The missing link: knowledge hiding behavior and project performance

Shazia Nauman

doi:10.1108/MD-12-2023-2381

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The missing link: knowledge hiding behavior and project performance

2024-12-26

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Shazia Nauman *

Tahir, Muhammad Zain

Fouzia Hadi Ali

Muhammad Saleem Sumbal

DOI：10.1108/MD-12-2023-2381

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Abstract

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PurposeThis study examines how project leaders' knowledge hiding influences project performance via project employee creativity, employing the conservation of resources theory. Further, we investigate how mastery motivational climate (MMC) moderates the project employee creativity and project performance relationship.Design/methodology/approachEmploying purposive sampling design, two-wave data (N = 245) was collected with a gap of three weeks from employees working in R&D departments in private software development project-based organizations located in Lahore, Pakistan.FindingsResults suggest that leaders' knowledge hiding does impede project employee creativity and negatively influence project performance. In addition, MMC was found to accentuate the relationship between project employee creativity and project performance.Practical implicationsThis study offers notable insights into the knowledge hiding literature from a top-down perspective within the project management domain relating to IT projects. This study's findings pose implications for practitioners and project-based organizations who are interested in counteracting the adverse effects of knowledge hiding on project performance.Originality/valueThis study proposes a novel approach to job design by considering resource scarcity caused by a leader's knowledge hiding as a job demand, along with the achievement goal perspective driven by a mastery or goal orientation. To understand these two perspectives, we rely on the conservation of resources (COR) theory to describe how a leader's knowledge hiding affects project performance through project employee creativity, moderated by mastery motivational climate.

Keywords:

Leader knowledge hiding

Project employee creativity

Mastery motivational climate

Project performance

Conservation of resources theory