ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1659249
Trusted to Share or Tempted to Hoard? Unpacking Employee Knowledge Hiding through the Interplay of Leader Trust and Knowledge Psychological Ownership
Provisionally accepted
- Yunnan Minzu University, Kunming, China
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Anchored in Social Exchange Theory, Conservation of Resources Theory, Affective Events Theory, and Psychological Ownership Theory, this study develops an integrated model linking leader trust, job satisfaction, and knowledge hiding, while positioning knowledge psychological ownership (KPO) as a contextual boundary condition. Survey data were collected from 518 matched leader–employee dyads across 17 Chinese knowledge-intensive firms in IT services, pharmaceutical R&D, high-end equipment manufacturing, and financial consulting. Structural equation modelling combined with PROCESS bootstrap analysis was employed to test the hypothesised relationships. Confirmatory-factor-analysis results indicate satisfactory discriminant validity for all four focal constructs. Empirical evidence shows that: (1) leader trust significantly curbs employee knowledge hiding (β = −0.31, p < 0.001); (2) job satisfaction partially mediates this relationship, with the indirect path accounting for 34 per cent of the total effect (β = 0.46, p < 0.001); and (3) KPO exerts a significant negative moderating influence on both the "leader trust →job satisfaction" path and the overall indirect effect, reducing the mediation coefficient from −0.17 to −0.06 under high-KPO conditions (β = −0.23, p < 0.001). These findings remain robust after controlling for organisational support, team competition, and industry heterogeneity. The study enriches the antecedent framework of knowledge hiding by foregrounding vertical trust, illuminating the dynamic tension between reciprocity motivation and resource-defence motivation, and clarifying the double-edged boundary role of psychological ownership. Practically, Organizations should enhance perceived trust through empowerment and feedback while implementing monitoring systems to cultivate knowledge-sharing climates.
Keywords: Leader trust, Job Satisfaction, Knowledge hiding, Knowledge psychological ownership, Conservation of resources theory, social exchange theory
Received: 03 Jul 2025; Accepted: 22 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Leng and Ran. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hao Ran, 22216038110026@ymu.edu.cn
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