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

Muhammad Usman, Moazzam Ali, Gbemisola T Soetan, Oluremi B Ayoko, Aykut Berber

Human Relations · 2024 · Volume 77 · Issue 1

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.

Keywords

evasive hiding, justice orientation, perspective taking, playing dumb, rationalized hiding, servant leadership

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