The intent of this research is to understand and distinguish the affective motivators leading to organizational knowledge hoarding from those driven by motivational or cognitive reasons (Hinds and Pfeffer, 2003). A tentative definition at this time for knowledge hoarding is:

A conscious and deliberate act by an individual (or set of individuals) upon another actor (system or human) to keep relevant and desired data, messages, intelligence, or information hidden or private.

A human act to purposely not communicate what they may know and would be encouraged to communicate…the opposite of ‘knowledge sharing/dissemination’. (In general, there is a negative connotation associated with knowledge hoarding.)

The study will use an ethnographic approach (field observations and face-to-face interviews) to examine knowledge workers in a profit driven organizational setting.

Sequential Mixed Method
The purpose of this two-phase, sequential mixed methods study will be to explore motivators (motivational, cognitive, and affective) contributing to knowledge hoarding.

The study will examine knowledge workers in a profit driven organizational setting.

The first phase will be a qualitative exploration of motivators leading to knowledge hoarding using field observations and face-to-face interviews. Subjects will be asked to discuss and rate driving forces derived from a literary review. Then, based on these findings, the second phase will test training programs and methods to minimize the knowledge hoarding behavior. Social Network Theory and Organizational Network Analysis will be used as a method of tracking the size and frequency of byte information transferred.