What's mine is mine: A study of salesperson knowledge withholding & hoarding behavior

Many contend that withholding and hoarding makes very little sense in sales organizations that applaud knowledge sharing. Others call knowledge withholding and hoarding an obsolete concept in today's search engine age. Despite this, knowledge withholding remains a systematic and intrinsic sales issue in business-to-business (B2B) firms, for which an analysis exploring salesperson knowledge hoarding behavior does not yet exist. This research examines antecedents of knowledge withholding among B2B salespeople, and its consequential impact on knowledge hoarding behavior. A model is developed and tested using structural equation modeling, followed by a discussion of implications for firms, managers, and salespeople themselves. Findings show that factors related to lack of incentives, personality and the organizational environment, indirectly influence knowledge hoarding behavior through withholding efforts.