Leaders’ knowledge hiding and front-line employee service sabotage

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Utilizing social learning theory, this paper investigates a theoretical model that links knowledge hiding by leaders to employee service sabotage via moral disengagement (MD). It also investigates an important boundary condition by analyzing the role of leader-member exchange on both leaders’ knowledge hiding-moral disengagement (relationship) and on the overall indirect relationship between leaders’ knowledge hiding (LKH) and front-line service sabotage (SS). Utilizing a three-wave research design, data were collected using a structured questionnaire from 265 employees working in the service sector. The results reveal strong support for the proposed moderated mediation model. Leaders’ knowledge hiding is a strong significant predictor of employees’ service sabotage directly and via moral disengagement. We found that leader-member exchange accentuated the association between leaders’ knowledge hiding and moral disengagement in addition to accentuating the mediated relationship. The study enhances our understanding of the consequences of leaders’ knowledge hiding for service and, in particular, service sabotage. The study is one of the few to investigate leader as opposed to employee knowledge hiding in service organizations. The findings highlight that service organizations need to take proactive stems to minimize the hiding of knowledge by leaders because of its determinant consequences for service sabotage.

摘要：领导知识隐藏逐渐成为知识管理领域的新话题。本文基于社会学习理论，提出领导知识隐藏通过道德推脱影响员工服务破坏的理论模型，并将领导-成员交换纳入研究框架，考察领导知识隐藏对一线员工服务破坏产生影响的边界条件。利用三期研究设计，使用结构化问卷收集了服务部门265名员工的数据。研究发现，领导知识隐藏对一线员工服务破坏具有显著正向影响；道德推脱在领导知识隐藏与一线员工服务破坏之间起中介作用；领导-成员交换对领导知识隐藏与一线员工服务破坏关系具有负向调节作用。研究结论加深了领导知识隐藏对服务破坏后果的理解，是为数不多考察领导者知识隐藏的研究之一。研究结论强调服务组织需要采取积极主动的措施以尽量减少领导知识隐藏，并专注于增强领导-员工交换，从而缓解领导知识隐藏对员工服务破坏的负面影响。

KEYWORDS:

• Leader's knowledge hiding
• leader-member exchange
• moral disengagement
• service sabotage

关键词:

• 领导知识隐藏
• 领导-成员交换
• 道德推脱
• 服务破坏

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 21BGL047].