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Globalization and industrialization have created knowledge-intensive organizations and other than knowledge-based organizations to heighten knowledge sharing in these organizations. As a means of tacit knowledge transfer (Bertels et al., 2011), communities of practice (COP) can help them move towards their goals and achieve more extraordinary performance (Lesser & Storck, 2001) and productivity through knowledge transfer. The spread of knowledge in organizations can occur through training interventions and formal and informal COP. The original concept of COP is based on self-directed participation, familiarity, and naturally growing, community-oriented tasks (Kirkman et al., 2013). In organizations, COP can occur informally and formally; in the form of traditional COP and corporate teams (Kirkman et al., 2011). Confidence and trust among the members are the basis for COPs (Kimble et al., 2001), paving the way for high employee empowerment and interpersonal member dependence (Kirkman et al., 2011).
The organizations can strive better by active employee forces concerning their support and managing interpersonal relations and interactions. Theoretically, Social Exchange Theory (SET) (Blau, 1964), explaining the importance of social exchange and cooperation among the members, is considered as a framework for explaining the model and essential aspects of social exchange and social learning at the workplace where lateral relationships can be built (Käser & Miles, 2001). There can be various types of social support agents in the organization, but the significant impact is due to co-workers' support because the primary interaction occurs between the co-workers in the organization (Taormina, 1997).
Interpersonal interaction among co-workers plays a significant role in creating a supportive climate. Networking in organizations occurs through interaction and communication between employees to share knowledge (Balle et al., 2020). Such informal interactions between the co-workers also lead to a positive affect (Dimotakis et al., 2011), creating support from co-workers. Similarly, the creativity among the group or an individual may result from the interactions with the colleagues through social media and face to face interactions (Zhou et al., 2009). Thus, the value of personal interaction among co-workers may lead to higher sharing of knowledge and skills, leading to better job performance. Prior studies have shown the role of co-worker support in elevating job satisfaction (Chiang & Wu, 2014), safety performance (Guo et al., 2019) and occupational self-efficacy (Tomas et al., 2019), but a thorough analysis of the role of co-worker support for COP in the organizations are missing. Additionally, the status of their relationship has not been understood earlier in the presence of a mediator variable. Moreover, the underlying mechanism of the relationship between co-worker support and COP mediated by personal interaction is also unidentified. Thus, with the realization of the dearth of studies on the relationship between the underlying variables of the present study, the authors anticipated a positive association between co-worker support and COP mediated by personal interaction. Therefore, this research aims to study the relationship between co-worker support and COP with personal interaction as a mediator. Also, co-worker support and personal interaction are analyzed as two different antecedents to COP. The study proposes that co-worker support and personal interaction at workplaces enhance the organization's COP. Accordingly, the authors propose to address the subsequent research questions of the study, which are as follows:
- 1.
Does co-worker support enhances the interpersonal interactions among the employees?
- 2.
Does personal interaction among the employees promote the creation of COP in the organization?
- 3.
Does co-worker support leads to the development of COP in the organization?
- 4.
Does personal interaction mediate the relation between co-worker support and COP?