Antecedents and consequences of perpetrator-centric knowledge hiding within organizations: a cross-cultural meta-analytic review and implications for human resource management

Abstract

As knowledge hiding has become an increasingly widespread phenomenon within organizations, there has been a dramatic increase in research on this topic over the past two decades. However, previous studies have provided inconsistent conclusions on why knowledge hiding occurs and how it affects the perpetrator’s subsequent work and well-being outcomes. As no reviews to date have focused on the knowledge hiding from the perpetrator’s perspective, this meta-analysis systematically synthesizes frequently studied antecedents and consequences of perpetrator-centric knowledge hiding. It also examines the moderating effects of cultural dimensions and causal directions on the consequences. Based on evidence from N = 193 sources with a total sample size of N = 68,113, this meta-analysis found significantly strong relationships between neuroticism, moral disengagement (hider’s factors), psychological contract breach, toxic leadership, leader-signaled knowledge hiding, perceived organizational politics (contextual factors) and knowledge hiding. The findings revealed that knowledge hiding had a medium-sized positive relationship with perpetrator psychological strain. It also uncovered the cross-cultural differences among the perpetrator-centric consequences. These findings helped answer the question of whether some common predictors or outcomes of knowledge hiding should be identified as outcomes or indicators. Finally, it provided suggestions for future research and human resource management (HRM) practices.