The knowledge ties that bind: mediating effect of knowledge management on heads’ leadership and teachers’ performance

Knowledge management is one of the valuable dimensions essential for the educational institution to support teachers’ performance. Therefore, the role of leaders in encouraging teachers to create and share knowledge is vital to earn a competitive advantage. This research was planned to find the relationship among leadership styles (transformational and transactional) of heads of departments, knowledge creation, knowledge sharing practices, and performance of university teachers. The data were collected using three instruments from a sample of 260 university teachers. The direct, indirect, and total effects due to the mediation of two knowledge management practices in the relationship between leadership styles and university teacher performance were calculated. Results revealed that university teachers’ performance, knowledge creation, and knowledge sharing are based on the leadership behaviours of department heads. There was a partial mediation of knowledge creation in the relationship between TL and teachers’ performance and between transactional leadership and university teacher performance. Results also indicated a partial mediation of knowledge sharing in the relationship between transactional leadership and university teachers’ performance. However, no mediation in the relationship between transformational leadership and teachers’ performance was found. It was concluded that the transactional leadership style appeared to be more appropriate for helping and encouraging teachers to create and share knowledge to attain a higher level of performance.