Registered Nurses (RNs)' knowledge sharing and decision-making: the mediating role of organizational trust

This study study aimed to investigate the effects of explicit and tacit knowledge sharing on clinical decision-making abilities and the mediating role of trust among registered nurses at Korean hospitals.

Decision-making abilities comprise a key area of nursing practice and link nurses' perceptions with behaviours.

Tacit knowledge is embedded within an individual and cannot be expressed or transmitted to other people in a specific form. Over time, new nurses gradually gain experience and tacit knowledge and become experts. Trust, an organizational characteristic, may serve as a potential mediator in the association between knowledge sharing and decision-making abilities among nurses. However, few studies have investigated the mediatory role of trust in this association.

The data were collected from 210 nurses selected via random sampling. The research instrument in the model included Knowledge-Sharing Behavior, Trust, and Clinical Decision-Making in Nursing Scale. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the collected data.

The study findings showed that explicit knowledge sharing directly affects decision-making abilities, whereas tacit knowledge sharing is only associated with decision-making abilities when trust plays a mediating role.

A higher level of organizational trust can improve clinical decision-making abilities via tacit knowledge sharing.

This study demonstrated that unlike explicit knowledge, which is shared more easily, tacit knowledge sharing does not directly lead to clinical decision-making abilities. A higher level of organizational trust leads to a stronger beneficial effect of tacit knowledge sharing on clinical decision-making abilities.

These findings concerning the mediatory role of trust on the association between knowledge sharing and clinical decision-making abilities provide new knowledge that will allow nurses, managers, and researchers to support the clinical decision-making abilities of nurses.