositions to characterize the duality of KS behaviors as well as the
importance of employees psychological safety in their tendency to engage in KS:
P1a. Employees’ intention to engage in KS is subject to the simultaneous influences of
attractive (intrinsic and extrinsic) and distractive (concerns about time and
appropriation) forces.
P1b. With greater psychological safety, the distractive forces on employees’ intention to
engage in KS will be attenuated and vice versa.

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 3.2 Two forms of knowledge sharing
The balance between the attractive and distractive forces may differ between different
forms of KS. Following Li et al. (2015), Osterloh and Frey (2000) and Stenuis et al. (2016),
we classify organizational KS into two major forms – in-depth and routinized KS. In-depth
KS involves the sharing of tacit expertise and insights for more exploratory purposes (e.g.
product innovation, process improvement, strategy making). It is a high-quality form of KS
(Stenuis et al., 2016) and involves the transfer of key knowledge among employees (Li
et al., 2015). Such kind of KS demands more time to be spent by both the knowledge
provider and the receiver and involves a higher appropriation risk from the knowledge
provider’s perspective. Routinized KS, on the contrary, is mostly about the sharing of task-
or company-related knowledge in explicit forms (e.g. instructions, manuals, policies) and is
thus a relatively superficial and easier form of sharing.
Given the different degrees of time investments and appropriation risks involved in the two
forms of KS, the chemistry between the attractive and distractive forces will differ in the two
situations. For the case of in-depth KS, despite the chances of gaining intrinsic enjoyment
(e.g. the sense of achievement and self-efficacy) from contributing key knowledge to the
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organization, the high level of concerns on the costs and risks associated with the sharing
will strengthen the distractive force associated with engaging in the KS. The internal
struggle of employees toward in-depth KS will hence be greater than that of routinized KS
where the sharing involves less investment, less risk and also less intrinsic and extrinsic
rewards. We thus offer the following proposition to differentiate employees’ psychological
struggles toward the two forms of KS:
P2. The tension between the attractive and distractive forces experienced by
employees is greater in the case of in-depth KS than in the case of routinized KS.

3.3 Two types of extrinsic motivators

The different nature of KS implies that the effect of EMs may differ in the two cases. In
general, the introduction of EMs will influence the attraction and distraction tensions of
employees in three ways (Figure 2). First, it is likely to attenuate the effect of the distraction
force of risk aversion by raising the expectations of employees of monetary or
non-monetary gains from KS. Second, it crowd-outs the attractive effect of IMs by shifting
the reason to share knowledge from attaining intrinsic enjoyment to obtaining extrinsic
rewards. Third, EMs are likely to facilitate the motivating effect of IMs by providing
employees with signals of competence and achievement through rewards (Amabile, 1993;
Sedighi et al., 2016). Consequently, whether the provision of EMs would help lead
employees to or draw them away from KS depends on the type of EMs employed as well
as the form of KS involved.

Figure 2 A psychological framework of employees’ tensions toward KS

Away From Towards

Knowledge Perceived costs Employees Intrinsic enjoyment Knowledge
Sharing Perceived risks Perceived benefits Sharing

Extrinsic Movators

PAGE 1494 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT VOL. 21 NO. 6 2017

 Following the suggestions of Amabile (1993), Cerasoli et al. (2014), Pierce et al. (2003) and
Ryan and Deci (2000a), we distinguish between behavior-based and outcome-based EMs.
Such a distinction denotes when and how EMs are provided by the manager to the
employees. Behavior-based EMs refer to the provision of rewards based on the frequency
or intensity of KS whereas outcome-based EMs refer to the provision of rewards based on
team or organizational performance improvement following KS. Behavior-based EMs
belong to a more direct salient type of incentives which provides “a clear, proximal and
unambiguous link between the incentive and performance” (Cerasoli et al., 2014, p. 983).
Performance here means the frequency of performing the required behavior (i.e. KS) to
gain the designed incentives. This type of EM focuses more on the monitoring of the
exhibited behavior by employees and is thus more controlling and tends to attenuate
employees’ feeling of autonomy at work (Ryan and Deci, 2000a, 2000b). In contrast,
outcome-based EMs belong to an indirect salient type of incentives which is delivered not
based on the frequency of performing the required behavior but on the improvement of
work performance (e.g. increased productivity, decreased customer complaints, number
of innovations launched) that can be attributed to KS (Cerasoli et al., 2014). This type of EM
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is thus less controlling and more competence-affirming in nature (Pierce et al., 2003).
Based on the economic exchange theory (Constant et al., 1994; Kelley and Thibaut, 1978),
the provision of behavior-based EMs is likely to directly reduce employees’ concerns of
losses from engaging in KS by rewarding employees with immediate benefits when they
participate in KS. As long as the rewards gained from KS are likely to justify or outweigh the
costs incurred, employees will be willing to share knowledge with others for enhanced
self-interests. Such a motivating effect of EMs nonetheless crowds-out the intrinsic motives
of employees to engage in KS because the intention to share knowledge is mainly
attributed to the rewards received but not to the enjoyment gained from the sharing
behavior. We argue however that the crowding-out problem is inconsequential for
routinized KS as this form of sharing is often mandated and essential for basic tasks
completion regardless of employees enjoying the sharing or not. This means that routinized
KS is often extrinsically reinforced rather than intrinsically driven. Based on the SDT and the
meta-study of CRT by Weibel et al. (2007), we therefore posit that the economic and
controlling nature of behavior-based EM is appropriate in inducing routinized but not
in-depth KS:
P3a. The provision of behavior-based EMs is positively related to employees’ routinized
KS behaviors in that it can reduce employees’ concerns of personal risks and
investment in KS albeit the simultaneous occurrence of the crowding-out effect.
However, its effect on in-depth KS is negative as in-depth KS involves greater risks
and investments and relies more on employees’ intrinsic drives to share
knowledge.
On the contrary, outcome-based EMs are likely to enhance employees’ intrinsic motives
toward KS because rewards based on improved performance are likely to satisfy
employees’ intrinsic needs for competence and achievement by providing them with the
signal of increased competence and achievement (Amabile, 1993; Pierce et al., 2003).
Whether this crowding-in effect (because of competence-enhancing) or the traditional
crowding-out effect (because of the reason of performing shifts from inside to outside)
“prevails” depends on the form of KS targeted. For in-depth KS, we argue that the
crowding-in effect is likely to outweigh the crowding-out effect as the intention of employees
to participate in in-depth KS is more discretionary and with an aim to achieve some kind of
breakthrough or innovation at work. Engaging in in-depth KS is thus often an intrinsically
motivated behavior with its outcome highly related to one’s professional identification and
self-efficacy. In contrast, outcome-based KS may not be good to promote routinized KS, as
it has been shown to cause free-rider problem where one’s contribution can be easily
substituted by that of the others in the case of routinized sharing (Cabrera and Cabrera,
2002; Wasko and Faraj, 2005). In addition, routinized KS usually will not bring to significant

VOL. 21 NO. 6 2017 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PAGE 1495

 performance improvement and thus any materialized rewards to the employees. We
therefore posit that the motivating effect of outcome-based EMs is larger in inducing
in-depth than routinized KS:
P3b. The provision of outcome-based EMs is positively related to employees’ in-depth
KS behaviors in that it can both compensate employees’ perceived costs in KS
and enhance their sense of competence and achievement. However, its effect on
routinized KS is weaker due to its indirectly salient effect and the possibility of
causing free-rider problem.
Figure 3 depicts our integrated framework demonstrating when and how IMs and EMs may
individually or synergistically influence employees’ intention to engage in KS. The effects of
the motivators on KS is however moderated by employees’ feeling of psychological safety
in the workplace in that all positive relationship of the motivators will be weakened if there
is a psychologically unsafe work environment in which employees are all highly risk averse;
on the contrary, the positive effects of the motivators on KS will be greater if employees
possess a high degree of psychological safety.
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4. Discussion and conclusion

In this paper, we developed an integrated framework to theorize the interactive effects
among IMs, two types of EMs and two forms of KS. It is proposed that behavior-based EMs
mainly possess an economic function to alter employees’ perceived gains and losses
associated with KS. They nevertheless exert a strong crowding-out effect on employees’

Figure 3 An integrated framework of IMs, EMs and KS

Intrinsic Motivators Extrinsic Motivators Knowledge Sharing

Rounized
KS

Behavior-
Senses of based EMs
achievement,
competence,
relatedness

Outcome-
based EMs
In-depth
KS

Employees’
psychological safety

Effects of behavior-based EMs

Effects of outcome-based EMs

Effects of IMs

Moderang effects of psychological safety

No arrow means trivial effect

PAGE 1496 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT VOL. 21 NO. 6 2017

 intrinsic drive to share knowledge and they are thus likely to motivate routinized KS among
employees. On the contrary, outcome-based EMs possess both an economic and a
competence-affirming function. They not only alter employees’ perceived gains and losses
associated with KS but also can provide them with a sense of competence and
achievement. Such a competence-affirming function of outcome-based EMs is likely to
offset their own crowding-out effect on employees’ intrinsic motives toward KS and they are
thus more effective in motivating in-depth KS among employees. Yet exploration activity
often involves a long time span and an uncertain result. Therefore, progressive goals or
milestones have to be set in the course of exploration so that incentives can be given to
employees upon the achievement of those milestones so as to maintain their motivation (De
Jong and Vermeulen, 2006; Olivo et al., 2016). The milestones may include but are not
limited to idea generation, experimentation, prototyping and trial-implementation (Bernstein
and Singh, 2006).
The current paper advances past research on motivation and KS in three ways. First, we
developed an integrated framework demonstrating the individual and interactive effects of
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IMs and EMs on motivating employees’ KS behaviors. The current literature is replete with
comparative studies between IMs and EMs but lacks more nuanced and genuine
investigation of the interactive effects between them. Second, we differentiate between
behavior-based and outcome-based EMs as well as between in-depth and routinized KS.
The apparent lack of such distinctions in previous studies might be one of the reasons
behind the inconsistent findings regarding the effect of EMs on KS. And our study can help
explain these inconsistencies. Third, we also developed a psychological framework of
employees illustrating the tension derived from the perceived risks and costs of KS.
Previous studies underplayed the influence of such a self-interest consideration on
employees’ motivation to engage in KS. Most studies assumed that KS was an intrinsically
motivated and “voluntary behavior that can be encouraged but not demanded by
managers (Kelloway and Barling, 2000)” (Carvalho de Almeida et al., 2016, p. 1,283). Such
a reliance on the voluntarism of employees has been challenged by scholars to be valid
only in lab settings but not in workplaces (Cerasoli et al., 2014; Osterloh and Frey, 2000).
Employees in real-life face all kinds of self-interest considerations and external
interventions. Our framework takes into consideration the weaknesses of relying on the
intrinsic drives of employees and demonstrates how suitable introduction of EMs is likely to
supplement the slow and uncertain outcome of IMs. The importance of examining the
complimentary or synergistic effect between IMs and EMs has been pinpointed by
Vallerand (1997, p. 347) who suggested that “we should not pit intrinsic against extrinsic
motivation because both motivations are present within the individual to different degrees.
What may be more useful is to uncover which configurations involving the different types of
motivators lead to the most desirable outcomes”.
The paper also has its limitations that future research can address. First and foremost, the
developed integrated framework has to be empirically tested in future research. Although
the theoretical constructs and the proposed relationships among them were all developed
from empirical evidences of past studies, empirical analysis is still encouraged for further
refining and specifying the content, the scope and the applicability of the framework.
Moreover, the arguments presented in the paper have focused largely on the sharing/
provision of knowledge by knowledgeable employees (i.e. the knowledge source). The
motivation of employees to seek and receive knowledge however is equally important in the
entire KS process (Ozer and Vogel, 2015; Zhang and Jiang, 2015). Future research should
thus examine the relationship among IMs, EMs and knowledge seeking/learning. Some
important research questions include:
RQ1. Is learning new knowledge an intrinsically enjoyable behavior as in the case of
sharing?

VOL. 21 NO. 6 2017 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PAGE 1497

 RQ2. What kind of EM is more critical in overcoming some of the undermining factors
(e.g. the not-invented-here syndrome or evaluation apprehension) and is likely to
substantiate the intrinsic drive of employees to acquire knowledge?
Furthermore, when discussing the dual effects of EMs, we emphasized the provision of
rewards or incentives to encourage employees to engage in KS (i.e. the “carrot” side of
managerial intervention). We suggest future research to look into the “stick” side as well
(Ding et al., 2016). For example, is the undermining (or facilitative) effect the same for
rewarding sharing behavior/improved team performance vis-à-vis penalizing not sharing/
decreased team performance? What kind of carrot-and-stick combination (e.g. reward vs no
reward, reward vs punishment, no punishment vs punishment) would be effective to foster
KS as well as other KM practices? In addition, our integrated framework is built on the
assumption that employees make rational decisions on whether they would engage in KS
depending on the comparisons of gains and losses. It may not be applicable to irrational
decisions of employees that may be based solely on one’s affection or emotion. Also we did
not consider differences in personality or individual traits. Different individuals may possess
different degree of receptivity toward EMs. For example, Dysvik and Kuvaas (2013, p. 414)
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found that the effects of IMs and EMs on employees’ work effort were moderated by their
achievement goals. This finding suggests that “goals/motives and traits/dispositions are
likely to vary between persons” and these differences will influence the impact of motivators
on individuals. In sum, our work addresses calls for future research (Argote et al., 2003;
Foss et al., 2010; Kang et al., 2007) for more holistic and consolidated models in managing
KS behaviors. Despite its proliferation, the existing KS literature seems not “adequately
address how firms can manage the knowledge flows across different employee cohorts”
due to the disorganized and scattered nature of past studies (Kang et al., 2007, p. 243).
Instead of identifying or comparing what motivator possesses the best motivating effect, we
explored how different motivators can be used in combination to induce employees’ KS
behavior. All in all, our integrated work on motivation and KS is certainly just the first step.
to make real sense out of the “M” of KM (Alvesson and Karreman, 2001), researchers
should continue their efforts in discovering the right blends of managerial mechanisms to
foster KS as well as other KM behaviors.

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About the authors

Dr Kuok Kei Law is an Assistant Professor in the Lee Shau Kee School of Business
Administration, the Open University of Hong Kong. He received his PhD from City University
of Hong Kong. His major research interests include the practices of KS and knowledge
appropriation as well as managing human resources in knowledge-intensive firms. His
papers have been published in European Management Journal and Journal of General
Management. Kuok Kei Law is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
kklaw@ouhk. edu.hk
Dr Andrew Chan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management, College of
Business, City University of Hong Kong. He received his PhD in Organization Theory from
University of Lancaster Management School. His papers have been published in Asia
Pacific Journal of Management, Asia Pacific Business Review, Organization Studies,
Journal of Organization Change Management, Organization, International Journal of Human
Resource Management and Culture and Organization. He is the author of the book Critically
Constituting Organization (John Benjamins, 2000) and a contributor to the Wiley-Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Sociology (2016).

Muammer Ozer is a Professor of Management at the City University of Hong Kong and
Director of Doctor Business Administration (DBA) program at the same university. He
received his PhD in Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh. His research
has appeared in journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of
Applied Psychology and Strategic Management Journal. His current research interests
include knowledge sharing and utilization, software development, information technologies
and innovation management.

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