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Top1. Introduction
Organizations have long been interested in improving the skills and competencies of their human resources. Indeed, when employees develop their knowledge and abilities at work, they become better equipped to perform their job tasks and to effectively cope with the demands of their professional roles. This has consistently been found to be a key step to achieving numerous desirable organizational objectives, such as processes efficiency, customer satisfaction, employee commitment, and employee retention (Dhoopar et al., 2022; Hatch & Dyer, 2004; Shet et al., 2019; Vinarski Peretz, 2020). In this regard, knowledge sharing (KS) stands as a crucial factor that can help bolster the competencies of newly hired employees (De Vos et al., 2015; Meher et al., 2022; Niam & Lenka, 2017). Therefore, uncovering the favorable KS conditions and contexts that facilitate competency development, particularly during the employee onboarding phase, can be revealing for research and practice (Becker & Bish, 2021; Jeske & Olso, 2021).
Onboarding refers to the activities, practices, and policies implemented by organizations to help new employees develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed to succeed in their jobs (Bauer et al., 2007; Klein et al., 2015). Well-designed onboarding programs can promote organizational effective commitment, work engagement (Cesario & Chambels, 2019; Meyer & Bartels, 2017), and job satisfaction (Bauer et al., 2007; Meyer & Bartels, 2017). These can also decrease employee turnover (Bauer et al., 2007; Meyer & Bartels, 2017), which is particularly high during the first six months of employment (Becker & Bish, 2021; Sani et al., 2023). Furthermore, career advancement issues, such as those related to professional growth and development, have been consistently found to be central concerns leading employees to leave their jobs (Work Institute, 2022). Since onboarding is a learning intensive process, it requires that appropriate KS capabilities be put in place (Cesário & Chambel, 2019; Jeske &Olso, 2021; Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1992). In this study, we argue that these capabilities are closely tied to the KS channels that organizations make available to their newly hired employees during the onboarding phase, as well as to the reigning KS environment.