Does Darker Hide More Knowledge? The Relationship between Machiavellianism and Knowledge Hiding

• Published in: International Journal of Security and Its Applications Vol. 10; no. 11; pp. 281 - 292
• Main Authors: Pan, Wei, Zhou, Yang, Zhang, Qingpu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 30.11.2016
• Subjects: dark personality; Machiavellianism; Knowledge hiding
• DOI: 10.14257/ijsia.2016.10.11.23
• ISSN: 1738-9976

Machiavellianism is deemed as one of the dark personalities. Knowledge hiding refers to employee’s intentional attempt to withhold or conceal knowledge that has been requested by another person, and it is comprised of three related sub-dimensions: playing dumb, evasive hiding, and rationalized hiding. The present research examines the relationship between Machiavellianism and knowledge hiding, as well as the moderating roles of demographic variables (gender, age, and educational level). 360 individual data were used to test our hypotheses. Results show that Machiavellianism is positively related to the overall knowledge hiding, playing dumb, and evasive hiding, but unrelated to rationalized hiding. In addition, employees’ knowledge hiding decreases with age. The moderating effects of demographic variables are not supported in this study. Contributions, limitations, and future directions are discussed at the end.