thesis_Daniela Noethen_print final - Jacobs University

Preventing Knowledge Loss When Employees Expect to Leave
experiences available to team colleagues.” The two items were answered on a 7-point Likert
scale ranging from “completely disagree” to “completely agree”, and Cronbach’s α amounted
to 0.92.
Dependent variable. In accordance with previous measurements of knowledge transfer as a
frequency (Cummings, 2004; Kanhanhalli, Tan, & Wie, 2005), we measured knowledge
sharing by asking participants to answer the following question on a 5-point Likert scale
ranging from “very seldom” to “very often”: “How often have you shared knowledge with
your team colleagues within the last three months?”. The intraclass correlation coefficient
ICC(1) as a measure of non-independence (Bliese, 2000) amounted to 0.07, indicating that
knowledge sharing was influenced to a certain degree by group membership. Thus, a
multilevel analysis should be used to analyze data.
Control variables. To rule out alternative explanations for variations in the frequency of
knowledge sharing, we included several control variables in our analyses. Effects of
independent variables were controlled for the sex, age, educational level (education), job
experience, work contract (part-time or full-time), and intrinsic motivation for knowledge
transfer of the employee, as well as for the effects of the size of the team and intragroup trust.
Furthermore, an organization dummy was employed to control for effects of the different
branches of the administration surveyed. Intrinsic motivation for knowledge transfer was
measured with four items taken from the interest / enjoyment scale of the Intrinsic Motivation
Inventory by Deci and Ryan (e.g. Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994; Ryan, Mims, &
Koestner, 1983) and adapted to the context of knowledge transfer (items can be found in the
Appendix). Answers were given on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from “completely disagree”
to “completely agree”. Cronbach’s α for these four items amounted to 0.85. Intragroup trust
was measured with five items taken from Simons and Peterson (2000) and adapted to the
present context. Again, items, which can be found in the Appendix, were answered on a 7-
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