Are we in this together? Knowledge hiding in teams, collective prosocial motivation and leader-member exchange

Abstract

Purpose Although organizations expect employees to share knowledge with each other, knowledge hiding has been documented among coworker dyads. This paper aims to draw on social exchange theory to examine if and why knowledge hiding also occurs in teams. Design/methodology/approach Two studies, using experimental (115 student participants on 29 teams) and field (309 employees on 92 teams) data, explore the influence of leader-member exchange (LMX) on knowledge hiding in teams, as well as the moderating role of collective (team-level) prosocial motivation. Findings The results of experimental Study 1 showed that collective prosocial motivation and LMX reduce knowledge hiding in teams. Field Study 2 further examined LMX, through its distinctive economic and social facets, and revealed the interaction effect of team prosocial motivation and social LMX on knowledge hiding. Originality/value This study complements existing research on knowledge hiding by focusing specifically on the incidence of this phenomenon among members of the same team. This paper presents a multi-level model that explores collective prosocial motivation as a cross-level predictor of knowledge hiding in teams, and examines economic LMX and social LMX as two facets of LMX.

A Literature Review of Social and Economic Leader–Member Exchange

“…Beyond the link between social and economic LMX to employee outcomes, it is important to comment on the way in which they relate to each other. Generally, we found small to moderate negative associations between social and economic LMX, and three studies in which they were not significantly related at all (Aleksić et al, 2017;Babic et al, 2019;Caniëls and Hatak, 2019). This weak negative association between the two and their different relation to various employee outcomes strongly support the two-dimensional perspective of LMX.…”

“…Furthermore, in support of their two-dimensionality and the added value of measuring economic LMX in addition to traditional measures of social exchange with the supervisor (i.e., LMX7; LMSX; LMX-MDM), these studies have shown social and economic LMX to be differentially related to measures such as narcissism, creative behavior, and prosocial motivation (Aleksić et al, 2017;Berg et al, 2017;Babic et al, 2019;Caniëls and Hatak, 2019). Indeed, Aleksić et al (2017) empirically investigated both social LMX together with LMX7 and found economic LMX to be non-significantly related to both LMX7 and social LMX [the supervisor-targeted social exchange version of Shore et al's (2006)].…”

“…Lastly, two studies have examined the roles of social and economic LMX in knowledge sharing processes at work (Dysvik et al, 2015;Babic et al, 2019). Dysvik et al (2015) specifically investigated the moderating role of social and economic LMX on the relationship between follower knowledge donating and manager knowledge collecting.…”

“…Based on a sample of 227 follower-leader dyads, their results revealed that there was a positive association between knowledge donating and knowledge collecting for high levels of social LMX (b high = 0.29, p < 0.001) compared to low social LMX (b low = 0.10, ns). Babic et al (2019) investigated the role of social and economic LMX on knowledge hiding in teams. In a two-wave sample consisting of 92 teams, they found that social LMX was marginally negatively related to knowledge hiding in teams (β = −0.07, p = 0.093).…”

Demystifying the differences in the impact of training and incentives on employee performance: mediating roles of trust and knowledge sharing

“…Similarly, informal knowledge sharing (β = 0.25, p < 0.01) has a stronger mediating effect than formal knowledge sharing (β = -0.16, p < 0.05) in the impact of trust on sales increase; supporting H2a. Finally, informal knowledge sharing (β = 0.12, p < 0.10) has a marginally significant (Babič et al, 2019) but stronger mediating effect than formal knowledge sharing (β = -0.05, p > 0.10), in the impact of trust on labor productivity; thus, H2b is also supported.…”