Does humility facilitate the sharing of knowledge? Inquiry into the role of humble knowledge from research and humble response in knowledge sharing

Despite efforts by organizations to facilitate knowledge sharing among individuals, its effectiveness depends on how individuals actually obtain and provide this knowledge. In many cases, employees face challenges requiring frequent interaction with knowledge sharing, this raises the following questions: How do knowledge seekers approach or communicate with suppliers, and what are the best ways to share knowledge? Beyond the many variables in the current literature important in the search for knowledge, we propose and study the construct of humility in the sharing of knowledge. We provide a conceptual model and prove that there is a complementary relationship between the humble inquiry made by the requester and the humble response of the provider for effective knowledge sharing. We distinguish humility from many other notions and variables that can mitigate or induce the effectiveness of humility in knowledge sharing. We have identified several trends that help predict humility in the face of knowledge sharing from both the applicant and supplier perspectives. We have reviewed a very broad literature of psychology, philosophy, business, religion and management and we have shown that humility appears as one of the new essential prerequisites of the knowledge sharing process. We also provide implications for limitations and future research.