How and when team-member exchange influences knowledge hiding behaviors: A moderated dual-pathway model

Purpose: This study explored the influence of team member exchange on employees’ knowledge hiding behaviors via job embeddedness and work alienation, with learning goal orientation acting as the boundary condition.

Methodology: This study adopted a quantitative multi-study research methodology to validate the proposed hypotheses, combining a time-lagged field study with 459 in-service employees and a scenario-based experiment with 128 students at a northern university in China.

Findings: In Study 1 (field study), team-member exchange was negatively associated with knowledge hiding, and job embeddedness and work alienation mediated this relationship. Perceptions of learning goal orientation can amplify the effect of team-member exchange on job embeddedness and work alienation, which in turn reduces knowledge hiding behaviors. A subsequent experiment (Study 2) almost replicated and supported these findings, but work alienation did not play an intermediary role in the relationship between team member exchange and knowledge hiding behavior.

Practical implications: Managers should stimulate social exchanges among team members to inhibit knowledge hiding behaviors and prioritize individuals exhibiting higher learning goal orientations when deciding whom to hire.

Originality: This research identifies and rationalizes how (underlying mechanisms) and when (contingencies) team-member exchange can make a difference in employees’ knowledge hiding behaviors, expanding and advancing further research on the knowledge hiding phenomenon from a team perspective.