Don’t play the odds, play the man

Purpose The nature of knowledge and the way it is assimilated do play a vital role in influencing knowledge sharing tendencies. These specific factors coupled with the ineffectiveness of the intrinsic knowledge management system point towards an inherent knowledge hiding tendency that exists within every organization. Knowledge hiding is established as an intentional attempt to hide knowledge when it is requested. In the recent past, scholars have investigated the factors causing hiding of the task-related knowledge. However, there is still no clear understanding of the strategic factors that lead to knowledge hiding in organizations and which of these factors are the most critical ones. The purpose of this paper is to identify the most critical strategic factors that cause knowledge hiding in different contexts. Design/methodology/approach This research study tries to identify these factors from the literature, corroborate it with industry experts and model the same with the aid of total interpretive structural modelling. This is followed by Matrice d'Impacts Croises Multiplication Appliquée a un Classement and sensitivity analysis, which determines the unique driving factors and their powers, which vary based on industry sectors and years of work experience. Findings This study found out that knowledge hiding behaviour is more pronounced in the initial years of an individual within the organization and similarly in the final years of an individual within the organization. In a period in between both these, there are no critical driving factors that infuse knowledge hiding. Originality/value This is one of the first comprehensive research studies that unravel the dynamic nature of the strategic factors engendering knowledge hiding across two different dimensions, namely, industry sectors and work-experience of individuals. This study categorically aims to aid the management in bringing out necessary interventions to curb the menace of knowledge hiding.