Is hiding something you know as important as knowing it? Understanding knowledge hiding in IT-enabled services of Iran

The purpose of this research study is to understand the strategic factors triggering knowledge hiding in IT enabled services of Iran and model them according to their driving potencies. This study attempts to obtain the factors through an interview of experts and corroborate the same with the extant literature. The authors undertook a qualitative interview of the experts who gave the factors which was later streamlined with the aid of literature. A Total Interpretive Structural Modelling of these factors was conducted using R programming, and the most influential and driving factors were identified. Further MICMAC analysis was undertaken to classify these factors into; autonomous, depending, linkage, and driving based on their driving and dependency potency. The analysis establishes eleven strategic factors that trigger knowledge hiding. Out of these, the power of requesting person and the learning ability of the knowledge seeker are the most influential factors. Further, analysis established that the learning ability of the knowledge seeker is the key factor with the maximum driving potency. The results suggests that organisations have to channelise and maintain the learning ability and cater to the needs of the knowledge seekers through proper training mechanisms and establish systemic knowledge sharing avenues within the organisation to mitigate knowledge hiding within the context. This is probably the first-ever attempt to apply comprehensive TISM and MICMAC on knowledge hiding in an Iranian context, which characterises the antecedents of knowledge hiding in a relatively nascent industrial sector and a conservative cultural paradigm.