Abstract

This conceptual paper aims to identify and present the potential negative impact of
employee withdrawal on knowledge sharing in organisations, in the post-pandemic work
landscape. Employee withdrawal can be broadly defined as “a set of actions that
employees perform to avoid the work situation - behaviours that may eventually
culminate in quitting the organisation” (Hanisch and Hulin, 1990). According to Colquitt
and Lepine (2013), withdrawal behaviours come in two forms, namely psychological and
physical withdrawal. Psychological withdrawal includes behaviours named:
daydreaming, socializing, looking busy, cyberloafing, and moonlighting. The second
form, namely physical withdrawal, includes tardiness, long breaks, missing meetings,
quitting, and absenteeism. Since an enormous amount of knowledge in an organisation is
personalised, researching employee withdrawal behaviours is particularly critical in the
context of knowledge management (Durst and Wilhelm, 2011; Zieba, Bolisani and
Scarso, 2016) . It is especially important to explore the impact of employee withdrawal on
knowledge management processes, in the context of the changing character of
employment, the evolving nature of work (hybrid, fully remote), and the rise in
withdrawal behaviours brought on by post-pandemic times (International Labour
Organization, 2022).

Authors (2)