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Unethical leadership and employee knowledge-hiding behavior in the Chinese context: a moderated dual-pathway model

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Abstract

On the basis of conservation of resource theory and job characteristics theory, we developed a moderated dual-pathway model, wherein unethical leadership increases knowledge hiding through external relational resources and internal psychological resources, with job complexity acting as a contextual condition. Surveying 235 employees and 41 leaders in China, our findings show that unethical leadership is positively associated with knowledge hiding. Furthermore, this positive relationship is fulfilled through two opposite mechanisms: on one hand, unethical leadership decreases employees’ relational identification, which then negatively predicts knowledge hiding. On the other hand, unethical leadership is positively related to psychological distress, which has a subsequent positive effect on knowledge hiding. The presence of high job complexity mitigates the effect of unethical leadership on psychological distress, which in return reduces knowledge hiding. Our findings have implications for leadership behavior in developing a knowledge-sharing workplace environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, Hunan University, 12 Lushan South Road, Yuelu District, Changsha, Hunan Province, China

    Yazhou Qin & Yuhua Xie

  2. Monash Business School, Monash University, 26 Sir John Monash Drive, Caulfield East, Melbourne, VIC, 3145, Australia

    Fang Lee Cooke

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  1. Yazhou Qin
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Correspondence to Yuhua Xie.

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Appendix: Variable definition

Appendix: Variable definition

Variables

Scale source

Measurements

Unethical leadership

Bennett and Robinson (2000)

My leader makes fun of someone at work

My leader says something hurtful to someone at work

My leader makes an ethnic, religious, or racial remark at work

My leader curses someone at work

My leader plays a mean prank on someone at work

My leader acts rudely toward someone at work

My leader publicly embarrasses someone at work

Knowledge hiding

Peng (2012)

Withhold helpful information or knowledge from others

Try to hide innovative achievements

Do not transform personal knowledge and experience into organizational knowledge

Relational identification

Carmeli and Gittell (2009);

Mael and Ashforth (1992)

When someone criticizes him/her, it feels like a personal insult

I am very interested in what others think about our leader

When I talk about this leader, I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’

This leader's successes are my successes

When someone praises this leader, it feels like a personal compliment

If a story in the media criticized the leader, I would feel embarrassed

Psychological distress

Wu et al. (2012)

I work under a great deal of tension

I have felt fidgety or nervous as a result of my job

My job tends to directly affect my health

I feel emotionally drained from my work

I feel burned out from my work

I feel downhearted and blue

I get tired for no reason

I find myself restless and can’t keep still

Job complexity

Hackman and Oldham (1975)

The job requires me to use a lot of complex or high-level skills

The job requires a lot of cooperative work with other people

The job gives me considerable opportunity for independence and freedom in how I do the work

This job is one where a lot of other people can be affected by how well the work gets done

Employee gender

Connelly et al. (2012); Men et al. (2020)

Indicator equals 1 if respondent is female, 0 otherwise

Employee age

Self-reported age

Employee education

1 = high school or below; 2 = bachelor; 3 = master, 4 = PhD

Employee tenure

the average time members had worked in their organization

Team size

Zhao et al. (2016)

the number of names reported by program leaders

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Qin, Y., Xie, Y. & Cooke, F.L. Unethical leadership and employee knowledge-hiding behavior in the Chinese context: a moderated dual-pathway model. Asian Bus Manage 22, 740–764 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41291-021-00154-2

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