Bystanders’ reactions to leader knowledge hiding: The roles of moral disengagement and moral identity

This study aims to explore the trickle-down effect of leader knowledge hiding from the perspective of bystanders. Based on social cognitive theory, this study developed and tested a moderated mediation model between bystander perception of leader knowledge hiding (i.e., evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding) and bystander knowledge hiding, especially the mediating role of bystander moral disengagement and the moderating role of bystander moral identity. Using a two-stage time-lagged design, we collected data from three high-tech enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region of China. The hypothetical model was estimated through Hayes PROCESS macro. The results showed that: (a) bystander perception of leader unethical knowledge hiding (i.e., evasive hiding and playing dumb) had a positive correlation with bystander knowledge hiding through bystander moral disengagement; (b) bystander moral identity significantly moderated the positive relationship between bystander perception of leader unethical knowledge hiding (i.e., evasive hiding and playing dumb) and bystander moral disengagement; and (c) bystander moral identity significantly moderated the indirect effect of bystander perception of leader unethical knowledge hiding (i.e., evasive hiding and playing dumb) on bystander knowledge hiding via bystander moral disengagement. We explored the impact of three types of knowledge hiding by leaders from a bystander perspective, breaking the previous limitations of only exploring knowledge hiding behaviors from the perspective of victims or perpetrators. Besides, this study further verified the different effects between different types of leader knowledge hiding, contributing to a deeper understanding of the dimensions of leader knowledge hiding. In addition, by providing a new perspective (i.e., social cognitive perspective of moral self-regulation), this study opens the internal “black box” mechanism of the influence of bystander perception of leader knowledge hiding and clarify the boundary conditions for the influence of bystander perception of leader knowledge hiding on bystander knowledge hiding.