Research On The Effect Of Authoritarian Leadership On Employees’ Knowledge Hiding Behavior

With the in-depth development of the era of knowledge economy,effective knowledge management is crucial to the development of individuals and organizations.However,due to the characteristics of knowledge and the complexity of the environment,even if the organization spends a lot of human and material resources to promote the benign interaction and effective sharing among employees,there are still many difficulties in knowledge management.Existing research shows that Knowledge Hiding behavior,as a phenomenon that hinders effective knowledge management,generally exists in various organizations,hindering organizational knowledge transfer and innovation.Therefore,it is imminent to study the causes of employees’ Knowledge Hiding behaviors in organizations and effectively reduce or avoid Knowledge Hiding behaviors in order to improve the effectiveness of organizational knowledge management.Since Knowledge Hiding behavior is an interaction behavior between individuals within an organization,it is inevitably affected by the quality of interpersonal relationships in the organization.Looking at all the variables that affect interpersonal relationships in the workplace,leadership styles are particularly typical.Throughout the literature on employee knowledge hiding behavior,leadership style is a crucial antecedent.Although researches on the influence mechanism of different types of leadership styles on employees’ knowledge hiding behaviors have emerged in an endless stream in recent years,mainly including ethical leadership,transformational leadership,shared leadership and other leadership styles under Western cultural paradigms,but few studies are based on China Local context to explore whether the unique leadership style of Chinese companies has an impact on knowledge hiding behavior.Therefore,based on the Chinese social and cultural background,this paper has theoretical and practical significance to explore the influence mechanism of authoritarian leadership style on employees’ knowledge hiding behavior in the local context.Authoritarian leadership,as a characteristic leadership style commonly found in Chinese organizations,emphasizes the absoluteness of the leader’s authority,strictly controls employees,and requires employees to obey themselves absolutely.This will cause employees to have negative emotions such as stress,tension,and irritability.Employees in a negative state will initiate self-defense mechanisms due to the loss of individual resources,which may induce individuals to produce Knowledge Hiding behaviors.Therefore,based on the Resource Conservation Theory and Social Exchange Theory,this paper introduces Negative Emotion(mediating variable)and Power Distance(modulating variable)to further explore the internal mechanism and boundary conditions of authoritarian leadership affecting employees’ Knowledge Hiding behavior.This paper draws on mature scales at home and abroad,focuses on the research situation and specific research objects to design the questionnaire used in this research,and collects 240 valid questionnaire data online through the questionnaire star platform,using literature analysis,normality test,confirmatory factor Analysis,reliability and validity analysis,multiple regression analysis and other empirical methods are used to test the model and hypotheses of this research.The results show that: First,the three dimensions of Knowledge Hiding behavior(dodge hiding,pretending to hide and reasonable hiding)of authoritarian leaders are all positive.The influence effect,that is,when the leader shows an authoritarian style,employees are more likely to have Knowledge Hiding behavior;second,authoritarian leadership will positively affect employees’ negative emotions,and negative emotions will positively predict employees’ knowledge hiding behavior.Dimension,negativity plays an intermediary role between authoritarian leadership and knowledge hiding,that is,authoritarian leadership will affect employees to generate negative emotions and then lead to employees’ Knowledge Hiding behavior;third,Power Distance plays a role in authoritarian leadership and dodge hiding,The positive moderating effect between pretending to be stupid and hiding is significant,that is,employees with higher power distance are more likely to dodge and hide when facing authoritarian leadership;however,the moderating effect of power distance between authoritarian leadership and reasonable hiding is not significant.Combined with the theory of resource conservation,this study explores the internal logic of authoritarian leadership’s role in employees’ knowledge hiding behavior from the perspective of negative reciprocity,builds a "bridge" between authoritarian leadership and knowledge hiding behavior,and enriches the premise of knowledge hiding.In addition,empirical results show that authoritarian leadership can positively predict employees’ knowledge hiding behavior by causing employees to have negative emotions,which helps managers to deeply understand the negative effects of authoritarian leadership and guide managers to adjust their own leadership styles.And strengthen the management of employees’ emotions in daily work management,in order to reduce employees’ knowledge hiding behavior,or avoid employees in negative emotional state from making behaviors that are unfavorable to individuals,teams and organizations,and provide a basis for establishing a good relationship between superiors and subordinates.and guiding significance.From the perspective of employees,fully understand the triggering mechanism of knowledge hiding behavior,or propose effective intervention mechanisms to minimize or avoid knowledge hiding behavior,improve the efficiency of internal communication within the organization,and prevent employee knowledge hiding behavior from harming individual interests and organizational development.