Generalized vs. Dyadic Reciprocity: How Will My Knowledge Hiding Affect My Creativity in a Work Team?

As knowledge is an essential resource for creativity, organizations are keen to reduce intentional knowledge hiding among team members. Much research has focused on defining the antecedents of knowledge hiding in order to reduce knowledge hiding. However, if a focal member’s knowledge hiding significantly impedes his/her creativity, then that member could proactively restrain him/herself from hiding knowledge. Thus, this study explores the effect of a focal member’s knowledge hiding on creativity via other team member knowledge hiding reciprocation and examines how task/relationship conflicts moderate this mediated relationship. While previous research examined reciprocity in dyadic relationships, this study examines reciprocity in work teams with one-to-many relationships, which we call generalized reciprocity. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 was an online experiment with 1,002 participants in the US and Study 2 was a field survey with 156 members from 47 teams in South Korea. The results showed that reciprocity in one-to-many relationships reveals much more complexity. In a controlled environment (Study 1), knowledge hiding had a less significant effect on generalized reciprocation than in dyadic reciprocation because the target of the knowledge hiding and the effect of the violation were less clear. However, in actual intact work teams (Study 2), reciprocity was significantly associated with knowledge hiding because of the influence of ongoing, previous interactions. Thus, this study examined how task and relationship conflicts, a common experience where team members are interconnected, moderate this mediated relationship. Theoretical contributions to knowledge hiding and creativity literature as well as practical implications for team leaders are discussed.