How Knowledge-Hiding Behavior Among Manufacturing Professionals Influences Functional Interdependence and Turnover Intention

Objectives: Knowledge hiding is inappropriate behavior of employees at the workplace that makes the entire organization suffer a subtle yet significant loss. Lack of sharing makes the journey of learning an arduous process. This, in turn, gives rise to a series of uncivil behaviors, hence resulting in a decrease of functional interdependence (FI). The cascading result toll is a turnover intention (TI), resting only after turnover—an actual separation from the employer. Statistical analysis of the empirical data collected depicts the intensity of influence of FI and TI as a result of the knowledge-hiding behavior.

Methods: Three hundred sixty-three executives employed in three public and two private manufacturing organizations in eastern India were the respondents in our study. To analyze the difference in variables of the study, a t-test was carried out. The statistical findings suggest no significant difference among study variables. This specifies that, despite a considerable difference in levels of management, there was no significant difference in perceiving workplace incivility, knowledge-hiding behavior, FI, and TI items of our instruments.

Results: Correlation findings show a negative association between workplace incivility and functional interdependence ( r = −0.37 when the value of p is <0.01) and a positive association among workplace incivility and turnover intention ( r = 0.32 when the value of p is <0.01). The condensed effect of workplace incivility (β = −0.59 when the value of p is <0.001) along with an important presence of knowledge-hiding behavior (β = −0.68 when the value of p is <0.01) when the dependent variable is FI indicates that knowledge-hiding behavior is mediating a partial association among workplace incivility and FI. Similarly, the effect of workplace incivility (β = 0.43 when the value of p is <0.01) is decreased when the impact of knowledge-hiding behavior (β = 0.66 when the value of p is <0.001) was sizeable with TI being the dependent variable.

Conclusion: The effect of knowledge hiding is inversely proportional to FI, whereas sharing has a direct relation with TI. An exhaustive data sample and a rigorous statistical analysis may give a clear picture of the amount of impact of TI and FI due to the lack of knowledge sharing and/or knowledge hiding.