The mechanism of team-member exchange on knowledge hiding under the background of “Guanxi”

Abstract

The influence of cultural values on knowledge hiding is intangible and fundamental. Different from western culture, “guanxi” is reviewed as complex system elements in the Chinese workplace. The psychology and behavior of knowledge hiding behavior will be branded by Chinese “guanxi” culture. In view of this, this paper obtains 608 questionnaires sample according to normal distribution law and stratified random sampling survey.Based on social exchange theory, optimal distinctiveness theory and conservation of resource theory, this paper empirically examines the internal mechanism of team-member exchange on knowledge hiding from the perspectives of “insiders” and “outsiders”. This process combines perceived insider status and psychological safety, and considers the boundary role of perception of team-member exchange differentiation. The results show that high-quality team member exchange effectively reduces employees’ knowledge hiding in the context of “guanxi” culture. Perceived insider status and psychological safety play an important role between team-member exchange and knowledge hiding. A high perception of team-member exchange differentiation reduces the knowledge hiding behavior by promoting a positive relationship between team-member exchange and perceived insider status. On the one hand, this study provides more robust evidence for the understanding of employees' knowledge hiding under Chinese “guanxi” culture. On the other hand, this study combines the specific culture and its derived organizational context to study the special influence path and mechanism of knowledge hiding, which provides a solid foundation for the future knowledge hiding research and cross-cultural research under the specific cultural context.