Antecedents and intervention mechanisms: a multi-level study of R&D team’s knowledge hiding behavior

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine why employees hide knowledge and how organizations intervene and influence the negative effects of knowledge hiding. This study builds and tests a theoretical model at both individual and team level. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from universities, research institutes and enterprises’ research and development (R&D) teams in China via a two-wave survey. The final sample contained 417 cases. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to test hypotheses. Findings The results show that territoriality plays a mediating role between psychological ownership and knowledge hiding, and that organizational result justice negatively moderated the relationship between territoriality and knowledge hiding. Procedure justice negatively moderated the relationship between territoriality and rationalized hiding, and that between territoriality and evasive hiding. Interactive justice negatively moderated the relationship between territoriality and rationalized hiding, and that between territoriality and evasive hiding. There were thus interactive effects among territoriality, perceived knowledge value and psychological ownership; the relationship between individual psychological ownership and territoriality was weaker when perceived knowledge value was lower and task interdependence was higher, and stronger with higher perceived knowledge value and lower task interdependence. Research limitations/implications Territorial behaviors, such as knowledge hoarding and misleading within R&D teams, are the primary challenges for organizations’ positive activities, including internal sharing, teamwork and organizational goal accomplishment. Researching knowledge territoriality in the Chinese cultural context will help to distinguish territorial behaviors and to take preventive measures. In addition, this study not only enables managers to understand clearly the precipitating factors of knowledge territoriality and the relationships among them but also provides constructive strategies for reducing the negative effect of organizational intervention in knowledge territoriality. Originality/value This study adopts a multilevel modeling method and not only reveals the “black box” of interaction among psychological ownership, territoriality and knowledge hiding at the individual level but also probes the three-way interaction of perceived knowledge value, team task dependency and psychological ownership with territoriality at both individual and team levels, and then discusses the mediation effect of organizational justice on the relationship between territoriality and knowledge hiding. The conclusion of this study not only enriches the literature on knowledge hiding in the field of knowledge management but also helps to elucidate the function and intervention mechanism of knowledge hiding.

Why and when knowledge hiding in the workplace is harmful: a review of the literature and directions for future research in the Chinese context

“…Anaza and Nowlin ; Bogilović, Černe and Škerlavaj ; Huo et al. ; Peng ). Hence, individual differences too need to be taken into account.…”

“…In this situation, employees are more likely to hide knowledge rather than share it (Huo et al. ; Ladan, Nordin and Belal ; Peng ). Additionally, territoriality, as a kind of psychological attachment to ideas, roles and other possessions, may explain a potentially instinctive mechanism underlying individual knowledge hiding (Brown, Lawrence and Robinson ; Peng ).…”

“…For example, when employees have a strong sense of psychological ownership of knowledge, they are more likely to prevent others from accessing their knowledge territory (Brown and Robinson ; Huo et al. ).…”

Leader‐signaled knowledge hiding: Effects on employees' job attitudes and empowerment

“…Although KH research is still nascent, important insights show that KH negatively affects individual creativity (Černe et al, 2014) and trust (Connelly et al, 2012), impairs perpetrator/victim relationships (Connelly & Zweig, 2014), and damages team-level absorptive capacity and creativity (Bogilović et al, 2017;Fong, Men, Luo, & Jia, 2018). KH originates from interpersonal conflicts such as workplace ostracism (Zhao, Xia, He, Sheard, & Wan, 2016), distrust (Connelly et al, 2012), or individual attitudes such as territoriality or perceived knowledge ownership (e.g., Huo, Cai, Luo, Men, & Jia, 2016;Peng, 2013). Organizational triggers may include work climates (Connelly et al, 2012), time pressure at work (Škerlavaj, Connelly, Cerne, & Dysvik, 2018) and perceived politics (Malik et al, 2018).…”

Linkage between contextual factors, knowledge‐sharing mediums, and behaviour: Moderating effect of knowledge‐sharing intentions

“…The process of sharing knowledge (Martelo-Landroguez & Cegarra-Navarro, 2014) continues to grab attention of researchers, as it facilitates the creation (Pillania, 2008a) and dissemination of new and improved knowledge and enhances the practice of decision making (Hernández-González & Corral, 2017). There are several internal as well as external factors, which control the knowledge-sharing behaviour (KSB) and often cause knowledge-hiding behaviour (Geofroy & Evans, 2017;Huo, Cai, Luo, & Jia, 2016) and eventually lead to knowledge loss (Wensley & Navarro, 2015).…”