Negative workplace gossip and knowledge hiding: roles of duty orientation and psychological entitlement

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the social exchange theory, this study examined the impact of negative workplace gossip on targets’ knowledge hiding behaviours. We also examined the mediating role of duty orientation and the moderating role of psychological entitlement on the relationship between negative workplace gossip and knowledge hiding behaviours. We adopted a mixed-method research design involving a scenario experiment (Study 1) and a two-wave survey study (Study 2). The results showed that negative workplace gossip has a positive association with knowledge hiding behaviours and this relationship was mediated by duty orientation. In addition, psychological entitlement strengthens the negative influence of negative workplace gossip on duty orientation. However, the indirect effect of negative workplace gossip on knowledge hiding behaviours through duty orientation is stronger for employees with high psychological entitlement as compared to those having low levels of psychological entitlement.

KEYWORDS:

• Negative workplace gossip
• duty orientation
• knowledge hiding behaviours
• psychological entitlement

Acknowledgments

The first three authors contribute equally to this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Compliance with Ethical Standards

This paper and all authors’ compliance with Ethical Standards, we are willing to accept all responsibility for any violation of ethical standards in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the Humanity and Social Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China [23XJC630013]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [71832007].