“Insight to what's going on
Information keeps us strong
What you don't know can hurt you bad"
The Knowledge by Janet Jackson (Click here for the song)
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
“My colleagues don’t understand the importance of accurate consistent data entry, everyone is only concerned about their entry point. A customer is a customer and if the information isn’t aligned all sorts of errors emerge. Some mistakes are impolite, others have serious financial and legal consequences”
Coaching client.
How does knowledge hiding manifest?
“Knowledge-hiding is a complex construct that encompasses three distinct dimensions, namely rationalized hiding, evasive hiding, and playing dumb.
Rationalized hiding is the least deceptive dimension, characterized by explaining not sharing the knowledge.
Evasive hiding involves misleading the requester by offering false or incomplete information or a promise of providing a more complete answer in the future.
Playing dumb occurs when the hider feigns ignorance to avoid providing any information.”
Ika Atma Kurniawanti, Zain, D., Armanu Thoyib and Mintarti Rahayu (2023).
Keeping silent:
Research shows that a significant number of employees feel uncomfortable speaking up and are highly attuned to issues within the workplace. This common occurrence, known as "employee silence," can have harmful effects on both organizations and individuals. The consequences include:
Lowering the quality and efficiency of organisational decision-making
A major obstacle to organisational change and development
Creating a demoralising atmosphere
Increasing stress and job burnout
Reducing innovative work behaviour and task performance
A rise in deviant behaviour.
Increase in interpersonal distrust
Strained relationships among individuals
Why do people hide knowledge?
Researchers have found that employees may hide knowledge to gain a competitive advantage in their careers, outperform peers, receive favourable evaluations, and enhance their market value. Workers may engage in deliberate knowledge hiding as a response to mistreatment, perceived injustice, or ostracism by coworkers or management. It can also be a reaction to specific interpersonal conflicts encountered in the workplace.
Cynical employees often withhold knowledge and expertise in retaliation for negative workplace experiences driven by factors like interpersonal conflicts and job insecurity. Employees tend to hide their knowledge and expertise when they perceive that their organisations treat workers on a political basis rather than a performance basis. In highly politicised organisations, employees often experience significant ambiguity, tension, and confusion due to uncertainty about which behaviours will be rewarded or acknowledged. Researchers found that workers in deeply political environments can become dissatisfied and exhausted, leading them to adopt silence and refrain from sharing knowledge with colleagues and the organisation. Researchers have found that individuals often keep their skills and information private when they are under psychological stress at the workplace.
When knowledge hiding occurs, there is frustration in future interactions, creating a cycle in which those affected by knowledge hiding are more likely to engage in the same behaviour. Researchers have found that negative actions tend to have a more profound and lasting impact, further intensifying the cycle of knowledge hiding.
What is knowledge sharing?
Knowledge sharing is an ongoing structured process for exchanging information. It is dependent on effective communication channels and is typically dependent on IT systems. Individuals contribute by sharing their expertise and experiences with others. Thus it requires a willingness to offer accumulated insights and support, helping to enhance each other’s abilities, solve problems, and improve work performance. Knowledge sharing aims to address organisational challenges promote innovation and contribute to sustained organisational success.
What influences people to share knowledge at work?
Individual or personal factors
Researchers have found that employees share information to strengthen social ties because they have self-efficacy, enjoyment in helping others, altruism, courage, and active empathy. Knowledge sharing depends on the quality of the relationship between the knowledge seeker and the knowledge provider. Thus, organisations can benefit from knowledge sharing only when workers establish a deep connection to better understand the knowledge provider’s thoughts. Even in multinational corporations where distance and different cultures prevail, mutual trust and reciprocity make knowledge sharing possible.
Reputation is another reason researchers found that motivates employees to participate in knowledge sharing because it helps the individual to obtain and maintain his or her status in society and exposes dysfunctional members in a team. People participate in knowledge sharing because they believe that sharing knowledge can help them establish and elevate their reputation.
Organisational factors
Researchers have found that organisational factors such as organisational culture, job security, management style, trust, office policies, workforce training, and infrastructures impact the quality and quantity of knowledge sharing in organisations. In addition, researchers have found that trust and openness in organisational culture promote active knowledge-sharing among employees. The greater the encouragement, respect for ideas, and positive feedback, the greater the promotion of learning, development and the sharing of skills, resources, and knowledge.
Strengthening internal communication systems can also promote a culture of knowledge sharing. Researchers have found that establishing a reasonable chain of command, encouraging informal interactions, implementing effective incentives, ensuring accessible appraisals, and increasing interdependence improve knowledge sharing in organisations. Specifically, researchers have found that a healthy company culture that encourages open discussion and addresses perceived political behaviours reduces employee cynicism. Creating a fair decision-making environment, transparency, and clear communication is essential to counteract negative behaviours linked to a politicised atmosphere, such as knowledge hiding.
The nature of knowledge
Factors concerning the very nature of knowledge impact what and how it is shared. They include the value, clarity, and usefulness of the knowledge as well as the sticky essence of knowledge in general.
Technology
Knowledge sharing relates to technology and technological requirements in an organisation, such as IT systems, IT support, willingness to work with technology, being a technophile, and the digital literacy level of the workforce. In addition, the increasing range and speed of information access can facilitate sharing so long as constraints are minimised.
There are two main approaches to managing knowledge sharing in organisations: codification and personalisation. In codification, knowledge is stored in documents within a Knowledge Management System (KMS), providing consistent access across many individuals. This method is efficient, especially when knowledge remains stable, and suits organisations focused on standardising and sharing knowledge through documentation.
However, knowledge is often tied to its original context, such as the user, task, or unit. To use the knowledge effectively, users must understand its original context and adapt it to their own, a process that can be complex and difficult. In addition, the information that is stored needs to be accurate.
How do people share?
Although both formal and informal methods support knowledge sharing, evidence suggests that it most frequently occurs in informal settings through relational learning channels. This is because these channels encourage and ease face-to-face communication, fostering trust, respectful behaviour, and friendships among individuals. Contributing knowledge to organisational databases, engaging in formal interactions within or across teams or work units, sharing knowledge through informal exchanges between individuals, and participating in communities of practice—voluntary groups of employees centred around a common interest—are all ways knowledge is shared within organisations.
So what about my client?
As the coaching session drew to a close, my client realised that appealing to a sense of compliance would not be sufficient to motivate her colleagues to devote time and concentration to the storage and nature of data. Focusing on shared goals around customer trust and responsibility would be a good leverage point to change attitudes about knowledge in the organisation.
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References:
Wu, M., Li, W., Zhang, L., Zhang, C. and Zhou, H. (2023). Workplace suspicion, knowledge hiding, and silence behavior: A double-moderated mediation model of knowledge-based psychological ownership and face consciousness. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.982440.
Yeboah, A. (2023). Knowledge sharing in organization: A systematic review. Cogent Business Management, 10(1).
https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2023.2195027 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10050467/
Ika Atma Kurniawanti, Zain, D., Armanu Thoyib and Mintarti Rahayu (2023). Knowledge hiding and individual task performance: The role of individual creativity as mediator. Heliyon, pp.e21035–e21035. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e21035.Rezwan,
R.B. and Takahashi, Y. (2021). The Psychology behind Knowledge Hiding in an Organization. Administrative Sciences, 11(2), p.57. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci11020057.
Bashir, H., Fanchen, M., & Bari, M. W. (2024). Deceptive Knowledge Hiding in Organizations: Psychological Distress as an Underlying Mechanism. Sage Open, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440241251996
Deng, H., Duan, S.X. and Wibowo, S. (2022). Digital technology driven knowledge sharing for job performance. Journal of Knowledge Management, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/jkm-08-2021-0637.
Brown, Susan A.; Dennis, Alan R.; Burley, Diana; and Arling, Priscilla, "Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Management System Avoidance: The Role of Knowledge Type and the Social Network in Bypassing an Organizational Knowledge Management System" (2013). Scholarship and Professional Work - Business. 217. https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cob_papers/217
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