Abstract
Leadership and employees' motivation scholars and practitioners acknowledge that employees' motivation and knowledge transfer are important to gain competitive advantages in an organisation. It is essential to perform effectively in an organisational setting because motivating employees and transferring knowledge can help collaborate on the job and gain organisational objectives. Employees' motivation can help change employees behaviour and encourage them to perform well. Service sectors are subject to a high level of competition in a global business environment. As a result, employees' motivation and knowledge transfer are indispensable in those organisations. Sharing knowledge between employees is always critical for service firms to achieve their goals in that competitive environment. To understand how service sectors master this task, this study develops a theoretical framework underpinned by the model of proactive motivation and Bass Transformational Theory to elucidate the effect of incentives on employees' motivation and knowledge transfer. This framework also includes the mediating process and boundary conditions that simultaneously foster employees' motivation and knowledge transfer. A quantitative research design administering a survey protocol was used to collect data to test the theory developed. Specifically, survey questions are developed and distributed in service sectors organisations of Nepal. Data is collected from 158 employees working in the information technology, banking and education sectors in Nepal. Given the quantitative nature of research design, SPSS software is used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses. This study offers a number of contributions to the service sectors, particularly in employees' motivation and knowledge transfer, by providing the factors that affect employees' motivation and knowledge transfer to gain the organisation's effectiveness. Also, the study is conducted at the time of the global pandemic known as COVID-19. Studying employees' 13 motivation and knowledge transfer can help develop a suitable strategy to encourage employees to work effectively and achieve organisational goals. As the study collected data from one of the developing countries and the effect of the global pandemic more profoundly in developing economies, understanding employees' motivation and knowledge transfer can help policymakers adjust plans and policies for their survival. Overall, the findings show that incentives to the employees and different motivational factors can motivate employees to transfer knowledge. Transformational leadership plays an essential role to enhance employees' motivation and knowledge transfer. In addition, the findings show incentives to the employees have potent impacts on motivating employees to transfer knowledge. Overall, this study is one of the few studies that have studied the impact of financial and non-financial incentives on employees' motivation and knowledge transfer in service sectors organisations of developing countries such as Nepal.