Perceived organizational politics, knowledge hiding and diminished promotability: how do harmony motives matter?
Journal of Knowledge Management
ISSN: 1367-3270
Article publication date: 25 October 2021
Issue publication date: 26 July 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate an underexplored behavioral factor, knowledge hiding, that connects employees’ perceptions of organizational politics (POP) with their diminished promotability, while also considering the moderating role of employees’ harmony motives in this process.
Design/methodology/approach
The research hypotheses are tested with multisource, three-round data collected among employees and their supervisors.
Findings
Employees’ beliefs about self-serving organizational decision-making increase their propensity to hide knowledge, which, in turn, diminishes their promotability. This intermediate role of knowledge hiding is more prominent when their disintegration avoidance motive is strong but less prominent when their harmony enhancement motive is strong.
Practical implications
A refusal to share knowledge with organizational colleagues, as a covert response to POP, can create a negative cycle for employees. They are frustrated with decision-making practices that are predicated on favoritism, but by choosing seemingly subtle ways to respond, they compromise their own promotion prospects. To avoid this escalation, employees should adopt an active instead of passive approach toward maintaining harmony in their work relationships.
Originality/value
This research contributes to extant research by detailing a hitherto overlooked reason that employees’ frustrations with dysfunctional politics may escalate into an enhanced probability to miss out on promotion opportunities. They respond to this situation by engaging in knowledge hiding. As an additional contribution, this study details how the likelihood of this response depends on employees’ harmony motives.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72032006 and 71772149).
Citation
De Clercq, D., Sofyan, Y., Shang, Y. and Espinal Romani, L. (2022), "Perceived organizational politics, knowledge hiding and diminished promotability: how do harmony motives matter?", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 1826-1848. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-03-2021-0231
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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