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Knowledge hiding in higher education: role of interactional justice and professional commitment

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Abstract

Recent research has focused on students’ knowledge sharing behavior and its driving factors, which promote the knowledge transmission and exchange in different educational settings. However, little research has focused on factors that inhibit knowledge sharing. Based on social learning theory and social cognitive theory, the current study investigates the relationships between knowledge hiding behaviors and students’ belief about interactional justice and professional commitment. Based on 312 reliable questionnaires collected from Chinese and international postgraduate students in China, this study explored postgraduate students. Three knowledge hiding behaviors include playing dumb, evasive hiding, and rationalized hiding, all of which is negatively related to interactional justice. Furthermore, the moderating effect of professional commitment was found to influence evasive hiding more significantly than the other two aspects of knowledge hiding. Based on the findings of the study, implications are elaborated for learners, supervisors, and higher education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Usman Ghani & Donghong Ding

  2. Faculty of Education, School of Educational Technology, Smart Learning Institute, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Xuesong Zhai

  3. Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Intelligent Building and Building Energy Saving, Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei, 230022, China

    Xuesong Zhai

  4. Department of Learning Technologies, University of North Texas, Denton, 76207, USA

    J. Michael Spector & Lin Lin

  5. Department of Applied Foreign Languages, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yünlin, Taiwan

    Nian-Shing Chen

  6. Business School, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China

    Muhammad Usman

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  1. Usman Ghani
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Correspondence to Xuesong Zhai.

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Ghani, U., Zhai, X., Spector, J.M. et al. Knowledge hiding in higher education: role of interactional justice and professional commitment. High Educ 79, 325–344 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00412-5

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