1. Introduction
HEIs are challenged to serve beyond the traditional academic compulsions, including but not limited to existing professionals’ interactions and their diverse experiences of institutional life [
1]. There is imprecision in HEIs when differentiating between the personnel’s goals relating to cognition, affectivity and practicality. Therefore, HEIs maintain their survival via knowledge creation and thus transferring it to the masses [
2] while inducing HEIs professionals to reshape the challenging future with their emotional composure, self-directed learning and creative performance [
3]. This study is further based on the following literary logic.
Firstly, EI’s recent surge convinced the researchers across the fields of life to investigate this concept [
4], including a probe into the educational professionals i.e., academics and administrative personnel in Pakistan [
5]. EI is an ability that enables individuals to be aware of their emotional power and to control it as a connecting strength [
6]. Therefore, the educational sector still needs researchers to study EI substantially [
7] in order to convince educational professionals to comprehend how EI can assist in the handling of challenging situations [
8], especially in Pakistan [
9]. Similarly, EI helps educational professionals to both accurately analyse situational demands and utilize emotional strategies correctly [
10], thus, facilitating quality education while raising the standards of success in societies through EI [
3]. Veer Ramjeawon and Rowley [
11] have investigated KMPs’ enablers and delineated leadership as an educational enabler in HEIs. Leadership is principally an EI process whereby leaders manage their own and followers’ emotions [
12]. Recent research has defined and scrutinized the KM ability of HEIs in the context of KMPs and KM enablers [
2]. KMPs are usually defined as actions associated with knowledge creation, acquisition, storage, sharing and utilization as a means of improving organizational competitiveness [
13]. KM enablers relate to all those aspects that ultimately influence radical growth in KMPs [
14], such as EI [
6]. Since leadership and EI’s singularity is proven [
15], EI is considered an enabler to KMPs in this specific study.
Secondly, despite significant indication of the value of KMPs in the existing literature, preliminary research has verified KM enablers’ association with KMPs in HEIs [
2]. KMPs are at the core of HEIs’ decisive factors for survival and competitive advantage [
2]. Regardless, however, of the enhanced build-up of KMPs in HEIs, their implementation is uncommon [
11], especially in Pakistan [
2]. Moreover, KMPs are investigated vis-à-vis some salient facets of the knowledge process concerning personal aspects [
16], which includes a commitment for discipline [
17], targeting KMPs’ essentials precisely as a means of knowledge sharing between academics [
18] and discovering commercial prospects [
19]. However, these research activities were carried out in countries such as the United Kingdom, India and Malaysia, with highly developed educational systems which are rare in countries with developing higher education sectors related to its knowledge gap [
11]. Karkoulian, Harake [
20] investigated EI as a potent factor for KMPs, and Goh and Lim [
21] confirmed this. Furthermore, these researchers, Karkoulian, Harake [
20], Goh and Lim [
21], investigated the commercial sector while the present study was conducted with Pakistan HEIs. Although knowledge workers seek strong EI professionals to develop and improve KMPs [
22], as yet EI and KMPs have not been studied directly. In this specific study, EI is investigated with some aspects of KMPs, such as knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer, while suggesting the need for future research that probes KMPs in knowledge entities [
6].
Thirdly, HEIs substantially grow their adaptation, survival, performance and competition abilities only after allowing their knowledge and creativity to prosper [
2]. Therefore, creative performance is a social process involving interpersonal interactions between individuals and their relationship partners, including their immediate environment [
23]. Creative self-efficacy and leadership/supervisor support are two vital components of creative performance [
24,
25], therefore, in this study, creative self-efficacy is required from the research academics while leadership/supervisor support encourages the administrative professionals to excel in their field. Hence, knowledge and creativity enable HEIs to extend their learning capacity and knowledge base and, thus, expand their personnel’s eagerness to share their knowledge to ensure the generation and implementation of innovative ideas [
26], thereby establishing a norm of competitive advantage in HEIs through the reciprocal relations of KMPs and creative performance [
27]. Numerous studies reveal the impact of KMPs on the individuals’ creative performance in the sectors split across academic fields [
28,
29]. Moreover, Yeh and Lin [
30] challenged future researchers to utilize KMP based frameworks to assess professionals’ creative performance within the education sector.
Fourthly, self-directed learners order, scrutinize and weigh learning better than other students because self-directed learning advocates the autonomy, responsibility and growth of individuals which are the core components of higher education [
3]. Knowles [
31] defined self-directed learning as
“a process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies and evaluating learning outcomes.” Therefore, the education sector encourages KMPs and self-directed learning to facilitate its professional obligations through the effective implementation of KMPs and the rigorous evaluation of ascribed processes, with extended cooperation among educational institutes [
32]. HEIs personnel go through numerous activities, from taking lectures to realizing administrative assignments, in order to meet the demand for HEIs to scrutinize a well-crafted KMP with self-directed learning projects for better performance [
30]. Furthermore, self-directed learning seeks well-balanced KMPs in HEIs that take account of the following: identification and rectification of the issues on a prioritized basis for desired results, planned formulation for practical endurance in line with ascribed objectives, implementation of these formulated plans and utilization of the whole process, should the same issue arises again [
33]. Furthermore, Veer Ramjeawon and Rowley [
11] charged future researchers to investigate the KMPs in developing countries in relation to personnel’s learning capabilities in HEIs.
Fifthly, creative performance concentrates on interactive dealings amongst partners inside a community to ensure their persuasiveness compared to competitors [
23]. HEIs, therefore, are stimulating their professionals to ensure their effective survival within the ever more challenging future [
34]. Shalley, Gilson [
35] maintained that vigorous professional obligations argue for creative problem-solving, hence, compelling personnel to align with self-directed learning in order to remain innovative [
36]. Learner characteristics act as a mediator between the situational factors and incumbents’ behavioural engagements [
37]. Hence, creative performance depends on self-directed learning [
30]. Furthermore, Greene, Freed [
34] ask future researchers to probe creative performance through self-directed learning in HEIs. Moreover, creative self-efficacy and leadership/supervisor support are meant to be the originators of creative performance [
24,
25]. Hence, both are taken as the precursors of creative performance on the recommendations of Thundiyil, Chiaburu [
38] and Mathisen [
39], respectively.
Lastly, Pakistan’s Islamic Republic is eager to transmute itself into a regional knowledge centre for higher education to ensure its economic survival [
40]. According to the Ministry of Education 2017–18, the educational system in Pakistan is comprised of 3.8 thousand institutes and 1.726 million teachers who educate 48.062 million students [
41]. Moreover, according to the 2018 survey of HEIs, the total number of schools in Pakistan reached 0.194 thousand, teachers’ strength reached 56.9 thousand and the gross student enrolment rate totalled 1.576 million compared to 1.463 million in the year 2017 [
42]. Moreover, Pakistan HEIs’ personnel are challenged to improve their professional performance in order to achieve better educational transformation [
43]. However, despite the supposed professional deficiency, possibly due to the challenging work scenarios of these academics, Pakistan’s educational professionals are credited with being emotionally intelligent [
9].
KM culture in Pakistan HEIs is still in the infancy stage compared to other sectors, i.e., business, information technology (IT) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in developed countries such as the USA, Europe and Finland [
44]. Developed countries, i.e., the USA and Europe, rigorously implement and support KM in HEIs [
45]. However, as a developing nation, Pakistan is still in the early stages of adopting and developing KM culture in HEIs [
3]. Likewise, China is backing KM culture in HEIs [
46]. Other developing countries in regions such as Iran are now adopting the KM culture in the service industry after realizing its importance [
47]. Developed nations, are steered towards economic and social development by creatively navigating innovative research within HEIs [
11]. Pakistan urgently needs to adopt a similar approach [
2]. Naoreen and Adeeb [
48] endorsed the Pakistan Higher Education Commission’s proposal to instigate practical measures for stimulating a research culture in HEIs. However, unfortunately, HEIs in Pakistan are still lagging behind in this field; and EI and KMPs need more attention to counter the challenges emerging from the current knowledge-centred economy [
5]. Therefore, it is now imperative to describe the research questions below, which have been extracted from the research deficiencies delineated above:
RQ1. Does EI act as an enabler for KMPs (knowledge creation, acquisition, storage, sharing and utilization) of the academic and administrative professionals in Pakistan’s HEIs?
RQ2. Do KMPs have a direct impact on the creative performance (creative self-efficacy and leadership/supervisor support) of the academics and administrative professionals in Pakistan’s HEIs?
RQ3. Does self-directed learning (individuals’ autonomy, responsibility and growth) mediate the relationship between KMPs and the creative performance of academics and administrative professionals in Pakistan’s HEIs?
5. Discussion, Conclusion and Implications
The intention of this research was to investigate the influence of a knowledge management enabler (Emotional Intelligence) on KMPs, the direct influence of KMPs (knowledge creation, acquisition, storage, sharing and utilization) on creative performance (creative self-efficacy and leadership/supervisor support), together with the mediating effect of self-directed learning (individuals’ autonomy, responsibility and growth) between KMPs and creative performance of the academics and administrative professionals in Pakistan HEIs.
The findings of this study add to the existing relevant literature in multiple ways. Firstly, this study intended to increase the KMPs through the KM enablers, i.e., emotional intelligence. While keeping the theoretical and practical importance of study in mind, research indicates that EI enables HEIs professionals to become knowledge-oriented, autonomous, responsible and creative in their routine assignments [
3]. Therefore, it is essential to weigh the factors necessary for the KMPs’ implementation in HEIs. EI clarifies a direction for personnel to assess, evaluate and respond to organizational endeavours. Hence, knowledge-intensive organizations delegate the responsibility for creating, storing, sharing and utilizing knowledge management settings through knowledge management initiatives to the available professionals [
90]. HEIs are meant to manage the emotional statures, knowledge creation, acquisition, storage, sharing and utilization to align and uphold novel services for sustainable competitive advantage [
91]. This study is unique in that it attempts to fill the stated research gaps by corroborating both KBV and Drucker’s theory while explaining the KM enabler as a means of providing KMP assistance to the HEIs professionals.
Moreover, this study endorses the certainty of EI as an enabler to facilitate knowledge-related activities in HEIs. The study demonstrates that EI significantly and positively affects the processes of knowledge creation, acquisition, storage, sharing and utilization. Furthermore, these results reiterates those of previous studies [
20,
21] which were conducted with a focus on the commercial sector while the presented study examined the HEIs. On a practical note, many companies are eager to hire personnel with a fair degree of EI due to their ability to cope with knowledge-based chaos and to develop mechanisms for successfully implementing KMPs [
22]. Therefore, this study’s findings will divert the attention of HEIs ‘think-tanks’ in Pakistan to consider, plan, hire and train the HEI personnel according to the current volatile educational demands.
Secondly, this study established that effective implementation of KMPs is significantly helpful in raising the level of HEIs personnel’s creative performance. This finding reveals that KMPs in Pakistan HEIs can lead to academics’ increased research output, academic and operational efficacy, curriculum development and timely and effective response to modern challenges. These results also affirm the rationality of the knowledge-based view in HEIs context that effective management of knowledge resources can facilitate overall employees and organizational creativity. Furthermore, this study lends support for KM initiatives in HEIs in developing nations such Pakistan, which will, consequently, play a prominent role in enhancing HEIs incumbents’ autonomy and responsibility, growth and creative performance.
Thirdly, these research findings provided an essential understanding of the indirect influence of KMPs on creative performance through the mediation of self-directed learning. The inferred results demonstrated the significant and positive effect of KMPs on self-directed learning that ultimately strengthens the creative performance of academics and administrative personnel of Pakistan HEIs. The indirect influence of self-directed learning is consistent with the findings of Zhoc, Chung [
3]. Furthermore, this is one of few studies that incorporated knowledge creation, acquisition, storage, sharing and utilization simultaneously to foster the creative performance of HEIs professionals through self-directed learning. However, a prior study [
2] established that KMPs (sharing, acquisition and utilization) foster organizational performance and sustainable competitive advantage in HEIs. Similarly, this research maintains the importance of KMPs in Pakistan HEIs, as primarily highlighted by Iqbal, Latif [
2]. There is adequate literature exploring the association between KMPs and organizational performance in HEIs [
2,
92], but self-directed learning as a mediator in the ascribed conjecture was never fully investigated previously.
Fourthly, this study’s findings disclosed that KMPs implementation in HEIs leads to increased knowledge perseverance, creativity, social and emotional skills and self-directed learning. Similarly, this research maintains the importance of self-directed learning in HEIs, as highlighted by Zhoc, Chung [
3]. It endorses the findings of Sittiwong and Manyum [
33], who conducted a study in the HEIs context and determined a positive relationship between KMPs and self-directed learning. Additionally, this study supports the argument of Spruce and Bol [
32] that the efforts of an organization that revolve around personnel learning and effective implementation of KMPs, can be a vital source of competitive advantage. Furthermore, employees’ creative performance is a unique integration in this association. Additionally, this study supports Mittal and Dhar [
93] argument that KMPs implementation can be a vital source of the creative personnel’s performance and, ultimately, sustainable competitive advantage.
Finally, the study results demonstrate that the relationship between self—directed learning and creative performance is insignificant. Interestingly, these results oppose Greene, Freed [
34] findings. The emergence of an insignificant relationship might be due to the fact that when learners are presented with puzzling, vague and ill-structured complications, they are likely to fail any performance test that requires them to be creative [
94], despite the amount of autonomy they are granted [
95]. Furthermore, learners tend to fail when they are asked to deal with the problems beyond their abilities [
96]. Moreover, a temporary failure while attempting to solve a problem or to be creative is often necessary otherwise the learners are not assumed to be creative performers [
97]. Indeed, the process of becoming a self-directed learner is difficult because one has to experience negativity and frustration within the learning experience [
34]. Learners sometimes ‘skip’ certain phases of the self-directed learning process, often to their detriment, thus undermining their creative performance [
98]. There are various phases of self-directed learning, i.e., beforehand, during, or after the learning period, that can be planned, monitored, controlled, and evaluated [
34]. These stages include strategies [
99] such as executing the exact performance standards and providing an appropriate alternative in case of failure [
100], motivation and support/assistance seeking [
3], and locating a productive/creative situation for learning [
101]. Moreover, re—evaluation for self—directed learning is mandatory so that personnel can assess whether they succeeded or failed in comprehending a standardized performance [
102]. Therefore, personnel engaged with self—directed learning in HEIs may be stifled with negativity, inhibitions and/or apprehension, hence, choosing to exit the educational process with zero output [
3].
5.1. Conclusions
To conclude, this study supports the existing KM literature by showcasing EI as an enabler to KMPs to facilitate creative performance via self-directed learning. This study established that EI acts as a pivotal force for the successful implementation of KMPs. Policymakers and administrations of HEIs need to develop a comprehensive plan to train and practice EI for the successful facilitation and continuous endurance of KMPs amongst their personnel. Furthermore, top tier professionals should be aware of and have a clear vision about EI and KMPs in their institute and channel these ideas for the overall creativity of both individuals and the HEI as a whole. Similarly, HEIs need a well thought out systematic plan, an enthusiastic team and adequate financial resources to support the KMPs.
Additionally, knowledge growth can be intensified through recognition, openness, trust and communication [
103]. Hence, it encourages self-directed learning indirectly and ultimately stimulates the personnel for creative performance. Furthermore, the relationship between EI and KMPs not been holistically studied, although EI has been studied with different elements of KMPs such as knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer [
21,
104]. This study fills these stated research gaps. Moreover, it elaborates on the knowledge-based view and establishes the instrumental contribution of KMPs for HEIs personnel’s creative performance through the mediation of self-directed learning. Finally, the research findings exhibit that EI and knowledge creation, acquisition, storage, sharing and utilization in HEIs can promote self-directed learning, thus leading towards the creative performance of its immediate personnel.
5.2. Limitations/Future Research Directions
This study has some limitations that could be considered for future research. Firstly, this study employed a minimal convenience sample from a limited number of HEIs, and hence, could result in sample bias, preventing the generalizability of the results to other spheres. The utilization of a larger sample size in future research could be achieved by adopting random sampling across sectors in order to expedite the generalizability of the results and better answer the research questions this study investigated. Similarly, through a multi-group analysis of public and private sector universities it would be interesting to compare EI effectiveness in public and private contexts and address more substantial practical implications. Second, this study targeted the developing country of Pakistani HEIs; thus, this study’s findings are not generalizable to other countries where HEIs might have different cultures and structures. It is encouraged to replicate the current study in other countries, especially in emerging countries like China, to validate the findings established in this research. Thirdly, self-directed learning was analysed as a mediator in this study. Researchers may consider other variables as mediators and even moderators between learning outcomes and creative performance in HEIs. Lastly, this study investigated KMPs and the creative performance of academic and administrative personnel. Future research may opt for internal marketing as an EI enabler, EI with a sustainable competitive advantage and EI with transformational and ethical leadership aiming at learning outcomes in HEIs.