The relationship between characteristics of the source of knowledge and knowledge transfer performance: moderated mediation examination of political skill

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to explore how knowledge source and knowledge recipient influence knowledge transfer performance through political skill and partnership quality, and in so doing to make up for the lack of research on the political skills of knowledge sources in the process of knowledge transfer.Design/methodology/approachThis research used paired-sample questionnaires to conduct a survey. One direct supervisor was paired with 1–4 subordinates; 224 other-reported questionnaires were sent out to supervisors and 896 self-reported questionnaires to subordinates. A total of 171 valid supervisor questionnaires and 511 valid subordinate questionnaires were collected. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze the data.FindingsThis empirical research demonstrated that knowledge sources with political skills can promote partnership quality and influence the success of knowledge transfer.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was a cross-sectional design. Therefore, in our future research, self-report and non-self-report data will be collected in the process of questionnaire administration, and a multi-group questionnaire method (time/field isolation method) will be adopted to avoid having the same source of data. Supervisors and employees will be divided into different groups to collect sources, and the results from two different sources will be used to reduce the negative impact of common method variance.Practical implicationsExternal knowledge sources with political skills can impact recipient' knowledge transfer performance in the workplace, which means that external knowledge sources can provide the organization with innovative ideas and implementation skills.Originality/valueThe study presents a valid model that comprises the antecedents (characteristics of the source of knowledge), mediators (partnership quality), moderators (political skill) and consequences of knowledge transfer performance of firms.