Mediating Role of Knowledge Hiding Behaviors Between Cronyism and Job Performance: An Evidence from Public Sector Universities

Knowledge hiding is a negative workplace phenomenon that needs to be controlled for effective organizational functioning. Therefore, researchers are increasingly trying to identify its antecedents and outcomes in organizational settings. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of cronyism on job performance. Besides, evaluate the mediating role of different dimensions of knowledge hiding behaviors (evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding) between cronyism and job performance. These data were collected in three-time lags through a self-administered questionnaire from 299 research-oriented academic staff from public sector universities of Pakistan. A partial least squares-structural equation modeling approach was used for data analysis. The results confirm the significant negative association between cronyism and job performance. The evasive hiding and playing dumb partially mediate the negative impact of cronyism on job performance. However, rationalized hiding behavior controls the negative impact of cronyism and positively impacts job performance. The implications of the findings of this study are beneficial to the workplaces where knowledge creation and sharing activities are regularly performed, i.e., universities. The management of these institutions should control organizational workplace cronyism to discourage knowledge hiding behavior and improve the job performance of employees.