What money cannot buy: The detrimental effect of rewards on knowledge sharing

Given their extra-role nature, knowledge-sharing behaviors need to be motivated. However, current literature fails to acknowledge that, instead of being determined by one type of motivation, they are more likely to derive from the joint effect of both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation (i.e., rewards). Based on this, we expect extrinsic rewards to crowd out the effect of intrinsic motivation on knowledge sharing. We go further and contend that extrinsic rewards might provide a formal coordination mechanism and interact with an informal coordinating mechanism (i.e., the use lateral coordination to foster employees’ knowledge sharing). We empirically test this argument on a sample of 754 employees. The analysis shows that knowledge-sharing rewards significantly hamper the positive effect of both intrinsic motivation and lateral integrative mechanisms on knowledge sharing, resulting in a detrimental factor for employees’ social relationships and helpful behaviors.