Modeling the Effect of Trust on Librarians’ Knowledge Sharing: Assessing the Effect of Organizational Intelligence and Organization-Based Self-Esteem as Mediators

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of librarians’ trust on their knowledge sharing (KS) with regard to the role of organizational intelligence (OI) and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) as the mediators. To do so, a theoretical model was designed and validated. To collect the data required for the study, a questionnaire was administered to a number of 212 librarians who were working in public libraries in Iran selected through stratified random sampling. For data analysis, the SMART PLS software was used. The results of the study showed that developing different types of trust in libraries through OI and OBSE increases KS. Moreover, among the factors under study, OBSE proved to have the greatest effect on the librarians’ KS. KS in libraries is supported by a variety of plans and initiatives. This study highlighted a number of organizational factors for developing the librarians’ KS. As such, library managers can make use of the librarians’ ongoing KS behavior as an efficient policy to outperform competitors. This paper contributes to the research on organizational knowledge management by elaborating on the relationship between trust and KS in staff. To the authors’ best knowledge, to date, no empirical study has been conducted on the role of trust in librarians’ KS with regard to the effect of OI and OBSE. The present study was an attempt to span this gap.