The way knowledge hiding co-exists with knowledge sharing in organizations remains under-researched and under-theorized. We focus on family farms, a context where knowledge sharing has been previously heralded as a critical activity for business continuity. We frame our study within stewardship theory and adopt a multiple case study research design. We draw on 51 in-depth interviews from 12 rural family farms in Cyprus. Our findings illustrate that members of farming business families act as stewards and behave in ways that facilitate the sharing or hiding of business knowledge. Business families act in secrecy and exhibit behaviors that can hide business knowledge in the presence of actors who are distrusted, since they carry a risk of knowledge appropriation. Conversely, they share knowledge with individuals they trust to fill resource gaps through behaving in an open manner. Our study contributes theoretically and empirically to the fields of knowledge management and family business.

知识隐藏与组织中的知识共享共存的方式仍未得到充分研究和理论化。我们专注于家庭农场，在此背景下，知识共享以前曾被视为业务连续性的关键活动。我们在管理理论中构建我们的研究，并采用多案例研究设计。我们借鉴了来自塞浦路斯 12 个农村家庭农场的 51 次深度访谈。我们的研究结果表明，农业企业家族的成员充当管家，并以促进商业知识共享或隐藏的方式行事。商业家族采取秘密行动，并表现出在不信任的参与者面前隐藏商业知识的行为，因为他们存在知识盗用的风险。反过来，他们与他们信任的个人分享知识，通过以开放的方式行事来填补资源缺口。我们的研究在理论和实证上对知识管理和家族企业领域做出了贡献。