Supervisors' knowledge hiding and knowledge-based trust: from the lens of social impact theory

Purpose - Past studies have largely focused on leaders' influence on employees' attitudes and behaviors, largely ignoring the followership and its consequences. This study investigates the social impact that followers induce on leaders through their intentions and actions. Following social impact theory (SIT), this study contributes to the growing research on supervisory knowledge hiding (KH) and related positive consequences beyond the traditional leader-centered approach. This paper investigates the serial mediation link between supervisory KH and supervisory knowledge-based trust (KBT) via perceived prosocial impact and supervisor directed citizenship behavior. Design/methodology/approach - Time-lagged dyadic data of 348 employees working in a bank under 54 supervisors were collected from Saudi Arabia. Findings - The findings suggest that supervisory KH entails a potential prosocial impact on employees to engage in supervisor-directed citizenship behavior that builds the KBT in supervisors about subordinates. The empirical support provides an understanding of the social impact of subordinates' influence on supervisors above and beyond traditional leadership literature by depicting the active role of followers in influencing leaders' behavior in building trust in knowledge management. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are also discussed. Originality/value - By studying the followership effect on leadership, this study extends the social impact process beyond a social phenomenon to the workplace in a supervisor-subordinate relationship. Moreover, examining the positive framing of a leader's KH to transform such behaviors through active followership role provides a new insight into positive consequences of supervisory behavior through social impact.