The impact of perceived organisational support on knowledge hiding behaviour of call centre employees: a moderated mediation model

Knowledge hiding behaviour is detrimental to the individual, team and organisational performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of perceived organisational support (POS) and prosocial motivation (PM) of call centre employees as triggers to knowledge hiding (KH) behaviour. Based on the social exchange theory, the present study empirically investigated the relationship between perceived organisational support and knowledge hiding behaviour of call centre employees in Pakistan. The data were collected from 199 call centre employees through an online questionnaire and analysis was performed using the PLS-SEM technique. The moderated mediation was tested through Hayes process (SPSS). The results of the quantitative data analysis revealed a significant negative relationship between perceived organisational support and knowledge hiding behaviour implying that in the absence of POS, employees engage in knowledge hiding behaviour. The link between perceived organisational support and knowledge hiding was partially mediated by prosocial motivation. Moreover, co-worker support can act as a buffering variable between the direct link of perceived organisational support and prosocial motivation, as well as between the indirect link of perceived organisational support and knowledge hiding behaviour particularly in the environments marked by low perceived organisational support.