Knowledge hiding and team creativity: the contingent role of task interdependence

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Abstract

Purpose

Creativity and innovation are crucial in improving the organizational performance and sustaining competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between knowledge hiding and team creativity.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors tested the hypotheses with a sample of 87 knowledge worker teams involving 393 employees and employers in China.

Findings

Knowledge hiding is negatively related to team creativity, fully mediated by absorptive capacity. In addition, the negative relationship between knowledge hiding and absorptive capacity would be weakened by task interdependence.

Practical implications

Team managers should take measures to avoid the development of knowledge hiding, which is indirectly related to team creativity via absorptive capacity within a team, and motivate team members to share more knowledge by training to improve their feelings of accountability, responsibility, and duty. In addition, managers can decrease knowledge hiding by strengthening within-team task interdependence.

Originality/value

This study is one of the first to investigate the relationship between knowledge hiding and team creativity and the moderating role of task interdependence in the relationship between knowledge hiding and absorptive capacity.

Related collections

Most cited references 62

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The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations.

Reuben M. Baron, David A Kenny (1986)

In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators.