Knowledge sharing as a signalling mechanism: impact on perceived psychological safety toward health IT-enabled patient-care work

We investigate knowledge flows as signalling mechanisms shaping knowledge recipients' psychological safety towards health information technology (HIT)-enabled patient-care work. In large hospital systems, HIT-enabled patient-care work is complex and involves interdependent collaboration between people. We focus on two different kinds of knowledge that people share amongst each other as they engage in HIT-enabled patient-care work - requests for problem-specific help/advice and unsolicited, but helpful, tips/tricks/insights - and the social networks underlying these flows, namely help-seeking networks and voluntary contribution networks. Drawing on social network theory and knowledge management literature, we identify the positions within each social network that impact knowledge recipients' psychological safety. Social network data were collected from clinicians across 27 inpatient patient-care units, and analysed using generalised estimating equations. In voluntary contribution networks, in-degree centrality and in-closeness centrality impacted the psychological safety of knowledge recipients, while in help-seeking networks, only in-degree centrality had an effect on psychological safety.