Whose lips are sealed? Gender differences in knowledge hiding at work

Abstract

Knowledge hiding – intentionally concealing knowledge from a colleague who requested it – is often damaging for individuals and organizations. Amongst the factors explaining knowledge hiding, one has been overlooked, despite being an important lens for understanding employee behaviours: gender. In this article, we investigate its relevance by examining whether and how gender shapes two complementary aspects of knowledge hiding behaviour: frequency of hiding, and the approaches that knowledge hiders employ to do so. Building on extant literature about gender roles at the workplace, we suggest that the social roles into which women and men are socialized, and the sanctions they face if they behave incongruently with these roles affect both aspects of knowledge hiding. We explore these ideas in a multi‐wave study of full‐time employees based in the United Kingdom (n = 449). Our findings suggest that men hide their knowledge from colleagues more frequently. In addition, both women and men hide knowledge in a way that is congruent with the expectations of others regarding their social role: that is, women use evasive hiding and playing dumb more than men, while men use rationalized hiding more than women. A male‐dominated context reduces these differences between genders.

When leadership goes awry: the nexus between tyrannical leadership and knowledge hiding

“…Our study findings indicate that demographic factors do not influence knowledge hiding, which contradicts the conclusions drawn by Andreeva and Zappa (2023) regarding gender.…”

The contagious effect of bullying knowledge hiding: exploring the role of job stress and power values

“…The online questionnaire was completed by registered members of the company panel who were then rewarded with points that can be exchanged for prizes. There are several benefits to using an online panel (Andreeva and Zappa, 2023; Serenko and Choo, 2020). First, it allows researchers to gather large amounts of data in a relatively short time, from respondents with different backgrounds and from different geographical locations, which improves the generalizability of the results.…”

Is knowledge liberating? The role of knowledge behaviors and competition on the workplace happiness of healthcare professionals

“…However, there is contrasting evidence on whether experience acts as a negative or positive factor for knowledge sharing (e.g. Li et al ., 2022) or even influences counterproductive knowledge behaviors (Andreeva and Zappa, 2023; Garg et al ., 2021).…”

“…The final control variable, gender, is included to address its varying impacts on knowledge-related behaviors. The aim is to better understand group differences that may necessitate distinct managerial practices (Andreeva and Zappa, 2023; Santhose and Lawrence, 2023). Figure 1 presents the research model.…”