Knowledge Hiding in Academia: Is Personality a Key Factor?

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the knowledge hiding types of academicians and its relationship between personality traits. It was designed as a quantitative study. Data was gathered from 386 research assistants and assistant professors from Turkish universities. Knowledge hiding scale developed by Connelly, Zweig, Webster and Trougakos (2012) was adapted to Turkish by the author and personality traits were assessed by the Turkish version of Eysenck’s scale. Results suggested that knowledge hiding behavior is not a prevelant phenomenon in academia. Academicians relatively highest knowledge hiding behaviors were related to “rationalized hiding” followed by “evasive hiding” and” playing dumb”. They were more likely to “play dumb” to their superiors. Academicians “play dumb” to their superiors whereas they act “rationalized hiding” to co-workers. Extraversion was positively correlated with playing dumb while neuroticism had a negative correlation.