Empathy and its influence on knowledge sharing behaviour among employees

Puranik, Nawdeep (author), Pustovrh, Aleš (author)

This paper examines the phenomenon of knowledge sharing behaviour among employees in organizations and investigates the role of empathy in this context. By analyzing data from 200 employees, we found that empathy does not have a direct and strong influence on knowledge sharing behaviour, neither in terms of knowledge giving nor knowledge asking. However, through prosocial behaviour, empathy indirectly influences these behaviours. Additionally, we assessed whether empathy influences motivation in terms of knowledge giving and knowledge asking behaviours. Our analysis shows that empathy has no evident impact on motivation, and motivation has no evident effect on employee behaviour when it comes to asking or providing information within businesses.

• Language: English
• Keywords: enterprises, job, knowledge transfer, business efficiency, empathy, knowledge sharing behaviour, prosocial behaviour, motivation, employees, organizations
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 89-105
• Numbering: Vol. 31, spec. iss.
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-184409
• UDC: 658.3
• ISSN on article: 1331-0194
• DOI: 10.30924/mjcmi.31.si.6
• COBISS.SI-ID: 279166979
• Publication date in RUL: 06.07.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Management : journal of contemporary management issues
• Shortened title: Management
• Publisher: Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism, University of Split
• ISSN: 1331-0194
• COBISS.SI-ID: 3757084

Licences

• License: CC BY-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
• Description: Under the NoDerivatives Creative Commons license one can take a work released under this license and re-distribute it, but it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Croatian
• Title: Empatija i njezin utjecaj na ponašanje dijeljenja znanja među zaposlenicima

Abstract

Ovaj rad ispituje fenomen ponašanja dijeljenja znanja među zaposlenicima u organizacijama i istražuje ulogu empatije u tom kontekstu. Analizom podataka od 200 zaposlenika otkrili smo da empatija nema izravan i snažan utjecaj na ponašanje dijeljenja znanja, ni u smislu davanja znanja ni traženja znanja. Međutim, kroz prosocijalno ponašanje, empatija neizravno utječe na ta ponašanja. Dodatno, procijenili smo utječe li empatija na motivaciju u smislu ponašanja davanja i traženja znanja. Naša analiza pokazuje da empatija nema očit utjecaj na motivaciju, a motivacija nema očit utjecaj na ponašanje zaposlenika kada je u pitanju traženje ili davanje informacija unutar tvrtki.

• Keywords: empatija, ponašanje dijeljenja znanja, prosocijalno ponašanje, motivacija, zaposlenici, organizacije

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: /
• Name: European Union Horizon 2020