Status and knowledge hoarding in organizations: High perceived status boosts employee creativity but hinders in-role performance

To date, there has been no comprehensive exploration of the antecedents and consequences of knowledge withholding by individuals in an organization. We conducted a two-stage field survey with 885 employees across 250 teams in Chinese enterprises to examine the role of perceived status in shaping employees’ knowledge-hoarding behaviors and the corresponding effects on their in-role performance and creativity. The results showed that employees with high (vs. low) self-perceived status were less prone to knowledge hoarding. Knowledge hoarding positively predicted in-role performance but negatively predicted creativity. Additionally, employees’ need for high status intensified the indirect negative relationships between perceived status and in-role performance via knowledge hoarding, and between perceived status and creativity via knowledge hoarding. These findings have implications for addressing the contradiction that employees hoard knowledge to enhance their performance, but hoarding inhibits the dissemination of knowledge and thereby reduces organizational creativity.