Unfolding the Relationship Between Psychological Safety, Knowledge Sharing, and Innovation Commitment in Private Higher Education Institutions in Egypt

This study examines how psychological safety (PS) relates to employees’ innovation commitment (IC) in private higher education institutions (HEIs) in Egypt by specifying a learning-based mechanism and two enabling boundary conditions. Drawing on organizational learning theory and commitment research, we surveyed 405 academic and administrative staff (faculty members, teaching assistants, and administrators) across six private universities using validated multi-item measures and analyzed the proposed moderated-mediation model using PLS-SEM (SmartPLS 4), alongside procedural checks to mitigate common method bias. Results indicate that psychological safety is positively associated with knowledge sharing (KS) and innovation commitment, and that knowledge sharing partially mediates the relationship between psychological safety and innovation commitment. The findings further show that transformational leadership (TL) strengthens the positive association between psychological safety and knowledge sharing, while digital readiness (DR) strengthens the positive association between knowledge sharing and innovation commitment. The study contributes by clarifying when psychologically safe climates are most likely to be linked to innovation commitment through day-to-day exchange behaviors and by identifying leadership and digital capability conditions that amplify these relationships in private HEIs. Practically, the results underscore the value of institutionalizing psychologically safe dialog, developing transformational leadership behaviors, and investing in digital infrastructure and skills to make knowledge flows more actionable for innovation-related persistence.