SummaryDespite the efforts to enhance knowledge transfer in organizations, success has been elusive. It is becoming clear that in many instances employees are unwilling to share their knowledge even when organizational practices are designed to facilitate transfer. Consequently, this paper develops and investigates a novel construct, knowledge hiding. We establish that knowledge hiding exists, we distinguish knowledge hiding from related concepts (knowledge hoarding and knowledge sharing), and we develop a multidimensional measure of this construct. We also identify several predictors of knowledge hiding in organizations. The results of three studies, using different methods, suggest that knowledge hiding is comprised of three related factors: evasive hiding, rationalized hiding, and playing dumb. Each of these hiding behaviors is predicted by distrust, yet each also has a different set of interpersonal and organizational predictors. We draw implications for future research on knowledge management.

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This study investigated whether organizational factors such as employees’ perceptions of management’s support for knowledge sharing, their perceptions of the organization’s social interaction culture, the organization’s size, and the organization’s available knowledge sharing technology, as well as whether individual factors such as age, gender, and organizational tenure had a significant impact on employees’ perceptions of a knowledge sharing culture. New measures to assess employees’ perceptions of management’s support for knowledge sharing, their perceptions of the organization’s social interaction culture, and the perceived knowledge sharing culture were developed. We found that perceptions of management’s support for knowledge sharing, and perceptions of a positive social interaction culture were both significant predictors of a perceived knowledge sharing culture. In addition, gender was a significant moderator: female participants required a more positive social interaction culture before they would perceive a knowledge sharing culture as positive as that perceived by their male counterparts.

In the past decade there has been growing internationally-based evidence towards a trend in organizational staffing strategies which have placed emphasis upon the direct or brokered hiring of workers on temporary, fixed-term or “contingent” employment contracts in lieu of contracts with the implication of an ongoing relationship. Concurrently, there has been an emergence of research activity concerning individual and organizational-level consequences associated with the increased organizational reliance on fixed-term contracts in the workplace. This paper provides an overview of the contingent work literature and identifies topical themes and research questions which have been the primary focus of attention, as well as the possible causal interrelationships among the diverse constructs which have been examined. The paper highlights aspects of the existing research that may benefit from further exploration, as well as consideration of a number of theoretical and methodological issues which have also emerged. © 2004Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Summary In our introduction to this special issue on understanding knowledge hiding in organizations, we provide some context to how and why this phenomenon should be studied. We then describe the five articles that comprise the special issue, and we note some common themes and divergences in this collection. Our introduction concludes with some suggestions for future research on knowledge hiding in organizations.