Knowledge hiding as an obstacle of innovation in organizations a qualitative study of software industry
| Autor | Somayeh Labafi |
| Cargo | PhD in media management, she is a lecturer in University of Tehran |
| Páginas | 131-148 |
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ABSTRACT
Transmission and popularization of knowledge among personnel leads to a functional synergy in the
innovation processes of organizations. It has been found that most research on organizations are related
to knowledge sharing, while the knowledge hiding has seldom been investigated. Firms that operate
in a software industry are among the knowledge-based organizations in which employees are required
to possess specialized knowledge and skills to perform their tasks. The dissemination of knowledge
and information can help organizations to be innovative and to improve their competitive advantage.
Current study shows that information does not flow through the employees of sample organizations, and
employees prefer to hide their organizational knowledge from their colleagues in order to maintain their
own portfolios. Using thematic analysis, and interviews as data collection method, some thematic issues
were extracted. These themes include, behavioral characteristics, complexity of knowledge, Power
of requesting person, organizational incentives for knowledge sharing, Lack of clear responsibility for
knowledge sharing, Sense of internal competition, level of trust to colleagues, effect of ubiquitous media,
learning ability of the knowledge demandant, Level of personal contacts with colleagues, Deceiving
colleagues, Violence, Negative feedback from organizational environment.
KEYWORDS
Knowledge Hiding; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Management; Software industry.
RESUMEN
La transmisión y la popularización del conocimiento entre el personal lleva a una sinergia funcional en
el proceso de innovación de las organizaciones. Se ha encontrado que la mayoría de la investigación
sobre organizaciones está relacionada con el intercambio de conocimiento, mientras que el ocultamien-
to de conocimiento ha sido raramente investigado. Aquellas empresas que operan en la industria del
software están entre las organizaciones basadas en el conocimiento en que los empleados requieren
poseer conocimiento especializado y habilidades para desempeñar sus funciones. La diseminación del
conocimiento y de la información puede ayudar a las organizaciones a ser innovadoras y a mejorar su
ventaja competitiva. El presente estudio indica que la información no fluye a través de los empleados de
las organizaciones que sirvieron de muestra y que los empleados prefieren esconder su conocimiento
organizacional de sus colegas con el fin de mantener sus propios portafolios. Utilizando un sistema
temático y entrevistas como método de recolección de información, se extrajeron algunas cuestiones
temáticas. Estos temas incluyeron: características comportamentales, complejidad del conocimiento,
KNOWLEDGE HIDING AS AN OBSTACLE OF INNOVATION
IN ORGANIZATIONS A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF
SOFTWARE INDUSTRY
OCULTAMIENTO DEL CONOCIMIENTO COMO OBSTÁCULO PARA LA INNOVACIÓN EN LAS ORGANIZACIONES:
UN ESTUDIO CUALITATIVO DE LA INDUSTRIA DEL SOFTWARE
SOMAYEH LABAFI
JEL: D, O
Received: 23/06/2016
Modified: 21/11/2016
Accepted: 30/11/2016
DOI: 10.17230/ad-minister.30.7
www.eafit.edu.co/ad-minister
Creative Commons (CC BY-NC- SA)
1 PhD in media management, she is a lecturer in University of Tehran. Her research interests are media
management, social media, media strategy, knowledge management and qualitative methods. She has
written over 25 scientific articles in Iranian and international journals. Institutional Email address: s_la-
bafi@ut.ac.ir
AD-minister Nº. 30 january-june 2017 pp. 131 - 148 · ISSN 1692-0279 · eISSN 2256-4322
Somayeh Labafl
Knowledge hiding as an obstacle of innovation in organizations a qualitative study of software industry
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AD-MINISTER
el poder de la persona que hace la solicitud, los incentivos que brinda la organización para el intercambio de
conocimiento, el nivel de confianza entre los compañeros de trabajo, el efecto de la ubicuidad de los medios de
comunicación, la capacidad de aprendizaje del demandante de conocimiento, el nivel de contactos personales
con los compañeros de trabajo, los compañeros que resultan engañosos, la violencia y las reacciones negativas
por parte el ambiente organizacional.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Ocultamiento de conocimiento; Intercambio de conocimiento; Gestión del conocimiento; industria del software.
INTRODUCTION
Organizational knowledge is identified as a nontangible but very valuable resource
in gaining competitive advantage (Huang, 2008; Jarvenpaa and Majchrzak, 2008),
Although Khajeheian and Tadayoni (2016) implied on limit of organizational capacity
for innovation, organizational knowledge is still the main source of innovation
(Xie et al,2016, Cu and Wu,2016). Despite the many eorts to simplify the transfer
of knowledge in organizations, remarkable successes have not been achieved
(Kelloway, 2000; Huang et al., 2008). In many cases, the personnel are not keen to
share their knowledge - even when the organizational design has simplified the
knowledge transferring process. And this reluctancy is an obstacle for innovation.
This unwillingness occurs even when personnel are encouraged and rewarded to
transfer knowledge (Swap and Leonard, 2005; Bock et al., 2001).
Firms that operate in software industry are knowledge-based organizations that
are strongly innovation-intensive. The nature of their operations requires that their
employees are talented and possess high level knowledge. The sharing of knowledge
in such organizations are vital towards keeping the firm in competition in such a
highly competitive industry (Bari, et al. 2016; Chen et al., 2016).
With regards to the importance of this obstacle to innovation, this research
investigates how personnel in software firms understand, define, interpret and
represent their experience of knowledge hiding. What is the subjective meaning of
“knowledge hiding” in employees, and what are the main reasons for the current
situation. In this research, the author investigates a) whether knowledge hiding
happens in software developing companies? b) The knowledge hiding aspects and
thereby dierentiating this behavior with similar concepts and c) concentrating
on distrust as the key reason of knowledge hiding in organizations. Some factors
of knowledge transition may be universal, but the degree to which individuals
are aected by these barriers may vary across cultures. This study increases the
understanding of knowledge transmission in those knowledge based organizations
and it further presents a discovery on the barriers presented by knowledge hiding.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer are one of the most widely researched
topics by professionals and academics in dierent fields such as management,
information sciences, sociology and economics (Demirkasimoglu, 2015; Serenko
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