Abstract—Knowledge withholding intention refers to one’s propensity to choose to conceal knowledge that is important or valuable to others. Students’ knowledge withholding behavior is an obstacle to social knowledge construction in the context of university commerce and management education. While several previous studies have explored the factors affecting knowledge sharing intention, little research has investigated the factors influencing knowledge withholding intention. Prior studies suggest that personality traits affect knowledge contribution behaviors. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to explore the effect of university students’ personality traits on knowledge withholding intention in commerce and management education from a multi-theory perspective. Based on the concepts of Big Five personality traits, locus of control personality, social identity theory, and social exchange theory, this study proposes a multi-theory model to investigate how personality traits influence knowledge withholding intention through the mediation of perceived social identity. Additionally, expected rewards and expected associations are also hypothesized to moderate the effect of perceived social identity on knowledge withholding intention. Index Terms—Knowledge withholding, locus of control, big five personality traits, social identity theory, social exchange theory. I. INTRODUCTION Previous studies have suggested that individuals are prone to withhold knowledge when they participate in knowledge contribution activities (e.g., Lin & Huang, 2010). While the extant knowledge management literature have investigated the factors affecting knowledge sharing intention (e.g., Bock et al., 2005; Chiu et al., 2006; Su et al., 2010; Hsu, et al., 2007; Chen et al. 2010; Zhang et al., 2010; Wang & Noe, 2010), few studies have explored knowledge contributions from a negative perspective, such as knowledge withholding. Knowledge withholding is an obstacle to social knowledge construction in the context of university commerce and management education. Knowledge withholding intention refers to one’s propensity to choose to conceal knowledge that is important or valuable to others. Lin & Huang (2010) also define knowledge withholding as the likelihood that an individual will give less than full effort to contributing knowledge, and suggest that factors affecting positive behavior variables (e.g., knowledge sharing) are not the same as those affecting negative behavior variables (e.g., knowledge withholding). Furthermore, students who have high knowledge sharing Manuscript received May 2, 2012; revised June 9, 2012. H. H. Lin is with National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan (e-mail: brenda@ntit.edu.tw). Y. S. Wang is with National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan. intentions may tend to share much unimportant or common knowledge, but withhold critical knowledge in their knowledge contribution activities. In the context of commerce and management education, students also tend to withhold their efforts in group work, especially when asked to share knowledge. They believe that their knowledge becomes less valuable if it is shared with others in the group. Thus, there is a need for research to better understand the determinants of students’ knowledge withholding intention. While several previous studies have explored the factors affecting knowledge sharing intention, few studies have investigated the factors influencing knowledge withholding intention (Lin & Huang, 2010). Nov & Kuk (2008) suggest that personality traits affect effort withdrawal intentions. Matzler et al. (2008) also found that personality traits have a significant influence on knowledge sharing. Furthermore, prior studies usually explain knowledge contribution behaviors from various theoretical perspectives (c.f., Lin & Huang, 2010; Bock et al., 2005; Chiu et al., 2006; Su et al., 2010; Hsu, et al., 2007; Chen et al. 2010; Zhang et al., 2010; Wang & Noe, 2010). Thus, the main purpose of this study is to investigate how university students’ personality traits affect knowledge withholding intention in commerce and management education from a multi-theory perspective. Specifically, based on the concepts of Big Five personality traits, locus of control personality, social identity theory, and social exchange theory, this study proposes a multi-theory model to investigate how personality traits influence knowledge withholding intention through the mediation of perceived social identity. Additionally, this study also attempts to explore the moderating effect of expected rewards and expected associations on the relationship between perceived social identity and knowledge withholding intention. II. RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESIS The theoretical model underpinning this study is shown in Fig. 1. The model suggests that the Big Five personality traits (i.e., extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience), as well as locus of control serve as antecedents of perceived social identity, which in turn is a determinant of knowledge withholding intention. In addition, expected rewards and expected association are hypothesized to have moderating effects on the relationship between perceived social identity and knowledge withholding intention. The following sections elaborate on the constructs that make up the model and the proposed relationships among them. Investigating the Effect of University Students’ Personality Traits on Knowledge Withholding Intention: A Multi-theory Perspective Hsin-Hui Lin and Yi-Shun Wang International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 2, No. 4, August 2012 354