Offense is the best defense: the impact of workplace bullying on knowledge hiding

Purpose Workplace bullying is a common negative event suffered by employees in the workplace. The harm it brings to the organization has become the focus of the field of organizational behavior. The purpose of this study was to explore whether workplace bullying has an impact on employee knowledge hiding and to discover the underlying mechanism between the two. Design/methodology/approach Based on the conservation of resource theory and the cognitive-affective personality system theory, this paper surveys 327R&D employees of Chinese technological corporations at two time points and explores the relationship between workplace bullying and knowledge hiding as well as the underlying mechanism. This study used confirmatory factor analysis, bootstrapping method and structural equation model to validate the research hypothesis. Findings The results show that workplace bullying positively correlates with knowledge hiding; emotional exhaustion and organizational identification play a mediation role between workplace bullying and knowledge hiding, and both variables play a chain mediation role in that relationship; and forgiveness climate moderates the positive impact of workplace bullying on emotional exhaustion, further moderating the chain mediation role of emotional exhaustion and organizational identification. Originality/value The findings of this study can not only complement the existing researches on the influence of negative workplace events on employees’ knowledge hiding behaviors but also strengthen scholars’ attention and understanding of the internal mechanism between workplace bullying and knowledge hiding.