Making sense of knowledge hiding: from disruption to learning

Purpose This study aims to explore knowledge seekers’ experiences of knowledge hiding and their reaction and learning from different types of knowledge hiding behavior: playing dumb, evasive hiding, and rationalized hiding. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative design, the authors conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 24 librarians at the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia. Using the Gioia approach, data were analyzed from an abductive perspective, and a clear data structure and grounded process model were developed. Findings Seekers engage in diagnostic sensemaking to interpret the knowledge holder’s motive. They infer the knowledge hiders’ motive or legitimacy through their interactional cues. Coping is type-contingent: playing dumb triggers bypassing and independent verifications; evasive hiding prompts persistence and cross-channel information reconstruction; rationalized hiding invokes formal escalation and authorization. Also, repeated exposure is perceived to enhance one’s professional autonomy (in particular, technical self-reliance, emotional resilience, and structural or political savvy). Research limitations/implications The study makes two contributions. First, it introduces sensemaking as the cognitive mechanism linking discrete hiding types to differentiated seeker responses, opening the interpretive black box left unexamined by prior input–output accounts. Second, it reconceptualizes knowledge hiding from a strictly depletion-focused event into a potential sensemaking-and-learning stimulus. Practical implications Although seekers can convert hiding into learning, the behavior still blocks knowledge exchange and impedes workflow, generating delay and the misattribution of organizational knowledge. Organizations should therefore reduce reliance on interpersonal gatekeepers through shared repositories, establish clear access guidelines, strengthen psychological safety, and preserve constructive escalation, while tailoring interventions to each hiding type rather than applying uniform policies. Originality/value By examining seekers rather than hiders and integrating sensemaking with learning, the study reframes knowledge hiding as a relational, adaptive process that carries both risk and constructive possibility.