Employee–AI collaboration empowers mentor networks to enhance employee creativity: a knowledge-management perspective

This study investigates the impact of mentor network strength on employee creativity, as well as the mediating role of tacit knowledge acquisition and the moderating role of employee-AI collaboration. A three-wave survey was conducted among 523 employees from Chinese enterprises, and the proposed hypotheses were tested using confirmatory factor analysis, hierarchical regression, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping. The results reveal the following: mentor network strength can promote employee creativity by enhancing cognitive tacit knowledge acquisition and skill-based tacit knowledge acquisition. Specifically, the mediating effect of skill-based tacit knowledge acquisition is more significant than that of cognitive tacit knowledge acquisition. Moreover, employee-AI collaboration positively moderates the relationship between mentor network strength and cognitive and skill-based tacit knowledge acquisition. The positive effect of mentor network strength on employee creativity via cognitive tacit knowledge acquisition and skill-based tacit knowledge acquisition is more significant when there is a higher degree of employee-AI collaboration. From a knowledge management perspective, this study fills a gap by exploring the mechanism by which mentor network strength affects employee creativity and offers a new perspective for interpreting the factors influencing employee creativity. The findings facilitate a deeper understanding of the synergistic effects of human-AI collaboration and interpersonal relationships on employee creativity, providing guidance to help organizations promote intelligent transformation.