The impact of digital platforms on the creativity of remote workers through the mediating role of explicit and tacit knowledge sharing

Abstract

Purpose: Remote working has brought forward many challenges for employees as the phenomenon is still new for most employees across the globe. Some of these challenges may be addressed by the recent adoption of digital technologies by organizations. In this vein, our study explores the impact of digital platform capability on the creativity of employees through the mediating mechanism of explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. Design/methodology/approach: The data were gathered from higher education institutes (HEIs) in a developing country, Pakistan which recently saw a major disruption during the Covid-19 pandemic. The proposed hypotheses were tested through Structural Equational Modeling (SEM) and the results confirmed our hypotheses. Findings: The findings confirmed that the digital platform capabilities impact both tacit and explicit knowledge sharing among these remote employees. Likewise, the results also supported the mediating role of both explicit and tacit knowledge sharing on the creativity of these remote workers. Originality/value: Our results are significant as they confirm the impact of digitalization on remote workers’ creativity predisposition. We thus advance the academic debate on the problems of knowledge sharing in remote working. We prove that digital capabilities outweigh the challenges created due to new forms of work driven by the pandemic. It further highlights the important areas to focus on while planning human resource policies in the new normal.