Performative Compliance and Rationalized Hoarding

<p>Organizations invest heavily in formal Knowledge Management (KM) systems to capture organizational wisdom, yet knowledge hoarding and inefficiency persist. While existing quantitative literature has mapped the antecedents of sharing, it often fails to explain the micro-foundational resilience of hoarding under operational pressure. This exploratory, interpretivist multiple-cases study investigates knowledge behaviors within<span style="color: rgb(1, 0, 0);"> two </span>high-technology organizations in the medical device sector. Data were collected through thirty-six in-depth semi-structured interviews, nonparticipant observation, and document analysis. This data set establishes a foundational baseline for “performative compliance” that persists in modern digital environments. Analysis reveals a profound institutional decoupling between formal KM policy and actual practice. Employees engaged in performative compliance, gaming formal training systems to satisfy audit trails without genuine learning. Knowledge hoarding was identified not as malicious behavior, but as a rational coping mechanism—a calculation of adaptive cost in response to time famine. Consequently, employees relied on exclusionary informal networks, increasing strategic fragility. The study concludes that the “click–click” culture of modern compliance is a structural inevitability when governance systems ignore the temporal cost of sharing. To transition to genuine sharing, organizations must treat time as a critical knowledge resource.</p>