OUTCOMES OF KNOWLEDGE HIDING IN AN

ORGANIZATION
NMIMS, Mumbai, India

The phenomenon of Knowledge hiding is very common in workplaces. This could be due to variety in
demographics like age, gender, cultural background, or the feeling of having more power in terms of
knowledge as compared to one’s peers. Reason can be any of these, but its consequences are many which
are bearded by the organization, the team, and the individual as well.

The importance of knowledge sharing for
organizations long term benefit, innovation and
success has been proved by a lot of research.
Promoting Knowledge sharing within
organizations helps to build strong employee
relationship, relationships within teams ultimately
leading to better performance of an individual and
organization also (Connelly et. al ,2015).Despite
its benefits, the concern regarding knowledge
hiding(KH) have been faced by many
organizations. There are many types of
knowledge hiding, be it intentional or
unintentional, it affects an organizations culture
in a very negative way, causing drop in
employee’s performance or organizational
citizenship behavior which leads to workplace
deviance (Bari et al.,2019). Therefore, it becomes
important to understand the outcomes of
knowledge hiding in the workplace.
On a broader level, it has influences on an
individual and on organizational level. It can also
have some positive outcomes which are described
below in the following lines in the paper.
The Individual
Positives:
On an individual level, KH can lead to negative
as well as positive outcomes. Withholding
knowledge sometimes become important so as
not to reveal some organizational level trade
secrets.
In the short term if we see, knowledge
hiders get a lot of time for performing their own
tasks and can increase their performance as
compared to another coworker (Barzel,1989). KH
has also shown feelings of more responsibility and
ownership and positive evaluations of object itself.
Employees with higher sense of ownership are
more committed and see through the task till
completion and are less likely to abandon projects
in between. Such employees have the idea of may
be “their baby”, “their idea” and want to go on
their own to pursue their idea without anyone
else’s interference (J.Webster,2018). Such
implications lead to positives for the organizations
sometimes.
Negatives:
However, they can experience damaged
interpersonal relationships due to reciprocity in
an employee’s decisions (J.Webster,2018).
Moreover, in a long run knowledge hider can
also experience a decrease in their performance
because when they would require help, others
might not be readily available. It can also
happen that the loyalty between workers also
decreases. Employees become reluctant to share
their knowledge with hiders in future if need
help.
 Organizational level
There are a lot of additional consequences that
an organization has to face when practices like
KH goes on a regular basis. Due to the secrecy
norms of organizations, it acts as a shield for
many workers to conceal knowledge. This
happens when guidance provided by norms are
unclearly stated and knowledge hiders use it in
their interest.
Even if knowledge is shared among people, they
may not be willing to fully listen or incorporate
other’s ideas. This happens because of feelings of
ownership, affecting their territory ( knowledge)
means asking for other’s ideas but not
incorporating because they are not their own
creation. Such reasons create serious implications
on an organization’s creativity on a whole.
Increasing level of KH have a lot of
negative consequences directly linked with an
individuals’ behavior or organizations
performance (M.W.Bari et. al), e.g. innovation,
individual’s creativity, performance,
interpersonal relationships and increase in the
interpersonal distrust(Connelly et. al ,2015).In
addition to this its consequences on target it can
also negatively influence a knowledge hider’s
creativity(Bogilovic et. al,2017).
I. Personal Reputation:
It has been found that if the seekers don’t get the
information or knowledge to perform their roles,
they feel their reputation at stake. It is very
common to find people at higher level to
deliberately hide knowledge from their
subordinates, and nothing can be done regarding
this by their peers as there is no procedure to
report such issues with the top level management
so that to avoid in future time (A.S.Butt,2020).
Knowledge seekers feel many times that hiders
have a certain knowledge and possess a higher
position and strong reputation which adversely
affects the knowledge seekers reputation when the
knowledge is hidden from them and thus they are
not able to deliver properly due to lack of
information.
II. Effect on Work performance:
Having the skills and competencies required for a
particular job is not enough, the collaboration with
peers and team members through knowledge
sharing to able to deliver properly is an important
aspect in a workplace. This also enhances one’s
motive , creativity, and one’s work performance.
Knowledge seekers argue that they experience a
decline in their performance. They also feel that
searching or requesting knowledge from alternate
source results in wastage of time, inefficiency
increases, results in lack of creativity ultimately
causing suboptimal work performance.
Inefficiency: If any senior official declines to
provide necessary information to any of its sub-
ordinates, sometimes it becomes difficult for them
to complete their tasks and problem-solving skills
on time. Many times, the knowledge seekers are
left on their own, therefore consuming a lot of time
in solving any technical issue which directly
hampers their work performance. It is observed that
knowledge hiding behavior with the workplace
negatively affects their ability to contribute to the
best of their capability.
Gathering knowledge from external source is time
consuming: Due to lack of cooperation from peers
or senior officials, knowledge seekers have to rely
on other multiple sources, which needs to be
verified also and becomes a time-consuming
process. It requires a substantial amount of energy
and time, which they can use on other productive
tasks. It also increases the stress level and
demotivates them. Not getting required information
within the team or organization sometimes makes
them to look elsewhere like to a friend working in
another organization.
Suppressed creativity: Not able to perform fully or
give creative ideas for a particular task can also be
caused due to lack of knowledge for that particular
job assigned. Inability to perform a task in different
way and to find out the best among them can
happen due to lack of knowledge.
Many other limitations like brainstorming
sessions, bringing new and innovative ideas on
the table during meetings or discussions follow
due to lack of knowledge. Knowledge hiders
many a time tell the seekers that they will share
information but later on keep neglecting it.
III. Escalation:
When the behavior of knowledge hiding prevails
for a longer period of time within an organization,
it creates a negative atmosphere for many to work
in. The motivation to work in such an
environment decreases with time. This results into
victims of knowledge hiding resigning the
organization. If the top management is serious
enough for such a behavior it can lead to
expulsion of the perpetrators from the firm as
well. It has also been observed that many times
knowledge hiders are left with no option but to
resign themselves from their positions as the last
option.
Resignation of knowledge seeker: Many studies
have revealed that when an employee is not
treated well by his upper management, he is left
with no option but to resign. No employee would
like to work in an organization where he cannot
get opportunities to grow and learn. Struggling on
daily basis to get knowledge for a task
completion and feeling as left in isolation in a
company cannot be tolerated by an employee.
These results in resignation of an employee and
losing an important asset to an organization.
Dismissal of perpetrator: If knowledge seekers
instead of giving resignation, confidently escalate
this matter to higher management, and if it works
out in his favor, it eventually results in the
dismissal of the perpetrator. But this requires a
higher amount of potential to fight back, as such
matters hardly come out with any fruitful results.
For such results, the policies, and guidelines of an
organization on behavior of knowledge hiding for
perpetuators should be strictly made and followed
too.
Power and politics: Many times when knowledge
hiders have good relationship with upper
management, the complaint by knowledge seeker is
neglected. In this way he gets involved into the
office politics and can become target of many other
senior officials for complaining. When difference
in information exists , workers in an organization
no longer interact with each other on equal terms,
which stops them from searching of different
aspects and interpretation of new knowledge
(Webster et. al, 2008)
IV. Poor relationship between employees:
When knowledge is hidden intentionally, it affects
adversely the working relationship of the two
involved. When knowledge seekers feel that the
hider is not being supportive enough and is
lingering on for the information, he tries to manage
on his own rather than relying on others. Gradually
he maintains a distance with the perpetrator due to
lack of trust and loyalty which hinders in forming a
healthy and long-lasting relationship with the
perpetrator.
Reduced interpersonal trust: A trust deficit in the
business relationship gradually starts to emerge,
once employees find out that they are not being
supported or assisted by their peers or managers, be
it by providing information or any other work
related help. This makes them lose trust to such an
extent that they also feel that the perpetrator might
give a wrong information if they rely on him in
future. This also creates barrier if they want to talk
to discuss about their problems with their peers or
managers as they can exploit on their weakness
and might disclose it with other workers within the
team or organization (Violetta et. al, 2019).
Sometimes, if the seeker wants to discuss any new
ideas, he feels reluctant because of the trust deficit
in their business relationship. Therefore, any
important and new ideas from the young
professionals aren’t shared which becomes a loss
for the organization.
Reduced loyalty: There is a lot of dependency on
each other while working in a professional life, and
this dependency can be used only when there is a
sense of loyalty between workers. When
knowledge seekers know about the intentions of
the hiders, they stop giving them favors,
supporting them or standing beside them when
knowledge hiders need their help in certain cases
like working extra, taking extra shifts etc. One’s
working behavior changes abruptly when
employees find out about knowledge hiding
nature of their peers
V. High Turnover:
Lack of motivation, dedication, and determination
towards one’s job makes an employee leave their
job. One finding the boss not taking him on board
while disseminating important business
knowledge, makes an employee question his
importance in the organization. Having less
knowledge than required makes one feel not fully
engage with his job role. If such employees find a
better and suitable job elsewhere, they
immediately leave their organization and join
other where they look for healthy working
environment.
follow have subsequent results (J.Webster , 2018).
Its influence can be seen on a much greater level
like organizational relationships, employee
satisfaction, trust and loyalty, organizational
effectiveness. Clear organizational policies or
norms of secrecy should be made to smooth social
interactions and to minimize conflicts within each
other and within teams resulting from knowledge
withholding.
Although organizations can do a little in
changing the individual characteristics that
becomes the reason of withholding of knowledge,
but an atmosphere in workplace can be created to
encourage trust, fairness, and reciprocity. Clear
guidelines need to be mentioned and adhered by
the employees for their decisions about sharing.

VI. Reduced Business Volume:

Research has shown that deliberate knowledge
hiding causes a decline in the business volume in
a long run. Due to lack of knowledge any project
can face challenges and errors, and it creates a
problem specially when the project has to be
completed in a time bound. The pressure from the
client end, thinking about reputation of the
company makes it a lot worse. It also happens that
the project has to then started from the scratch and
it affects client’s timelines and the years long
relation that is built with them. Sometimes an
organization can also lose an important customer
for the lifetime (A.Irum et. al, 2019).

Conclusion:

Holding up knowledge transfer is part of everyday

story of organizational life. Confusion regarding
what information to reveal to whom often come a
lot in an employee’s mind, and the choices people

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