Motivated to Share? Using the Person–Environment Fit Theory to Explain the Link between Public Service Motivation and Knowledge Sharing

Despite the growing evidence that public service motivation (PSM) is an important source of employee outcomes, there still a dearth empirical on whether it stirs one’s willingness to share learned knowledge with other members organization. The authors explore mediating role workers’ perceived fit in given setting as causal mechanism through which PSM promotes knowledge-sharing indirectly. Findings based primary data 1048 occupationally diverse employees working 33 local governments South Korea show has positive impact sharing, person–group (P–G) fit, and person–job (P–J) P–G P–J plays improving respectively, while person–supervisor (P–S) does not. This study interprets these results suggesting P–S should be considered independently from environmental factors organization, derived interrelationship between supervisors began hierarchy thus difficult related factors. Based literature review analysis, this presents theoretical policy implications.