Knowledge hiding in organizational crisis: The moderating role of leadership

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused organizational crises leading to shutdowns, mergers, downsizing or restructuring to minimize survival costs. In such organizational crises, employees tend to experience a loss or lack of resources, and they are more likely to engage in knowledge hiding to maintain their resources and competitive advantage. Knowledge hiding has often caused significant adverse consequences, and the research on knowledge hiding is limited. Drawing upon the Conservation of Resources and Transformational Leadership theories, a conceptual framework was developed to examine knowledge hiding behavior and its antecedents and consequences. We collected data from 281 Vietnamese employees working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that role conflict, job insecurity, and cynicism positively impact knowledge hiding behavior. Knowledge hiding behavior negatively affects job performance and mediates the antecedents of knowledge hiding on job performance. Transformational leadership moderated the impact of role conflict on knowledge hiding.