To Share or Hide? A Social Network Approach to Understanding Knowledge Sharing and Hiding in Organizational Work Teams

Abstract

Although knowledge sharing is almost ubiquitously promoted in today’s organizations, knowledge hiding is still prevalent. Extending transactive memory systems (TMS) theory and the dialectical tension model, this study employs a social network approach to empirically examine how knowledge sharing is related to knowledge hiding, and how work and social relationships are related to knowledge sharing and hiding in organizational work teams. Whole-network survey data were collected from 200 employees in 31 organizational work teams across the U.S. and China. Exponential random graph modeling (ERGM) analyses of these network data show that knowledge sharing is not significantly related to knowledge hiding. Moreover, while work relationships such as work-related communication and task interdependence are positively related to knowledge sharing, social relationships such as interpersonal justice, social communication, and trust are negatively related to knowledge hiding. These findings validate the dialectical tension model by revealing a co-existent relationship between knowledge sharing and hiding, and endorse the critical role of work-related and social communication in TMS development.

Counterproductive knowledge behavior in volunteer work: perspectives from the theory of planned behavior and well-being theory

“…Hedonic well-being, meanwhile, is based on the human tendency to maximize the amount and duration of positive, pleasant emotions and minimize negative, unpleasant emotions and it attempts to understand well-being in terms of both cognitive judgments and emotional responses (Diener, 1984;Diener et al, 1985). Negative emotions cause knowledge hiding behaviors (Ali et al, 2021;Koay et al, 2020); in particular, emotional distrust in relationships within an organization leads to knowledge hiding (Pereira and Mohiya, 2021;Su, 2021;Yuan et al, 2020). For example, experiences of mistreatment (Rasheed et al, 2020) and disrespect (Irum et al, 2020) elicit negative emotions and produce knowledge hiding behavior.…”

The effects of expert power and referent power on knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding

“…Knowledge hiding even varies according to an individual’s experience within the organisation and the nature of the job (Issac et al , 2020). Though scholars have identified certain predictors of the behaviour, such as trust (Su, 2020; Xiong et al , 2021), the complexity and uncertainty of a task (Zhang and Min, 2021), personality traits (Arshad and Ismail, 2018; Yao et al , 2020) and territoriality (Garg et al , 2021; Peng, 2013; Singh, 2019), etc. ; a holistic understanding of knowledge hiding behaviour remains lacking (Siachou et al , 2021).…”

How Knowledge-Hiding Behavior Among Manufacturing Professionals Influences Functional Interdependence and Turnover Intention

“…Interdependence is the heart of every organization. Organizations have representatives—individual workers, small groups of workers, or business units—that cater to their unique contribution as a significant part of the overall work and, hence, are closely linked with each another by the master thread of interdependence (Su, 2021 ). Interdependence is a central concept to determine the agility of an organization.…”

“…Patenting it so as to prevent its usage by another without giving due credit to the original owner is the silent salient practice at job places. The “I suffered and learned; let the other person suffer too” approach is ideally to be replaced with “knowledge shared = power multiplied” (Su, 2021 ). Cooperation, collaboration, empathy, mentoring, sharing—such words are mere parts of a company’s values webpage.…”