Is humility a facilitator in sharing knowledge? Investigating the role of humble knowledge inquiry a

Despite many efforts taken by organisations to facilitate knowledge sharing among individuals, but the effectiveness of knowledge sharing depends on how the individuals actually seek and provide that knowledge. In many instances, employees face challenges that need frequent interactions with knowledge sharing that raise the questions: how do knowledge seekers approach or communicate with providers, and what are the best means to share knowledge? Beyond the many variables in the current literature that are important in seeking knowledge, we propose and investigate the construct of humility in knowledge sharing. We provide a conceptual model and prove that there exists a complimentary relationship between humble inquiry from the seeker and humble response from the provider for effective sharing of knowledge. We also distinguish humility from many other related concepts and from variables that may moderate or mediate the effectiveness of humility in sharing knowledge. We have identified several propensities that help predict humility towards sharing knowledge from the seeker and provider perspectives. We dive into broader literature from psychology, philosophy, corporate, religion and management and demonstrate that humility appears as one of the new essential prerequisites in the knowledge sharing process. We also provide implications for future research and limitations.