The moderating role of employee's moral identity and the mediating role of organizational engagement on the relationship between organizational socialization and knowledge sharing

The organizational socialization process has a critical role for employees in business life. Obtaining employees' knowledge, keeping it in the organization, and creating new knowledge is an important issue in ensuring organizational continuity. In this context, the study aims to reveal the effects of organizational socialization on knowledge sharing and to determine the mediating role of organizational engagement and the moderating role of employee's moral identity in the relationship between organizational socialization and knowledge sharing. The study sample consists of employees in the private and public sectors in Turkey (n = 470). The employees participating in the research were identified by clustering and simple random sampling methods. Research data was collected with the organizational socialization scale developed by Chao et al. (1994), the knowledge sharing scale developed by Vries, Hooff, and Ridder (2006), the moral identity scale developed by Aquino and Redd II (2002), the organizational engagement scale developed by Palmer and Gignac (2012). The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 25, AMOS 24, and Hayes's PROCESS macro package programs. As a result of the analyses, it was found that organizational socialization had a positive effect on knowledge sharing and organizational engagement. Similarly, organizational engagement was found to have a positive effect on knowledge sharing. Additionally, it has been revealed that organizational engagement plays a mediating role in the relationship between organizational socialization and knowledge sharing. On the other hand, it was found that employee's moral identity did not play a moderating role in the indirect effect of organizational socialization on knowledge sharing through organizational engagement. Finally, limitations and theoretical and practical suggestions are given, and it is proposed that the research will be beneficial to managers and researchers conducting studies on this subject.