thesis_Daniela Noethen_print final - Jacobs University

Preventing Knowledge Loss When Employees Expect to Leave
knowledge sharing, or both. They might actually rather choose to reduce the quality, as this
would be less noticeable than reducing the quantity, and might, therefore, draw fewer
consequences. Again, this would pass unnoticed in the present study, but surely merits further
investigation.
Generally, the operationalization of constructs in the present study constitutes a
limitation. Expected or intended turnover, PSS, and knowledge sharing were all
operationalized via self-reports, and the scales employed were very parsimonious, measuring
constructs with only one or two items. First, using only one measurement source can entail
common method bias that can inflate or deflate the estimations of relationships between
constructs (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). To control common method
bias, we took several steps recommended by Podsakoff and colleagues (2003) when designing
the study’s procedure: we protected respondents’ anonymity and reduced evaluation
apprehension as much as possible. Furthermore, we improved scale items by clarifying key
concepts, such as knowledge sharing, in information sessions prior to the study, which
reduced ambiguity, and by using different scale endpoints and formats for predictor and
outcome measures. Second, using very short scales may result in low reliabilities and in a
reduction of effect sizes. On the other hand, measurements with few or even single-items have
been shown to be reliable for many constructs, for example, job satisfaction and job
effectiveness (Wanous & Hudy, 2001), or knowledge transfer (Kankanhalli et al., 2005;
Watson & Hewett, 2006; Zárraga & Bonache, 2005). Indeed, we obtained satisfactory
reliabilities and were able to demonstrate significant effects of the independent on the
dependent variables, in spite of the rather short scales.
Moreover, the generalizability of the present study is limited. As our sample consisted of
three different branches of a German public administration, we cannot rule out that results
159