What is not hidden about knowledge hiding: Deciphering the future research directions through a morphological analysis

Published date01 January 2021
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1657
Date01 January 2021
RESEARCH ARTICLE
What is not hidden about knowledge hiding: Deciphering the
future research directions through a morphological analysis
Abraham Cyril Issac
1,2
| Rupashree Baral
1
| Timothy Colin Bednall
2
1
Department of Management Studies, Indian
Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
2
Faculty of Business and Law, Swinburne
University of Technology, Melbourne, Victoria,
Australia
Correspondence
Abraham Cyril Issac, Unit 28, 154 Rathmines
Road, Hawthorn East, VIC 3123, Australia.
Email: yourcyril@gmail.com
Abstract
Knowledge hiding is an intentional attempt by an individual to withhold knowledge.
Though knowledge hiding as a research area has gained popularity only in recent
years, the withholding of information has been a concern for business organizations
for a long time, having significant implications for knowledge management. Accord-
ingly, knowledge hiding as a construct has received enough deliberations from the
practitioners. However, academic researchers have called for more systematic
research on knowledge hiding, giving us enough motivation to carry out a research
study on the same. First, this article attempts to decipher the term knowledge hid-
ingby defining it and differentiating it from several synonymous terms. Second,
some of the existing knowledge hiding frameworks are analyzed. Finally, a morpho-
logical analysis of the selected literature, including a qualitative rating, estimating the
extent of the work is undertaken, which throws light into the areas that have already
been studied and underscores the pertinent 184 research gaps worthy of further
investigation. In addition to the identification of these distinct research gaps, the
analysis categorically establishes two outcomes. The findings suggest that around
half of the total research literature on knowledge hiding evolved in the last 2 years,
which makes it a salient area of research. The extent of work done in knowledge hid-
ing, captured by an average qualitative rating score of 2.55 out of 5 underscores that
this novel construct bears large research potential. Therefore, a morphological analy-
sis, as carried out in this article, strengthens the current understanding on knowledge
hiding and provides the impetus for further research in the area.
1|INTRODUCTION
Knowledge is often referred to as common sense, which is backed
either by a body of evidence or a generalized theory (Lee &
Lings, 2008). Knowledge is valuable and typically nonsubstitutable
and acts as a strategic asset to organizations to obtain competitive
advantage (Barney, Wright, & Ketchen, 2001; Grant, ; Nanda,
Schneeweis, & Eneroth, 1996; Rubery, Cooke, Earnshaw, &
Marchington, 2003; Wernerfelt, 1984). Knowledge management is
the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination,
and utilization of knowledge to fulfill organizational objectives
(Murray & Myers, 1997, p. 29). The dissemination element of
knowledge management, that is, knowledge sharing, is more easily
said than done (Farias & Varma, 1998). The individual control over the
process of knowledge sharing is very high, and this makes it difficult
for organizations to facilitate unabridged knowledge sharing
(Kelloway & Barling, 2000). Hislop (2003) underscores different strat-
egies employed by organizations in facilitating knowledge sharing. A
cursory title,”“abstract,and keywordssearch limited only to the
Business and Managementdivision in the Scopus indexed journals
shows that knowledge sharinggives a total result of 7,236 studies
and knowledge hidinggives a meager 105 studies. This underlines
the critical importance of another class of research aimed to explore
the construct of knowledge hiding, which is defined as an intentional
Received: 9 August 2020 Accepted: 23 November 2020
DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1657
40 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Knowl Process Manag. 2021;28:4055.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/kpm
attempt by an individual to withhold or conceal knowledge that has
been requested by another person(Connelly, Zweig, Webster, &
Trougakos, 2011, p. 65). Though knowledge hiding as a research area
has gained popularity only in recent years, the withholding of informa-
tion has been a concern for business organizations for a long time and
has significant implications for knowledge management.
Accordingly, knowledge hiding as a construct has received
enough deliberations from the practitioners (Davenport &
Prusak, 1998). But the position of this novel construct is not struc-
tured till now, and there is a dearth of a comprehensive literature
review paper on the topic that can underline the present status of the
construct in the world of knowledge. A literature review can inevitably
bring a novel construct to the limelight (Cooke, 2009). To unravel the
construct of knowledge hiding, many academic researchers
(e.g., Greenberg, Greenberg, & Antonucci, 2007; Schein, 2004) have
called for more systematic research on the same, giving authors of this
article enough motivation to carry out a research study on the same.
With this background, the present article attempts to decipher the
construct knowledge hiding using morphological analysis. Section 1
explains the term knowledge hidingby defining it and differentiating
it from several synonymous terms. In Section 2, some of the existing
knowledge hiding frameworks are analyzed. In Section 3, a morpho-
logical analysis of the available literature is carried out, which throws
light into the areas that are already studied and underscores the perti-
nent research gaps available for further study in the field of knowl-
edge hiding.
1.1 |Knowledge hiding: Decoding the construct
Knowledge hiding is a novel construct but has been a dated experi-
ence for several individuals and organizations. Unlike knowledge hid-
ing, other organizational behaviors like deception, workplace
aggression, social undermining, workplace incivility and so on are
already studied in great detail. These established concepts do have
many similarities with knowledge hiding (Issac & Baral, 2018). Knowl-
edge hoarding is a similar concept but is different from knowledge
hiding. In the former, the accumulation of knowledge may happen.
Still, the necessary outcome need not be hiding; instead at a later
date, the entity (individual or organization) may prefer to share the
collected knowledge (Webster & Pearce, 2008).
It is logical to group knowledge hiding as a counterproductive
workplace behavior. However, interestingly counterproductive work-
place behaviors always tend to cause harm (Fox, Spector, &
Miles, 2001). Schat, Kelloway, and Desmarais (2005) underscore this
argument with their study on workplace aggression. Their study
establishes the occurrence of physical or psychological harm as a
result of workplace aggression. Social undermining (belittling others or
talking down), which is intended to mask the worker's capability and
tarnish his/her reputation, is different from knowledge hiding
because, as stated above, the intention behind hiding knowledge is
always not to harm others (Duffy, 2006). Have studied workplace inci-
vility to a great extent. Rude, discourteous behavior may be attributed
to workplace incivility, but it is different from knowledge hiding. Such
low-intensity deviant behaviors do have a negative manifestation on
others. However, there are instances of knowledge hiding without
showing any actual disrespect.
1.2 |Distrust and deception: The critical elements
The underlying theme in all these related concepts is the existence of
distrust as a central element. Distrust, a lack of confidence in others,
can be detrimental to the organization (Klein, Molloy, &
Brinsfield, 2012). As a consequence of distrust, pockets within the
organization tend to show territoriality (territorial behavior), and the
individuals within an organization tend to establish psychological
ownership over knowledge. This inevitably leads to knowledge hiding
(Kang, 2016; Peng, 2013). There are some overlaps between the con-
cepts counterproductive workplace behavior, deception, social under-
mining, workplace incivility, workplace aggression, knowledge
hoarding and so on, with knowledge hiding as established. But, Con-
nelly et al. (2011) aimed to establish knowledge hiding as a unique
construct, which substantially broadened the scope of knowledge
transfer.
Another such distinction is made between knowledge hiding and
knowledge sharing. Webster and Pearce (2008) suggest that these
variables are not merely opposites of each other but are entirely dis-
tinct. Both lack of knowledge sharing in an organization and knowl-
edge hiding are different from the motivation point of view.
Knowledge hiding can be an outcome of the thrust for behaviors
aligned with social norms, or it may come up as a means to an end. It
can be even understood in some situations as a result of laziness.
Many a time, lack of knowledge sharing may be an outcome of a
dearth of the real actionable knowledge. Individuals indulging in
knowledge hiding might not be strictly intending to harm others, but
to protect themselves or others, unlike the counterproductive behav-
iors that have detrimental effects on the organization (Fox
et al., 2001). The target, in the case of the former, is always individ-
uals, unlike in the case of the latter where both the organization and
the individuals are the victims. While a number of studies have
already established all the other aforementioned concepts, knowledge
hiding has not been explored adequately.
Hence, in this article we attempt to dissect the construct of
knowledge hiding. In an organizational setting, there is, at times, a
reluctance to transfer knowledge even when the employees are
treated with rewards and encouraged with incentives (Bock, Zmud,
Kim, & Lee, 2005; Schuler & Jackson, 1987; Swap, Leonard, Shields, &
Abrams, 2001). Though many detrimental effects come up as a result
of knowledge hiding, the same may sometimes be carried out because
of positive intentions or in expectation of a better outcome, as is the
case of a white lie(Saxe, 1991). At times it may be initiated to aug-
ment confidentiality, protect the feelings of the other party, or to
immunize the interests of a third party. Thus, it may be wrong to gen-
eralize knowledge hiding as a uniformly negative approach or behav-
ior. Most of the practitioners have studied it from an individual
ISSAC ET AL.41

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