Knowledge Hiding& Machiavellianism: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Knowledge sharing is widely being discussed and promoted in different organizations. There are different policies defined to encourage employees to disseminate knowledge amongst co-workers. However, it is being noticed that people intentionally hide information or knowledge in three ways i.e., by “Evasive hiding, Playing dumb or by Rationalized hiding (Zhao, Liu, & Xiaoyu, 2019)." As Mach personalities are considered as Dark personalities, they may try to hide knowledge intentionally. Objective: To study the impact of Machiavellianism as a personality trait on knowledge hiding behavior Design/ Methodology/ Approach: The methodology applied is descriptive. The purpose of the study is to understand and analyze the personality of B-School students as they are potential candidates for corporates and to know what kind of knowledge hiding behavior individuals are executing. Findings: The study has given interesting results which show that the relationship between Mach and Playing Dumb is insignificant, which is contrary to other studies. Research Limitations: The sample size is not sufficiently large to generalize the proposition, so this limitation can be improved in future studies by introducing random sampling techniques instead of convenience and also targeting a bigger pool of homogenous groupsi. Implications: Why do corporates bring in the new and fresh potential? Some of the reasons are, to bring in fresh knowledge, spark, and energy and also to help organizations remain productive and creative. And if these individuals are going to hide knowledge rather than sharing it, then the investment in them will be a cost to the organization. Originality/ Value: Knowledge hiding research is gaining a lot of attention nowadays as the organization is focusing on fostering creativity and research on knowledge hiding with B-School students as the sample is not very common.