Amoral management as underlying cause to knowledge hiding where moral disengagement acts as a mediator and instrumental thinking acts a moderator in the context of real estate industry of Pakistan

Abstract

Amoral management practices have been a topic of concern for long in the business world. It is because of the negative outcomes that emerge with amoral practices, one of the negative outcomes is knowledge hiding behavior. This study aims to examine the relationship between amoral management and knowledge hiding in the context of the real estate industry in Pakistan, as well as the mediating role of moral disengagement and moderating effects of instrumental thinking. This research followed quantitative method using survey questionnaire to collect data from the real estate workers based in Pakistan. The usable sample size for this study is 407. Results are analysed using SPSS and Smart PLS. The results indicated a positive relationship between amoral management and knowledge hiding, which is found to be mediated by moral disengagement. However, no moderation effect of instrumental thinking is found. These findings have important implications for organizations in the real estate industry, as well as for practitioners seeking to promote ethical behavior and prevent knowledge hiding. A future recommendation of studying the relationship with ethical leadership, servant leadership, and authentic leadership is put forward to get further insights on knowledge hiding behavior and the hypothesized framework.