Servant leadership and knowledge hiding: roles of voice, engagement, and leader impression management

Shuaib Ahmed Soomro and Faisal Qamar

Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 2025, vol. 23, issue 5, 573-585

Abstract: Knowledge sharing is vital for organizational sustainability, yet knowledge hiding poses a serious threat by reducing employee engagement and performance. Present study investigates the relationship between servant leadership and employee knowledge hiding through serial mediation of employee voice and employee work engagement. It also investigates conditions under which a leader’s impression management is negatively attributed to employee voice. Using a multilevel dataset of 264 employees nested within 74 teams across 22 organizations, our results show that: (a) employee voice mediates the link between servant leadership and work engagement, (b) work engagement mediates the relationship between voice and knowledge hiding, and (c) impression management moderates the effect of servant leadership on voice. When leaders focus on impression management, employee voice and engagement decrease, increasing knowledge hiding. We contribute to the leadership literature by identifying key mechanisms through which servant leadership reduces knowledge hiding, such as by emphasizing employee voice and engagement.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/14778238.2025.2506618

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