To enlighten or to obscure: a meta-analytic inquiry into the effects of leadership behavior on employees’ knowledge hiding

In the evolving business paradigm, knowledge has become a crucial resource for organizations, drawing senior managers’ attention to employee knowledge hiding. While extensively discussed, particularly regarding leadership behavior, research conclusions on its antecedents vary. Existing studies haven’t comprehensively quantified the relationship between leadership behaviors and employee knowledge hiding. This study aims to systematically integrate the impact of different leadership behaviors on employee knowledge hiding under cross-situational and large-sample conditions. A meta-analysis of 41 empirical studies involving 14,776 samples explored how relational-oriented, change-oriented, and destructive-passive leadership behaviors influence employee knowledge hiding. The findings reveal that relational-oriented and change-oriented leadership behaviors negatively impact employee knowledge hiding, while destructive-passive leadership behavior positively influences it. The strength of these impacts, from strongest to weakest, is change-oriented, destructive-passive, and relational-oriented leadership behaviors. This research underscores the importance of implementing benign leadership within organizations to reduce knowledge hiding.

We acknowledge the financial support from the Humanities and Social Sciences Planning Fund Project of Ministry of Education of China (24XJA630011) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72271065).