Study of Influential Mechanism of Workplace Loneliness and Knowledge Hiding

Abstract

In the digital era, enterprises need a series of innovative practices to stand out in the fierce market competition. The role of unique intellectual resources is particularly important in maintaining competitive advantages compared to other replicable production resources. Knowledge is an intangible asset that requires a people carrier in order to be used and circulated in organizations, innovation is often born in this process. Managers have invested a lot of resources to facilitate knowledge sharing, but to protect their personal interests, employees may implement knowledge hiding to maintain their own assets and unique status, so that making knowledge management practices have little effect in organizations. Knowledge hiding behavior has gradually become a topic of academic concern in the field of knowledge management. In this era, the epidemic has further driven changes in employees' work environment and methods, reducing human contact and giving rise to workplace loneliness. In recent years, domestic scholars have also begun to pay attention to this negative emotional experience in the workplace and have conducted studies on negative work behaviors triggered by workplace loneliness. In this study, we focus on the mechanism of workplace loneliness on knowledge hiding behavior and construct a research model based on the resource conservation theory and the job demands - resources model. Specifically, workplace loneliness is used as the independent variable to influence knowledge hiding through the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion, and high involvement work system is introduced as the boundary condition to verify its moderating effect on the first and second stages of the model.