Ability to manage resources and knowledge hiding: a moderated mediation model of psychological stress and team conflict

The existing research on knowledge hiding highlights that workplace stressors are significant predictors. Yet, there remains a limited understanding of why employees exhibit lower knowledge hiding when under stress. The ability to manage resources refers to an individual's capacity to control and mobilize their resources when faced with stress at work. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, this study examined the effects of ability to manage resources on knowledge hiding behaviors (i.e., evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding) through psychological stress. Additionally, it proposed the moderating role of team conflict (i.e., task conflict and relationship conflict). A three-wave online survey conducted with 226 Chinese employees provided support for our hypotheses. The results showed that psychological stress mediated the indirect effects of ability to manage resources on evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding. Moreover, task conflict only moderated the positive direct effect of psychological distress and the negative indirect effect of ability to manage resources on evasive hiding. Relationship conflict only moderated the positive direct effect of psychological distress and the negative indirect effect of ability to manage resources on rationalized hiding. Despite the inevitability of work stress, employees with stronger ability to manage resources can maintain lower psychological distress and exhibit less knowledge hiding even under work pressure.