Abstract
Knowledge hiding can have many adverse effects on organizational development, and it is consequently important to look at its various causes, and also the impact such activities haveon targets, perpetrators, and organizations as a whole. Various studies investigate the effects of knowledge hiding on organizations, and the employees surveyed in these studies have identified some of the possible drivers of knowledge hiding to be: a lack of employee trust; poor employee incentives; employee retaliation; employee insecurity; the intentional withholding of knowledge; the workplace environment; a craving for competitive advantage over fellow staff members; and also, feelings of psychological ownership. This paper investigates the influence of servant leadership on knowledge hiding, and proposes a mediating variable: that of the influence of psychological ownership of knowledge on the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hiding attitudes in staff within organizations. A model is therefore proposed to achieve this, since it could be argued that increased servant leadership, through the psychological ownership of knowledge, can have a positive effect on staff attitudes towards knowledge hiding, and can also be used to encourage them to share knowledge to improve their overall performances, and the competitive advantages of organizations. The proposed model can also be used to assist managers in developing strategies for motivating staff to become more committed to the visions of organizations, in order to improve the performances of both themselves and their organizations overall.
Highlights
Knowledge management has recently gained wide attention globally due to its impact on organizational competitiveness (Algere, Sengupta, & Lapiedra, 2011); (Emadzade, Mashayekhi, & Abdar, 2012)
As a result of the limited resources linking these two areas together, what literature is available suggests that the raising of both staff morale and ethical levels within organizations can effectively be achieved through servant leadership, whereby it is possible to ensure that all role-playersareincluded, without discrimination, during the decision-making process (Zeigler-Hill, Southard, Archer, & Donohoe, 2013).servant leaders care about the needs of their followers, and exhibit trust; and these attributes exert a positive influence on the ability of followers to share knowledge without fear of recrimination, which can lead to the achievement of common goals through improved organizational performance (Russell & Stone, 2002)
It is argued that staff with higher levels of psychological ownership are more likely to engage in knowledge hiding behaviors, whilst staff with lower psychological ownership levels will probably not partake in this activity to such a great degree, whichis in alignment with the findings of studies already conducted by various scholars (Černe, Nerstad, Dysvik, & Škerlavaj, 2014); (Peng, 2013); (Connelly, Zweig, Webster, & Trougakos, 2012); (Lin & Huang, 2010).In addition, it is proposed that servant leadership canplay a vital role in ensuring that staff avoidengaging in knowledge hiding behaviors by: building trust within teams; encouraging collaboration; creating opportunities for employees to excel; communal relationships; and the promotion of good ethical staff behavior, whereby the desired goalsof both employees and organizations can be achieved
Summary
Knowledge management has recently gained wide attention globally due to its impact on organizational competitiveness (Algere, Sengupta, & Lapiedra, 2011); (Emadzade, Mashayekhi, & Abdar, 2012). Nelson (2003) promotes the model for servant leadership theory proposed by Patterson (2003), which focuses on how servant leaders perform within their organizations, to confirm whether this impacts positively on the performance of both staff and of organizations themselves. It is, argued that servant leadership can exerta positive influenceon the overall performance of organizations. Identifying psychological knowledge ownership in employees as a mediating mechanism could, in addition, improve upon a rational understanding of the influenceof servant leadership on employeeknowledge hiding behaviors, and assist management in developing and embracing useful management interventions to improve their overall organizational performance
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