This study examines the relationship between knowledge-sharing networks and employees’ retention intentions, emphasizing psychological safety as a mediator and professional isolation and informal collaboration as moderators. Utilizing a relational-perceptual framework along with a time-lagged methodology, this study emphasizes the exploration of associative processes rather than establishing definitive causal relationships.
A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 400 professionals in the IT and IT-enabled services sectors across India. The study aimed to validate a moderated mediation model using 20,000 bootstrap resamples, enabling thorough analyses of conditional and indirect effects using Hayes’ PROCESS macro and structural equation modeling.
The findings suggest that a knowledge-sharing network is positively associated with employees’ intention through psychological safety. Professional isolation weakens this association, while informal collaboration strengthens it. These results emphasize the importance of workplace relationships in influencing employee retention.
This study relies on self-reported data and employs a cross-sectional design, limiting the ability to infer causal relationships. Therefore, it is imperative that future research explores longitudinal studies and multi-source methodologies across diverse business and cultural contexts to enhance understanding in this area.
This study presents novel perspectives on the social and emotional foundations of knowledge management in the IT and ITES sectors by proposing an innovative relational-affective framework that links knowledge networks to knowledge retention. This research enhances our understanding of knowledge-sharing processes by clarifying the relational and psychological mechanisms involved, all within defined methodological constraints. It goes beyond simple model extensions to provide a comprehensive, process-oriented explanation of knowledge-sharing dynamics.
