Distributive Leadership Practice and Managerial Knowledge Sharing among Nurse Managers: A mediator for Innovative Work Behavior among Nurses

Distributive leadership practice based mainly on engaging experiences, skills and knowledge of those who are expert in
different functional levels, thus, encouraging professionals to utilize their acquired knowledge and skills to develop new
ways of working creatively. Aim: The current study aimed to determine the level of distributive leadership practice and
managerial knowledge sharing from the nurse managers’ perspective and whether its relations to innovative work
behavior of the nurses. Design: Descriptive, correlational research design was used. Setting: All inpatient units (39
units) in Benha Hospital, Qalubia Governorate, Egypt. Subjects: All the nurse managers (n=63) and a convenience
sample of the nurses working at the selected inpatient units at the hospital (no=172). Tools: 3 tools used for data
collection: Distributive leadership practices Questionnaire, Managerial Knowledge Sharing Questionnaire, and
Innovative Work Behavior Inventory. Results: Total mean score of distributive leadership practices from the studied
nurse managers’ perspective was (92.37±19.25) with a percentage (68.4%), total mean score of studied nurse managers
regarding their managerial knowledge sharing was (45.93±8.79) with a percentage (76.6%), while the innovative work
behavior among the studied nurses had a total mean score of (50.36±3.01) and a percentage (85.4%).Conclusion:
Distributive leadership practice and managerial knowledge sharing were at moderate level, while nurses’ innovative
work behavior was at high level. In addition; there was a highly significant positive correlation between distributive
leadership practice and managerial knowledge sharing. Moreover, there was a highly significant positive correlation
between managerial knowledge sharing and nurses’ innovative work behavior, however, there was no significant
correlation between distributive leadership practice and innovative work behavior among nurses. Recommendations:
Providing nurse managers with opportunities to participate in a situated leadership practice and engage in action
learning groups that incorporate the concept of distributed leadership. Leaders in the organizations should encourage
employees to the generation and implementation of innovative ideas through enhancing distributive leadership practice
and managerial Knowledge Sharing