Knowledge seeking in virtual online communities as a consequence of organisational top-down knowledge hiding

Motivations to engage in online knowledge seeking (KS) has been extensively studied in the IS literature.However, extant research focuses on the personal triggers to engage in KS in online communities. We study organisational Supervisor knowledge hiding (SKH) as an antecedent to online KS. SKH is identified as a negative behaviour in organisations. Consequently, employees who are victims of SKH engage in counterproductive behaviours. We propose that SKH does not always lead to negative outcomes, but can trigger positive outcomes such as online KS. Supervisees who face SKH, tend to avoid further knowledge seeking from their supervisors, seeking other internal or external sources of knowledge. In an effort to conserve their resources, supervisees tend not to utilise internal sources (such as their colleagues) but rather prefer external source of knowledge such as online communities. The research involves a multi-study time-lagged design. We also test some boundary conditions of such knowldge seeking.