The Cross-Level Effect of CEO Differential Leadership on TMT Knowledge Hiding

As a special leadership style of the enterprises under the background of Chinese culture, CEO differential leadership (CEO DL) contains the unique cultural value and often has a far-reaching impact on TMT (top management team) knowledge management and organizational performance. In such a scenario, this study conducts a cross-level model by using the vertical pairing data of CEO and TMT from the various enterprises and aims at exploring the influence mechanisms and the boundary conditions of CEO DL on TMT knowledge hiding (TMT KH) based on the leader-member exchange theory and the social learning theory. Both the correlation analysis and the multilevel structural equation model (MSEM) are used to test the hypotheses of the model, and the empirical data are obtained from 513 executives in 62 TMTs by the anonymous questionnaires which are designed according to the existing mature scales. The paper discovers that CEO DL can weaken TMT KH, this negative impact is produced by promoting team learning (TL), and team competitive climate (TCC) can negatively regulate the above relationships, namely, for the TMT with the weak TCC, TL can effectively reduce the knowledge hiding behavior of TMT, and the indirect impact of CEO DL on TMT KH through TL is more significant. This study reveals the relationships among CEO DL, TMT KH, TL, and TCC, explains how CEO DL reduces the phenomenon of TMT KH through the leadership effectiveness, and provides the new insights and ways for the enterprises to change the leadership style and reduce or eliminate the knowledge hiding behaviors of TMT.