Are overqualified individuals hiding knowledge: the mediating role of negative emotion state

Despite manager’s investments in facilitating knowledge sharing, such as hiring employees with lots of knowledge, knowledge hiding remains prevalent in organizations. It may stem from that less attention has been paid to the relationship between perceived overqualification and knowledge hiding. Drawing on emotion theory, this study aims to build a mediation framework to examine effects of perceived overqualification on knowledge hiding via negative emotion state and moderating role of team positive affective tone.

The paper uses a two-wave survey study among 398 knowledge workers from 106 teams in knowledge-intensive industries and tests the hypotheses by performing a series of hierarchical linear modeling analyzes.

The results show that a negative emotion state mediates the U-shaped relationship between employees’ perceived overqualification and knowledge hiding behavior. Team positive affective tone moderates the U-shaped relationship between negative emotions and employees’ knowledge hiding behavior.

This study extends current knowledge management literature by introducing perceived overqualification as an individual predictor of employees’ knowledge hiding behavior and revealing the both light and dark sides of perceived overqualification on knowledge hiding, as well as its intervening mechanism. The research findings help practitioners to curb such counterproductive behaviors.