The mediating role of perceived team member exchange in the relationship between work engagement and knowledge manipulation and knowledge hiding

Knowledge provides employees with a strategic advantage. Thus, while organisations may encourage employees to share their knowledge, individuals may choose to manipulate or hide knowledge to maintain this advantage. By drawing from the broaden-and-build theory, this study examines the indirect effect of work engagement on knowledge manipulation and knowledge hiding via individual perceived team member exchange. In a time-separated field study (n = 128), results show that individual perceived team member exchange fully mediates the relationship between work engagement and knowledge manipulation and knowledge hiding, and that job tenure moderates the relationship between individual perceived team member exchange and knowledge manipulation, but not between individual perceived team member exchange and knowledge hiding. This paper contributes to the existing body of research on knowledge hiding and the growing literature on knowledge manipulation by uncovering affective and relational mechanisms as well as boundary conditions that impact these behaviours.