Knowledge management (KM) has recently become a significant issue in academic circles and functional domains. Academic and commercial societies contend that thanks to using power of knowledge, organizations can maintain and preserve their long-term advantages in the competitive domains. KM is a set of processes for understanding and using knowledge in organizations as a strategic resource. It is a structured approach that establishes certain methods and ways for identifying, evaluating, organizing, saving and applying knowledge so that needs are supplied and the organizational purposes are fulfilled (Dayan et al., 2017). Knowledge sharing is defined as the exchange between a contributor and a seeker, which calls for presenting and acquiring knowledge (Kimmerle et al., 2007). KM can be divided into a number of sub-processes such as knowledge creation, knowledge storage, knowledge sharing and knowledge application. In fact, all the related processes play important roles in establishing a successful KM program. Specially, sharing knowledge is considered as the main element for the development of knowledge (Small and Sage, 2006). Knowledge is a crucial resource that helps organizations to construct a sustainable competitive merit in a competitive and dynamic economy. Moreover, knowledge is a notable strategic resource at the disposal of organizations (Chen et al., 2016). Knowledge sharing has recently become a hot research issue in different fields of management (Mueller, 2012; Connell et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2012). It is not only the biggest challenge in KM but also the most significant factor in measuring KM performance or organizational learning (Foss et al., 2010; Quigley et al., 2007; Giampaoli et al., 2017). Besides the management of information, KM facilitates the production of new knowledge and manages different ways for sharing and applying knowledge (Davenport and Marchand, 1999; Lech, 2014). KM underscores the fact that organizations should employ employees who can contribute to sharing knowledge among other employees (Small and Sage, 2006). Scientific and academic societies have recently focused on knowledge sharing processes across organizational boundaries (Gerlach et al., 2015; Newell, 2015). Motivating employees to share useful knowledge across an organization can lead to the enhancement of competitive advantages within that organization (Wu and Lee, 2017; Liu and Phillips, 2011; Akgu¨n et al., 2017; Vuori and Okkonen, 2012). A unified research model was developed by Razmerita et al. (2016); it was intended to integrate demographic, individual, organizational and technological factors for enhancing employees’ motivation to share knowledge. Employees’ ignorance can have a negative impact on their intention for sharing knowledge; hence, it results in poor decision-making and communication in organizations. Also, this debilitating factor might reduce organizational ability for handling external threats, implementing innovation and doing away with future risks (Israilidis et al., 2015). The rationale behind this paper is to investigate the link between employee ambidexterity and two supportive organizational features, i.e. the perceived culture of empowerment and a knowledge-sharing culture. Moreover, this study focuses on the mechanisms through which these supportive organizational features can enable employees to engage in ambidextrous behavior. As a case in point, Canie¨ls et al (2017) examined the contribution of intrinsic motivation.