Leader knowledge hiding and employee organizational identification in the Egyptian service industry

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between leader-signaled knowledge-hiding behavior (LSKH) and employee organizational identification (OI) with self-interest climate perceptions (SIC) as a mediator. This study also takes into consideration the impact of individual differences (i.e. employee trait of agreeableness) in shaping these relationships. Design/methodology/approach Two-wave data were collected from a sample of employees working in service industry companies in Egypt (N = 305). The mediation model (model 4) and the moderated mediation model (model 14) were tested using the statistical package for the social sciences PROCESS macro. The indirect effect of LSKH behavior on employee OI was examined using the bootstrapping approach (n = 5,000) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the indices. Findings Findings show that LSKH behavior has a negative impact on employee OI through SIC perceptions. Additionally, a moderation analysis indicates that the employee trait agreeableness strengthens the negative relationship between SIC and OI as well as the indirect relationship between LSKH behavior and employee OI. Originality/value While previous studies mainly focused on employee knowledge-hiding behavior, this study extends this nascent stream of literature by investigating the impact of this behavior at the leader’s level in the Egyptian cultural context. The results provide insights into the consequences of this type of behavior on important outcomes, namely, SIC and OI.