Seeing others’ side to serve: Understanding how and when servant leadership impacts employee knowledge-hiding behaviors

Abstract

Previous studies have overlooked critical differences between different aspects of employees’ knowledge-hiding behaviors. Using social information processing theory as an anchor, we fill this void by investigating the impact of servant leadership on three distinct aspects of employees’ knowledge-hiding behaviors: evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding. Specifically, we propose that servant leadership is negatively related to evasive hiding and playing dumb, and yet, paradoxically positively related to rationalized hiding. We further propose employee perspective taking as a crucial underlying mechanism and employee justice orientation as a relevant boundary condition of the hypothesized relationships between servant leadership and employees’ knowledge-hiding behaviors. Our time-lagged and two-source data provide support for our hypotheses. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

Standing in customers’ shoes: How responsible leadership inhibits unethical pro-organizational behavior

“…Bandura (1977) noted that his social learning theory had drawn much nourishment from the academic thought regarding information processing. In line with previous studies (e.g., Boekhorst, 2015;Usman et al, 2022), we therefore infer that social information processing theory may be very suitable for deeply understanding the potential mechanism through which responsible leadership influences unethical pro-organizational behavior. According to social information processing theory (Salancik and Pfefer, 1978) and relevant research (Wang et al, 2017;Peng et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2022), environmental cues (e.g., leaders) can influence individuals' cognitive processes and then shape their behaviors, as these environmental cues can offer individuals necessary guidance for effective functioning within a social context.…”

An uncertainty management perspective on the antecedents of leader self‐serving behavior

“…The variance decomposition analysis revealed significant within‐level variance for leader anxiety ( σ 2 within = 1.45, p < .01), leader self‐serving cognition ( σ 2 within = 1.53, p < .01), and leader self‐serving behavior ( σ 2 within = 1.40, p < .01) while there was insignificant between level variance for leader anxiety ( σ 2 between = .02, p > .05), leader self‐serving cognition ( σ 2 between = .01, p > .05), and leader self‐serving behavior ( σ 2 between = .01, p > .05). We, therefore, proceeded to perform an individual‐level analysis (see also Ali et al, 2022, 2023; Tepper et al, 2011; Usman et al, 2022).…”

The effect of ethical leadership on service recovery performance: A moderated mediation model of organizational virtuousness and trait mindfulness

“…Future studies should therefore investigate the role of harmonious work passion to enhance our understanding of the complexities engaged in the leadership-SRP. Finally, other leadership styles such as spiritual leadership ( Anser et al, 2021b ; Ali et al, 2022b , c ) and servant leadership ( Usman et al, 2022 ) can also positively influence SRP. Thus, future studies should also examine the association between other positive leadership styles and SRP to offer a more complete understanding of this link between leadership and SRP.…”