How Servant Leadership Drives Project Team Performance Through Collaborative Culture and Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

Drawing on social learning theory, this research compared and tested how two distinct mediating mechanisms—collaborative culture and knowledge sharing—influence the servant leadership–project team performance relationship. Survey data were collected from 275 employees representing 70 project teams, and multilevel structural equation modeling was adopted to test the hypotheses. The findings indicated that collaborative culture fully mediates, whereas knowledge sharing does not mediate, the servant leadership–project team performance relationship. These findings reveal collaborative culture as the intervening mechanism that translates servant leadership to project team performance. For project-based organizations, the research puts forth theoretical and practical implications.