Relational climates moderate the effect of openness to experience on knowledge hiding: a two-country multi-level study

Purpose Understanding employee knowledge hiding behavior can serve organizations in better implementing knowledge management practices. The purpose of this study is to investigate how personality and work climate influence knowledge hiding, by examining the respective roles of openness to experience and relational (specifically, communal sharing and market pricing) climates. Design/methodology/approach Multilevel modeling was used with two distinct samples, one from Vietnam with 119 employees in 20 teams and one from The Netherlands with 136 employees in 32 teams. Findings In both samples, the hypothesized direct relationship between openness and knowledge hiding was not found. In the Vietnamese sample, only the moderating effect of market pricing climate was confirmed; in the Dutch sample, only the moderating effect of communal sharing climate was confirmed. The findings of the Vietnamese sample suggest that people with a high sense of openness to experience hide knowledge less under low market pricing climate. In the Dutch sample, people with high openness to experience hide knowledge less under high communal sharing climate. The authors conclude that, in comparison with personality, climate plays a stronger role in predicting knowledge hiding behavior. Research limitations/implications Small sample size and self-reported data might limit the generalizability of this study’s results. Practical implications The paper highlights how organizational context (relational climate) needs to be taken into account in predicting how personality (openness to experience) affects knowledge hiding. Originality/value This paper contributes to a better understanding of the knowledge hiding construct by extending the set of known antecedents and exploring the organizational context in which such phenomena happen.