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Li, Z. Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality and Knowledge Hiding. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/18689 (accessed on 03 July 2024).
Li Z. Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality and Knowledge Hiding. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/18689. Accessed July 03, 2024.
Li, Zhen. "Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality and Knowledge Hiding" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/18689 (accessed July 03, 2024).
Li, Z. (2022, January 24). Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality and Knowledge Hiding. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/18689
Li, Zhen. "Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality and Knowledge Hiding." Encyclopedia. Web. 24 January, 2022.
Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality and Knowledge Hiding
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This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14020586

Organizations need to respond to multiple demands, not only of shareholders but of stakeholders. Supervisor mentality that focuses on bottom-line goals, such as financial performance, can result in negative consequences. We used conservation of resources theory to examine how and when employees engage in knowledge hiding toward coworkers was influenced by supervisor bottom-line mentality. A two-wave survey (N = 274) revealed a positive impact of supervisor bottom-line mentality on knowledge hiding toward coworkers via prevention-based psychological ownership. Further, the higher the competitive psychological climate, the stronger the positive relationship between supervisor bottom-line mentality and knowledge hiding via prevention-based psychological ownership. 

supervisor bottom-line mentality psychological ownership knowledge hiding

1. Supervisor BLM and Employee Knowledge Hiding toward Coworkers

Securing bottom-line profit goals inherently underscores one’s competence, status, and ability to win scarce resources within an organization [1]. COR theory suggests that individuals are motivated to protect and acquire resources [2]. From a knowledge-based view, knowledge is stored within individuals and is an important resource for organizations to advance their competitiveness and profit [3]. At the individual level, employees need specific knowledge or expertise to complete productivity goals [4]. Exclusive knowledge is a source of power and competitive advantage [5][6], whereas sharing important knowledge with others often risks losing personal influence [7].
Knowledge hiding involves withholding or concealing knowledge from others and consists of three aspects [8]. Evasive hiding refers to providing wrong, incomplete, or misleading information for knowledge requestors; playing numb occurs when the hider ignores the requirement of knowledge requestors, and rationalized hiding is a less deceptive behavior aimed at protecting information for confidentiality reasons. Knowledge hiding can be driven by the desire to obtain higher performance [9]. When employees perceive their supervisors to hold a BLM that is only concerned about performance, they are more sensitive to resource loss resulting from losing privately held knowledge [10][11]. Employees tend to hide knowledge from their coworkers to protect their knowledge resources and hold their knowledge advantage.

2. Supervisor BLM and Prevention-Based Psychological Ownership

Psychological ownership (PO) is one’s awareness, thoughts, and beliefs regarding the target of ownership [10]. Individuals hold feelings of possessiveness and build psychological ties with the target of ownership [10]. Following regulatory focus theory [12], Avey et al. [13] distinguished prevention- from promotion-based PO. A promotion focus is useful for personal improvement and development, while a prevention focus is activated when a person needs stability and safety [13]. Individuals who have prevention-based PO often show territorial behaviors to claim ownership of material (e.g., working spaces) and intangible (e.g., project information) assets [14].
We argue that prevention-based ownership may emerge when employees perceive their supervisor to have a BLM. Supervisor BLM can spur employees’ felt obligation toward bottom-line goals and further contribute to task performance [1]. When supervisors hold a BLM, the only way for employees to win the performance game is to devote intellectual energy, time, and effort to their work. On the one hand, the investment of self creates not only a bond between the self and the target [15] but a sense of control over jobs [16]. For instance, Wang et al. [17] indicated that job engagement makes employees extend their self to their jobs and further enhances job-based psychological ownership. On the other hand, supervisor BLM facilitates a win–lose context which highlights a potential resource loss. As such, employees are encouraged to protect their resources accumulated in working processes.

3. Mediating Role of Prevention-Based Psychological Ownership

As mentioned above, high-BLM supervisors will amplify the potential resource loss and the need to protect resources that may determine the promotion of an employee. As a result, employees develop prevention-based ownership of their possessions within the organization. Individuals experiencing resource loss adopt coping strategies to avoid this situation [18]. Resource depletion triggers a defensive coping strategy. In this situation, knowledge obtained from work effort tends to be marked as an important personal property valued by employees. Sharing knowledge with coworkers threatens knowledge ownership [19]. In contrast, hiding knowledge from coworkers avoids resource loss and accumulates competitive advantages over others. In addition, the behavior of requesting knowledge is interpreted as an infringement on the targets of ownership [13], which implies further resource depletion. Therefore, individuals with a preventative focus are more hesitant about knowledge sharing and are more likely to hide knowledge from others.

4. Moderating Role of Competitive Psychological Climate

A competitive psychological climate refers to “the degree to which employees perceive organizational rewards to be contingent on comparisons of their performance with their coworkers” [20] (p. 89). Indeed, higher levels of it motivate individuals to invest more intellectual energy and focus attention on tasks [21], which enhances employees’ psychological ownership [10]. Such a climate also emphasizes the comparison of performance between employees, causing employees to engage in competition with their colleagues. Especially when supervisors only underscore the importance of profit maximization, comparisons of performance among employees mean that the winning of a higher performance appraisal depends on the failure of others [4]. Hence, individuals feel threatened, rather than stable, regarding their organizational rewards. According to COR theory, individuals form defensive PO as a coping strategy.
In contrast, lower levels of a competitive psychological climate provide more stability and predictability of one’s reward, creating a relatively less stressful environment for employees. Such a climate will mitigate competition marching toward bottom-line goals and evoke fewer defensive coping strategies to deal with resource loss.

References

  1. Babalola, M.T.; Ren, S.; Ogbonnaya, C.; Riisla, K.; Soetan, G.T.; Gok, K. Thriving at Work but Insomniac at Home: Under-standing the Relationship between Supervisor Bottom-line Mentality and Employee Functioning. Hum. Relat. 2020, 75, 33–57.
  2. Hobfoll, S.E. The influence of culture, community, and the nested-self in the stress process: Advancing conservation of re-sources theory. Appl. Psychol. 2001, 50, 337–421.
  3. Grant, R.M. Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm. Strateg. Manag. J. 1996, 17, 109–122.
  4. Greenbaum, R.L.; Mawritz, M.B.; Eissa, G. Bottom-line mentality as an antecedent of social undermining and the moderating roles of core self-evaluations and conscientiousness. J. Appl. Psychol. 2012, 97, 343–359.
  5. Evans, J.M.; Hendron, M.G.; Oldroyd, J.B. Withholding the ace: The individual-and unit-level performance effects of self-reported and perceived knowledge hoarding. Organ. Sci. 2015, 26, 494–510.
  6. Mudambi, R.; Navarra, P. Divisional power, intra-firm bargaining and rent-seeking behavior in multidivisional corporations. Econ. Bull. 2004, 4, 1–10.
  7. Xiao, M.; Cooke, F.L. Why and when knowledge hiding in the workplace is harmful: A review of the literature and directions for future research in the Chinese context. Asia Pac. J. Hum. Resour. 2019, 57, 470–502.
  8. Connelly, C.E.; Zweig, D.; Webster, J.; Trougakos, J.P. Knowledge hiding in organizations. J. Organ. Behav. 2012, 33, 64–88.
  9. Rhee, Y.W.; Choi, J.N. Knowledge management behavior and individual creativity: Goal orientations as antecedents and in-group social status as moderating contingency. J. Organ. Behav. 2017, 38, 813–832.
  10. Pierce, J.L.; Kostova, T.; Dirks, K.T. Toward a theory of psychological ownership in organizations. Acad. Manag. Rev. 2001, 26, 298–310.
  11. Peng, H. Why and when do people hide knowledge? J. Knowl. Manag. 2013, 17, 398–415.
  12. Higgins, E.T. Beyond pleasure and pain. Am. Psychol. 1997, 52, 1280–1300.
  13. Avey, J.B.; Luthans, F.; Jensen, S.M. Psychological capital: A positive resource for combating employee stress and turnover. Hum. Resour. Manag. 2009, 48, 677–693.
  14. Brown, G.; Lawrence, T.B.; Robinson, S.L. Territoriality in organizations. Acad. Manag. Rev. 2005, 30, 577–594.
  15. Belk, R.W. Possessions and the extended self. J. Consum. Res. 1988, 15, 139–168.
  16. Pierce, J.L.; Kostova, T.; Dirks, K.T. The state of psychological ownership: Integrating and extending a century of research. Rev. Gen. Psychol. 2003, 7, 84–107.
  17. Wang, L.; Law, K.S.; Zhang, M.J.; Li, Y.N.; Liang, Y. It’s mine! Psychological ownership of one’s job explains positive and negative workplace outcomes of job engagement. J. Appl. Psychol. 2019, 104, 229–246.
  18. Hobfoll, S.E.; Halbesleben, J.; Neveu, J.P.; Westman, M. Conservation of resources in the organizational context: The reality of resources and their consequences. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. 2018, 5, 103–128.
  19. Cabrera, A.; Cabrera, E.F. Knowledge-sharing dilemmas. Organ. Stud. 2002, 23, 687–710.
  20. Brown, S.P.; Cron, W.L.; Slocum, J.W., Jr. Effects of trait competitiveness and perceived intraorganizational competition on salesperson goal setting and performance. J. Mark. 1998, 62, 88–98.
  21. Schrock, W.A.; Hughes, D.E.; Fu, F.Q.; Richards, K.A.; Jones, E. Better together: Trait competitiveness and competitive psycho-logical climate as antecedents of salesperson organizational commitment and sales performance. Mark. Lett. 2016, 27, 351–360.
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Zhen Li
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