The role of multilevel synergistic interplay among team mastery climate, knowledge hiding, and job characteristics in stimulating innovative work behavior

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12132
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Author: Tomislav Hernaus,Anders Dysvik,Matej Černe,Miha Škerlavaj
• Date: 01 April 2017

The role of multilevel synergistic interplay among

team mastery climate, knowledge hiding, and job

characteristics in stimulating innovative work

behavior

Matej Černe, Faculty of Economics University of Ljubljana, Department of

Management and Organisation, Kardeljeva ploščad 17,Ljubljana, 1000, Slovenia

Tomislav Hernaus, Faculty of Economicsand Business University of Zagreb,

Department of Organization and Management, Trg J. F. Kennedy 6, Zagreb,10000,

Croatia

Anders Dysvik and Miha Škerlavaj, BI Norwegian Business School,Department of

Leadership and Organizational Behaviour, Nydalsveien 37, Oslo, 0484, Norway

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol27, no 2, 2017, pages 281–299

This studyinvestigates the multilevelinterplay amongteam-level, job-related,and individual characteristics in

stimulating employees’innovative work behavior (IWB) based on the theoretical frameworks of achievement

goal theory (AGT) andjob characteristics theory (JCT).A multilevel two-source study of 240 employees and

their 34 direct supervisors in two medium-sized Slovenian companies revealed significant two- and three-

way interactions, where a mastery climate, task interdependence, and decision autonomy moderated the

relationship between knowledge hiding and IWB. When employees hide knowledge, a team mastery climate

only facilitates high levels of IWB if accompanied by either high task interdependence or high decision

autonomy. In the absence of one of these job characteristics, knowledge hiding prevents higher levels of IWB

even in the case of strong teammastery climate. The results suggestthat multiple job design antecedents are

necessary to neutralize the negative influence of knowledge hiding on micro-innovation processes within

organizations.

Contact:Prof.MihaŠkerlavaj, BI Norwegian Business School, Department of Leadership and

Organizational Behaviour,Nydalsveien 37, Oslo, 0484, Norway.Email: miha.skerlavaj@bi.no

Keywords: innovative work behavior; knowledge hiding; team mastery climate; task

interdependence; decision autonomy; multilevel approach

INTRODUCTION

Organizationalinnovations start with creative thoughts and proactive behaviorsat the

individual level. Employees who have been recognized as an essential part of the

innovation process represent a creative pool with the potential to develop and foster

innovation at multiple levels (e.g., Foss et al., 2013) employees’creative ideas and subsequent

implementation efforts together constitute innovative work behavior (IWB) (Janssen, 2000; de

Jong and den Hartog, 2010).

Previousstudies have shown that severalaspects of the work environment at differinglevels

of analysis influence individual innovation at work (West and Farr, 1989). In specific, recent

meta-analytic results show how job design (asa component of human resource management,

HRM; Huselid,1995; Noe et al., 1997; Shiptonet al., 2016) is a critical individual-levelantecedent

and a driving force for employee innovativeness (Hammond et al., 2011). Additionally, team-

level climate has been identified as a highly relevant contextual issue for creative and

HUMAN RESOURCEMANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL27, NO 2, 2017 281

©2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd

Pleasecite this article in pressas: Černe, M., Hernaus,T., Dysvik, A. and Škerlavaj,M. (2017) ‘The role ofmultilevel synergisticinterplay among team

mastery climate,knowledge hiding, and jobcharacteristics in stimulatinginnovative work behavior’.Human ResourceManagement Journal 27: 2,

281–299

doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12132

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innovativebehavior (e.g., Anderson and West,1998; Hulsheger et al., 2009). Finally,employees

who share knowledge engage more in creating, promoting, and implementing job-level

innovations (Radaelli et al., 2014). Using similar lenses but different foci, Černe et al. (2014)

found that not only knowledge sharing but also knowledge hiding may influence employee

creativity (and in turn innovation) at work.

Knowledge hiding is the intentional attempt to conceal or withhold knowledge

requested by others (Connelly et al., 2012). It provides an interesting contingency to

employee innovation because it is not simply the opposite of knowledge sharing; it implies

an intent to withhold knowledge that someone else has requested. Such behavior may

represent a threat to beneficial outcomes (Connelly et al., 2012) –including IWB. However,

although general findings on job design and creativity (Oldham and Cummings, 1996), as

well as creativity and knowledge hiding (Černe et al., 2014) exist, we still do not know

much about the combined influence of cross-level antecedents on the relationship between

knowledge hiding and IWB. Our goal is to integrate HRM (a top-down approach to job

design) and micro-innovation research streams (emerging bottom-up innovation processes)

to show that work environments can stimulate employees’IWB, even when they hide

knowledge.

We build on the two complementary theoretical frameworks of achievement goal theory

(AGT) (Ames and Archer, 1988; Ames, 1992) and job characteristics theory (JCT) (Hackman

and Oldham, 1976). AGT makes an important distinction between mastery- and

performance-oriented behaviors, which can have different consequences for IWB as a form of

achievement-related behavior at work. Mastery-oriented behavior is motivated by self-

referential improvement, whereas performance-oriented behavior focuses on performance

relative to that of others. As for JCT, job characteristics have proven a robust predictor for a

range of employee outcomes (Humphrey et al., 2007), including innovative behaviors

(Hammond et al., 2011). JCT offers a rich description of job-related influences on employee

behaviors,which interact with other contextual influences(such as situational cues; Humphrey

et al., 2007) in predictingbehavior of individuals. According to JCT,task interdependence and

decisionautonomy reflect the embeddednessof employees with theircolleagues and with their

work tasks respectively, thus representing job attributes aligned with AGT’s view on shared

perceptions of success and failure at work. While AGT is a ‘personal theory’of individual

perceptions and preferences, JCT is a framework for understanding person-job fit through

job characteristics in combination with a person’s critical psychological states. AGT and JCT

supplement each other by offering distinct yet related mechanisms of stimulating individuals

to innovate.

Accordingly, we are interested in job context (based on AGT and JCT) for stimulating IWB

when knowledge hiding is present. We investigate the interplay among mastery climate

(team members’shared perceptionsof the extent to which theirteam context values employees’

efforts, self-development, cooperation, and learning based on AGT; Jones and James, 1979;

Ames, 1992); knowledge hiding as an individual behavior; and job characteristics (objective and

manipulative work features based on JCT; Morgeson and Humphrey, 2006) in stimulating

employees’IWB. The extant research informs us that knowledge hiding is detrimental for

creativity, thatmastery climate is favorablefor creativity and for overriding the negativeeffects

of knowledge hiding (cf., Černe et al., 2014), and that task interdependence and decision

autonomy have both been deemed as beneficial for creativity (e.g., Gilson and Shalley, 2004).

However,we do not yet know how these relationshipsplay out with regards to IWB, and even

less so on how these conditionsinteract with each other in predictingit. We intend to contribute

to the HRM and micro-innovation literatures by taking a multilevel perspective when

Multilevelsynergistic interplayfor IWB

282 HUMANRESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL,VOL 27, NO 2, 2017

©2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.