Antecedents of knowledge hiding in a buyer–supplier relationship

• Published date: 01 October 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1618
• Date: 01 October 2019
• Author: Atif Saleem Butt

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Antecedents of knowledge hiding in a buyer–supplier

relationship

Atif Saleem Butt

School of Business, Department of

Management, American University of Ras Al

Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab

Emirates

Correspondence

Atif Saleem Butt, School of Business,

Department of Management, American

University of Ras Al Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah.

United Arab Emirates.

Email: atifbutt10@hotmail.com

Knowledge management has been the subject of much research in buyer–supplier

relationship literature. Many of these studies outline the benefits attributed to buying

and supplying firms as a result of knowledge sharing between its managers. However,

it is important to note that managers across firms can also deliberately hide knowl-

edge from each other during their business interaction. This study fills this important

gap in the buyer–supplier relationship literature. On the basis of 16 semistructured

dyadic interviews with managers of buying and supplying firms, results reveal that

managers across firms intentionally hide knowledge from each other when there is a

lack of personal relationship between them. Other determinants include need to

reciprocate, restrictions from senior management, fear of evaluation, and the expec-

tation of outcomes. The paper concludes by articulating its contribution to the theory

and practice, alongside limitations and future research directions.

1|INTRODUCTION

Knowledge sharing has been the subject of much research in the busi-

ness discipline. Majority of the studies argue that knowledge sharing

between managers of buying and supplying firms is essential for firms'

success in the supply chains (Cheng, Yeh, & Tu, 2008; Rashed,

Azeem, & Halim, 2010; del Rosario Pérez-Salazar et al., 2017; Wang &

Degol, 2017). Extant literature in marketing further argues that cross-

organizational knowledge sharing as the glue that has a potential to

hold firms together as effective knowledge sharing allows firms to

exchange valuable information between themselves (Cheng et al.,

2008;). Knowledge sharing is actually categorized as a key relational

competency that can generate myriads of benefits for supply chain

partner firms (Paulraj, Lado, & Chen, 2008) and ultimate buyer–

supplier relationship success (Kenis & Knoke, 2002). Effective knowl-

edge sharing between supply chain member firms is also attributed to

effective supply chain outcome (Ellram & Cooper, 1990). Although the

importance of knowledge transfer between organization is now well

established, other researchers argue that knowledge hiding between

employees across firms can have a negative impact on a firm's ability

to be competitive and innovate well and can eventually lead to

buyer–supplier relationship failure. Managers across firms can engage

in knowledge hiding based on several reasons. At first, they may

intentionally hide knowledge from each other if there is a trust deficit

between them. Such a trust deficit may develop as a result of lack of

personal relationship or friendship between them or, in other

instances, if they believe that their counterpart does not possess the

required expertise to complete the task. Furthermore, managers can

also hide knowledge if their organizational culture discourages knowl-

edge hiding. Cheng et al. (2008) argues that managers across firms

can deliberately hide knowledge from each other, which has a strong

potential to adversely affect buyer–supplier relationship success. Yet

buyer–supplier relationship literature on this phenomenon is rather

scant and elusive. In this spirit, the research objective of this study is

to unveil why managers of buying and supplying firms deliberately

hide knowledge from each other during their business interaction in

the supply chain context. Therefore, this study puts forward the fol-

lowing main research question to achieve the aforementioned objec-

tives: Why do managers of buying and supplying firms intentionally hide

knowledge from each other during their business interaction?

This paper contributes to the literature in three to four ways:

First, this paper contributes to knowledge management literature by

unveiling determinants of knowledge hiding between individual man-

agers of buying and supplying firms. Second, it takes a position on

data by developing propositions. Third, findings from this study

also build on other management disciplines including organizational

Received: 30 August 2019 Accepted: 30 August 2019

DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1618

Knowl Process Manag. 2019;26:346–354.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/kpm© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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