Exploring The Antecedents And Outcomes Of Knowledge Hiding Behavior

Knowledge management is a process to ensure the transmission of knowledge throughout the organization.Contemporary research has focused on knowledge sharing behavior and its driving factors,which promote knowledge transmission and knowledge sharing culture in organizations.However,few studies discussed why individuals are sometimes reluctant to share knowledge or even hide what they know.Such behavior is known as knowledge hiding behavior,which may result in enervation of intellectual thinking,negative interdependence and obstruction of innovation.Therefore,it is important to investigate the factors which trigger knowledge hiding and the resulted outcomes.The current dissertation conducts a series of studies to explore few unnoticed predictors,boundary conditions and outcomes of knowledge hiding.Based on the above the author conducted three different studies.In study 1,based on social learning theory and social cognitive theory,we investigate the relationships between knowledge hiding behaviors and students5 belief about interactional justice and professional commitment.We recruited 312 Chinese and international postgraduate students in China,and data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 24.0.Findings of the study show that interactional justice was significantly negatively correlated with playing dumb,evasive hiding and rationalized hiding.Furthermore,the moderating effect of professional commitment was found to influence evasive hiding more significantly than the other two aspects of knowledge hiding.Study 2 explicates that even though existing studies have shown the positive effects of social network sites on learning behaviors and outcomes,how social network sites can cause learners to develop negative perceptions about their learning activities is still understudied.Here we report a one-of-a-kind study that examines the negative impact of privacy concern on students' learning behaviors while using social network sites.Based on the stimulus-organism-response paradign,our study focuses on how privacy concern develops knowledge hiding perceptions of the learners,thereby affecting their online collaboration.Further,our study also explores the moderating role of perceived supervisory support between the relationship of privacy concern and knowledge hiding perceptions.Participants in the study were 282 students pursuing their studies in several higher educational institutions in China.Our findings show that two types of privacy concern(abuse and finding)can positively influence students'knowledge hiding perception,which subsequently can negatively affect their participation in online collaborative learning.On the other hand,perceived supervisory support only moderates the relationship between privacy concern about abuse of knowledge and knowledge hiding perceptions.In study 3,based on social exchange theory and displaced aggression theory,we propose and check a model that examines the effect of abusive supervision on knowledge hiding via psychological contract breach.In addition,we also examine psychological ownership as a boundary condition on abusive supervision and knowledge hiding relationship.Using a time-lagged method,we recruited full-time employees enrolled in executive development program in a large university of China.Moreover,we validated our hypotheses using PROCESS macro in SPSS 22.The findings show that psychological contract breach mediates the association between abusive supervision and knowledge hiding.Similarly,psychological ownership moderates the association between abusive supervision and knowledge hiding.Employees with high psychological ownership minimized the effect of abusive supervision on knowledge hiding.Finally,we recorded discussion,implications,and future directions.