The Structural Model of Professional Relations and Leadership Effect on Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge sharing is one of the main processes of knowledge, which is affected by various human, technical and contextual factors. This research aims to identify the effect of professional relationships and toxic leadership on knowledge sharing.

In terms of the purpose, it is considered an applied research, and in terms of the data collection method, it is considered descriptive-correlation. The data of the study was collected from a sample of 313 employees of educational institutions who were selected according to the Krejcie-Morgan table and by the accessible method; In addition, the relative contribution of the class of the place of service has been considered in the selection of the sample. In order to collect data with Dixon's standard knowledge sharing questionnaire, Noe's professional relationships scale and Schmidt and Hanges toxic leadership subscale of the Rustayi toxic climate questionnaire were used. After removing outlier data using conventional methods, the number of samples reached 248 people. 235 of these employees were educational and cultural, and the data related to them were analyzed using Pearson's correlation test in SPSS 26 software and structural equation modeling in LISREL 8.8 software.

The results show the good fit of the conceptual model and the confirmation of all hypotheses, including the direct and positive effect of professional relationships on knowledge sharing, as well as the confirmation of its indirect effect through the mediation of Toxic leadership on knowledge sharing at a confidence level of 95%. The negative and significant effect of professional relationship on toxic leadership and the negative and significant effect of toxic leadership on knowledge sharing were also confirmed.

To prevent the diminishing effect of toxic leadership on knowledge sharing and also to prevent its diminishing effect on the effect of professional relationships on knowledge sharing, the educational-cultural staff of these institutions should not refrain from presenting views and refuse to give their opinion; Because their very action can provide the ground for the isolation of toxic leaders.