Insights into knowledge hiding from the perspectives of social exchange theory (SET) and national culture

This article is part of a series on knowledge withholding, hiding, and hoarding.

Knowledge hiding¹ is an intentional attempt by an individual to withhold or conceal knowledge that has been requested by another person. It is different to knowledge hoarding, which represents the act of accumulating knowledge that may or may not be shared at a later date.

A recent RealKM Magazine article reported on research by Talshyn Tokyzhanova and Susanne Durst examining the theoretical landscape of knowledge hiding². That article followed other previous articles that have explored various aspects of knowledge hiding, including causes, impacts, and the ways forward³, the psychology behind knowledge hiding⁴, and workplace friendship and knowledge hiding⁵.

Tokyzhanova & Durst’s research found that social exchange theory (SET)⁶ is the theory that is most frequently used for understanding knowledge hiding. A newly published paper⁷ by Zijun Zhang, Yoshi Takahashi, and Roksana Binte Rezwan⁸ further expands the knowledge base in regard to SET and knowledge hiding through a systematic review and meta-analysis incorporating 66 primary studies published between 2014 and 2024 with a total of 20,603 participants.

Social exchange theory

Zhang, Takahashi, and Rezwan define SET as describing how much effort an individual would like to dedicate to sustaining and developing a social relationship through a benefit–cost analysis.

Resource exchanges, such as valuable knowledge exchanges, are generally processed based on the norms of reciprocity, so all people involved in such social interactions would expect the rewards to balance or even exceed their costs. If individuals do not receive the expected amounts of returns, they intentionally hide their expertise and skills rather than share them with others, in order to minimize potential costs created by the exchange relationship.

Moreover, it has been suggested that individuals engage in the process of reliable exchange not only for objective goods and services, but also for intangible rewards that yield socially valued outputs such as status and admiration. Therefore, given that the benefits of social exchange are not always tangible and objective, the applicable scope of SET in justifying the formation and influencing mechanisms of knowledge hiding can be greatly extended.

What contributes to knowledge hiding behaviours and outcomes?

From their systematic review and meta-analysis, Zhang, Takahashi, and Rezwan find that four factors inhibit knowledge hiding, and four other factors motivate it. The motivating factors generally have a greater impact on individuals’ negative behavior than the inhibiting factors.

Factors that inhibit knowledge hiding: 

• • Perceived justice – people’s subjective evaluations of organizational fairness and equity in the resource allocation process.
  • Leader member exchange – is highly rooted in the norms of reciprocity; so, the performance of people with high-quality leader member exchange is enhanced when effective supervisor support is made available through effective social exchange processes.
  • Team member exchange – shares the same core value with leader member exchange, that is, people are obligated to reciprocate favorable treatments and high-quality exchange relationships that are executed on behalf of fellow employees.
  • Perceived social support – can be regarded as a cognitive appraisal of feeling connected and supported by others, which plays a crucial role in shaping one’s attitudinal and behavioral responses to different job-related situations.

Factors that motivate knowledge hiding:

• • Abusive supervision – subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact.
  • Relationship conflict – the subjective evaluation of disagreements and incompatibilities among individuals regarding personal values and social issues beyond work tasks, such as personality differences and interpersonal tensions.
  • Workplace incivility – mistreatment that may lead to disconnection, breach of relationships, and erosion of empathy, adversely influencing individuals’ work patterns, effectiveness, and ability to perform daily tasks.
  • Workplace ostracism – intentional workplace exclusion that interferes with individuals’ perceptions of organizational surroundings, which, in turn, exerts a negative influence on work-related attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.

Zhang, Takahashi, and Rezwan also find that knowledge hiding exerts a stronger influence on negative reciprocity outcomes in social exchange than on positive reciprocity outcomes.

Negative reciprocity outcomes in social exchange:

• • Workplace deviance – a subjective violation of organizational norms, thereby damaging people’s overall well-being and lowering organizational performance.

Positive reciprocity outcomes in social exchange:

• • Creative and innovative performance – the procedures of creating and implementing knowledge, through which the commercial value of knowledge is realized.
  • Task performance – employees like to shape their social relationships based on their own positive experiences acquired from workplace exchanges.
  • Extra-role behavior – discretionary activities that go beyond job descriptions but contribute to enhancing organizational effectiveness, such as employees’ voice.

The systematic review and meta-analysis results further indicate that knowledge hiding connects the relationships between abusive supervision, perceived justice, workplace incivility, leader member exchange, and all four outcomes (creative and innovative performance, task performance, extra-role behavior, and workplace deviance).

The role of national culture

The national culture dimensions of collectivism and power distance were also found to influence the relationships between knowledge hiding and the factors above, suggesting that cultural differences affect people’s knowledge-related behaviors by shaping their shared goals and power cognition.

Collectivism and power distance are two of the six national cultural dimensions described by Geert Hofstede⁹. Collectivism is being interdependent as members of larger wholes, as opposed to individualism, which is the extent to which people feel independent. Power distance is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.

By investigating collectivism and power distance, Zhang, Takahashi, and Rezwan found that the primary studies included in their systematic review and meta-analysis were generally conducted in Asian countries, especially those characterized by higher levels of collectivism and power distance. The regional distribution of knowledge hiding research has changed in recent years, with publications presenting western perspectives increasing more slowly than those from the east.

Zhang, Takahashi, and Rezwan advise that their findings highlight the importance of integrating the knowledge hiding literature with current cultural theories such as Hofstede’s. This contributes to the establishment of important theoretical implications and effectively extends the generalizability of the systematic review and meta-analysis findings on knowledge hiding across nations and cultures.

Cultural-specific interpretations of knowledge hiding can help us explore how knowledge hiding is conceptualized and implemented in diverse cultures, and this investigation of cultural differences contributes to understanding the nuances of knowledge hiding mechanisms among various social contexts.

Implications from the study for organizational KM practice

The systematic review and meta-analysis findings suggest that factors motivating knowledge hiding have stronger power than those inhibiting it. Zhang, Takahashi, and Rezwan therefore recommend that top executives should be cautious about implementing top-down managerial interventions to deal with destructive leadership and workplace mistreatment from supervisors and co-workers, especially in knowledge-intensive industries.

Rather, leaders should be provided with leadership development programs to improve their abilities in drawing up effective knowledge management practices to address the knowledge hiding phenomenon. One example of an effective practice is leaders taking time and making efforts to cultivate a supportive climate to maintain workplace equality and develop positive reciprocal relationships between co-workers. Another is leaders being aware of exploitative relationships with their subordinates and taking actions to improve open communication and mutual understanding, which facilitates effective vertical social exchange in the future.

Simultaneously, employees in organizations should also be concerned about establishing good social networks with their co-workers, and avoid engaging in vicious competition.

Finally, considering different cultural backgrounds, organizations need to adapt to local conditions and adjust measures in a timely way to cope with knowledge hiding behaviors.

Article source: © Zijun Zhang, Yoshi Takahashi, and Roksana Binte Rezwan, CC BY 4.0.

Header image source: Created by Bruce Boyes with Microsoft Designer Image Creator.

References and notes: