This study aimed to understand the psychological process behind employees’ knowledge hiding (KH) behaviors in organizations. KH is an intentional act of concealing knowledge when it is requested by a colleague and can lead to counterproductive consequences for the organization. Therefore, this study synthesized previous studies (n = 88) on KH through a systematic literature review. We used the cognitive–motivational–relational (CMR) theory of emotion to create a framework for the studies’ findings. Based on the framework, the psychological process behind KH has two stages—personal goal generation and the knowledge-request event appraisal process, each of which contains its own CMR process. In the first stage, an individual’s internal and external attributes related to the organization shape their personal goals. In the second stage, an individual appraises the features of a knowledge-request event in terms of both their personal goal and the internal and external attributes that created the goal. If the knowledge request is appraised as harmful for the personal goal, emotion arises and leads to the manifestation of KH. This study contributes to the knowledge management literature as, to our knowledge, it is the first to propose a CMR theory-based framework to understand the overall psychological process behind KH.
The Psychology behind Knowledge Hiding in an Organization
