David Zweig

Personality as a moderator of monitoring acceptance

Organizational efforts at monitoring employee activity must be perceived as respecting privacy and fairness. However, even when monitoring systems are designed to do so, employees might not be willing to accept and use monitoring technologies. This study examined whether personality moderated the relationship between workplace monitoring system characteristics, fairness, privacy and acceptance. Six hundred and twenty-two participants were asked to provide their assessment of an awareness monitoring system (that determines employee availability to interact with geographically distributed colleagues) and to complete a five-factor measure of personality (i.e. extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability, openness to experience, and conscientiousness). Results indicated that emotional stability and extraversion altered the relationships between the paths in a model of monitoring acceptance. Specifically, people who scored lower in extraversion and emotional stability were less likely to endorse positive attitudes toward monitoring, even with privacy and fairness safeguards in place. Implications for the expansion of models of workplace monitoring and for the practice of monitoring in organizations are discussed.

Beyond knowledge sharing: Withholding knowledge at work

This chapter discusses why employees keep their knowledge to themselves. Despite managers’ best efforts, many employees tend to hoard knowledge or are reluctant to share their expertise with coworkers or managers. Although many firms have introduced specialized initiatives to encourage a broader dissemination of ideas and knowledge among organizational members, these initiatives often fail. This chapter provides reasons as to why this is so. Instead of focusing on why individuals might share their knowledge, however, we explain why individuals keep their knowledge to themselves. Multiple perspectives are offered, including social exchange, norms of secrecy, and territorial behaviors.

How perpetrators and targets construe knowledge hiding in organizations

Research has begun to document the negative organizational consequences of knowledge hiding, or the intentional attempt to conceal knowledge, among employees. However, different knowledge hiding behaviours exist, and we explore whether some types of knowledge hiding are more harmful than others. Although theory would suggest that knowledge hiders rationalize their behaviours and fail to anticipate the negative consequences of their behaviours, we found that they did anticipate harmed relationships and retaliation. In addition, targets of knowledge hiding did not always construe the behaviour as harmful or as necessitating retaliation. Overall, our research suggests that not all knowledge hiding is equally harmful. Some types of knowledge hiding may actually enhance the relationships between colleagues and might break the cycle of knowledge hiding in organizations.

‘I’m busy (and competitive)!’ Antecedents of knowledge sharing under pressure

This study considers the dilemma faced by employees every time a colleague requests knowledge: should they share their knowledge? We use adaptive cost theory and self-efficacy theory to examine how individual characteristics (i.e., self-efficacy and trait competitiveness) and situational perceptions (i.e., ‘busyness’ and perceived competition) affect knowledge sharing behaviours. A study was conducted with 403 students who completed a problem-solving exercise and who were permitted (but not required) to respond to requests for knowledge from people who were doing the same activity. Our results suggest that people who perceive significant time pressure are less likely to share knowledge. Trait competitiveness predicted perceived competition. This and low task self-efficacy created a sense of time pressure, which in turn led to people feeling ‘too busy’ to share their knowledge when it was requested. Perceived competition was not directly related to knowledge sharing. Implications for research and practitioners are discussed.

Understanding and mitigating cynicism in the workplace

Purpose – Organizational cynicism is on the increase. The purpose of this paper is to explore how dispositions promote cynical attitudes and how to mitigate the negative impact of organizational cynicism for employees. Design/methodology/approach – The data consisted of two samples (n=312 and n=529) of employed adults. All participants completed online surveys containing the variables of interest. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling. Findings – Low levels of core self-evaluation (CSE) predict organizational cynicism which, in turn, mediates the relations between CSE and job attitudes. Importantly, the authors find that supervisory support moderates both the relations between CSE and organizational cynicism and organizational cynicism and job satisfaction. Originality/value – Little research has directly assessed the role of dispositions in the development of organizational cynicism. The authors suggest that CSE contributes to the development of cynical attitudes. Further, the authors demonstrate that a supportive supervisor can serve as a buffer to mitigate the expression and effects of organizational cynicism on workplace outcomes.