Making sure that employees are properly credited for their ideas can go a long way towards improving workplace culture, a University of Toronto Scarborough study has found.
The study, published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology , finds that employees who have their ideas stolen experience a sense of lost ownership, recognition and opportunity, eliciting a feeling of anger.
But such reactions can be eased when organizations take simple steps to restore credit to the idea's original owner.
"We know knowledge theft happens a lot," says study lead David Zweig, a professor in U of T Scarborough's department of management and the Rotman School of Management.
"Victims of knowledge theft feel the loss of ownership of their ideas and the loss of recognition and reward that comes with it. This creates a lot of anger."
The research builds on earlier work by Zweig that identified knowledge theft as a distinct and harmful workplace behaviour. That earlier study found employees who feel their ideas have been taken are more likely to disengage, withhold knowledge and contribute less. This ends up undermining collaboration and team performance.
In the new study, Zweig and his colleagues focus on why those reactions occur and how to address them. Across two experimental studies involving more than 1,600 participants, researchers placed individuals in simulated workplace scenarios where their ideas were taken by others. They then tested interventions aimed at amplifying their contributions and restoring a sense of ownership.
One intervention involved creating a "knowledge repository" where employees could formally document their ideas and attach their names to them. Participants whose ideas were appropriated by colleagues reported significantly lessened feelings of loss and anger when credit was restored by leaders or colleagues through reference to the repository.
A second intervention focused on how others respond in real time. When leaders or colleagues publicly stepped in to acknowledge the original creator, participants again reported significantly less loss and anger.
"Restoring ownership by a leader or a colleague had a similar effect in terms of reducing perceptions of loss and anger and contributes to a more positive work climate," says Zweig.
The findings demonstrate that relatively simple actions that recognize contributions or correct a misattribution can make a meaningful difference. Zweig says that matters because the effects of knowledge theft can ripple across organizations. When employees feel their ideas may be taken, they are less likely to share them in the future.
"When people worry that if they speak up it's going to be taken by the boss or a colleague, obviously they're not going to share their ideas in the future," he says.
The study, which received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, suggests that the anger and resentment generated from knowledge theft can be addressed by restoring ownership. This can either be done through systems that track contributions or by celebrating individual contributions.
"Nothing demotivates people faster than when someone steals your recognition for the work you've done," says Zweig, who is an expert on workplace dynamics and behaviour.
While acknowledging others' contributions may seem straightforward, Zweig says it's often an overlooked element by leaders.
"Not a lot of us are great at leadership," he says. "But giving credit where credit is due is a really good habit to establish."
