Knowledge capitalization and perceived fairness of reward in real estate sector: mediating role of shared leadership

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic brought uncertain working patterns in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world wherein unleashing power of knowledge became prototypical for real-time decision-making capacity of organizational workforce. Drawing from Vroom’s expectancy theory, this study aims to investigate whether shared leadership (SL) mediates the impact of perceived fairness of rewards (PFR) on knowledge capitalization (KC). Design/methodology/approach A survey of 484 employees in the Indian real estate industry was completed in two phases. Confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation model were applied for analysis and hypothesis testing. Findings PFR positively affected employee’s KC in Indian real estate industry. Also, SL partially mediated the effect of PFR on KC. Practical implications This study indicates the positive impact of PFR on employees’ KC and demonstrates position of SL for boosting its occurrence in organizations. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the mediating role of SL between relationship of PFR and KC of employees.