Deceptive Knowledge Hiding in Organizations: Psychological Distress as an Underlying Mechanism

Hafsa Bashir, Meng Fanchen and Muhammad Waseem Bari

SAGE Open, 2024, vol. 14, issue 2, 21582440241251996

Abstract: This study investigates the role of employee cynicism and perceived organizational politics in deceptive knowledge-hiding behaviors (evasive hiding and playing dumb). Besides, this work aims to measure the mediating role of psychological distress between employee cynicism, perceived organizational politics, and deceptive knowledge-hiding behaviors. Using a time lag strategy, the data were collected in three waves from 478 employees working in research and development institutions in Pakistan. A structured questionnaire and PLS-SEM technique were employed for data collection and analyses. The results indicate that employee cynicism and perceived organizational politics significantly promote playing dumb behavior in employees. Employee cynicism has no significant association with evasive hiding. However, perceived organizational politics promotes evasive hiding. Psychological distress as a mediator supports employee cynicism and perceived organizational politics to develop deceptive knowledge-hiding behaviors. The outcomes of this research have significant implications for organizations, especially for research and development departments. Putting down the cynicism level among employees and controlling the organizational politics can motivate the employees to share knowledge and avoid deceptive knowledge hiding. Managers with positive signals can rebuild trust with subordinates and encourage them to be involved in knowledge-sharing activities. The findings of this study could also serve the theory and practice by showing how employees act psychologically when they are cynical and think their company is playing politics.

Keywords: deceptive knowledge hiding; employee cynicism; perceived organizational politics; psychological distress; social exchange theory; research and development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440241251996 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:14:y:2024:i:2:p:21582440241251996

DOI: 10.1177/21582440241251996

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().