AUTHOR=Zhang Zhengang , Ye Baosheng , Qiu Zhijun , Zhang Huilin , Yu Chuanpeng 

TITLE=Does Technostress Increase R&D Employees' Knowledge Hiding in the Digital Era?

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.873846

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.873846

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=The perspective of digital technology stress for the antecedent factor exploration of knowledge hiding continues to be seldom discussed in the digital era. Based on job demand-resource theory, this article introduces work exhaustion as a mediator variable and constructs a model that the five sub-dimensions of technostress (i.e., overload, invasion, complexity, insecurity, and uncertainty) affect knowledge hiding for R&D employees. Similarly, this study analyzes the moderation of workplace friendship as the resource buffering effect. Based on the 254 questionnaire data of the two-stage survey, it empirically tests the research model. The results show that: (1) Techno-invasion, techno-insecurity, and techno-complexity have significant positive effects on work exhaustion, and techno-invasion has the greatest effect. However, techno-overload and techno-uncertainty have no significant relationship with work exhaustion. (2) Work exhaustion plays a mediating role in the relationship among techno-invasion, techno-insecurity, techno-complexity, and knowledge hiding; however, its mediating effects among techno-overload, techno-uncertainty, and knowledge hiding are insignificant. (3) Workplace friendship negatively moderates the relationship among techno-invasion, techno-insecurity, and work exhaustion, and the mediating effects of work exhaustion in techno-invasion, techno-insecurity, and knowledge hiding. Nonetheless, its negative moderation for the relationships among techno-overload, techno-uncertainty, and work exhaustion are insignificant. Empirical results further show that workplace friendship positively moderates the relationship between techno-complexity and work exhaustion.