Although the positive effects of structural holes on creativity have been well explored, little research has explored why structural holes damage creativity. Based on social network theory and impression management theory, we propose that the influence of structural holes of knowledge hiders in trust networks vary by dimensions (i.e., evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding) of knowledge hiding, and structural holes have various indirect effects on creativity via knowledge hiding. Following a two-wave survey of 217 R&D employees, our results show that trust structural holes positively affect all the dimensions of knowledge hiding, and their effect on rationalized hiding is stronger than that on evasive hiding and playing dumb. Furthermore, we prove that evasive hiding has a positive mediating effect on the creativity of brokers, whereas playing dumb and rationalized hiding have adverse effects. Thus, trust structural holes have positive indirect effects on creativity via evasive hiding, while the indirect effects on creativity via playing dumb and rationalized hiding are negative. Moreover, we reveal that perspective taking mitigates the positive effect of structural holes on evasive hiding and playing dumb.

尽管结构孔洞对创造力的积极影响已得到很好的探索，但很少有研究探讨为什么结构孔洞会损害创造力。基于社会网络理论和印象管理理论，我们提出信任网络中知识隐藏者的结构洞的影响因知识隐藏的维度（即回避隐藏、装傻和合理化隐藏）而异，结构洞具有各种间接影响通过知识隐藏对创造力的影响。通过对 217 名研发人员的两波调查，我们的结果表明，信任结构漏洞对知识隐藏的所有维度都有积极影响，其对合理化隐藏的影响强于回避隐藏和装傻。此外，我们证明规避隐藏对经纪人的创造力有积极的中介作用，而装傻和合理隐藏会产生不利影响。因此，信任结构漏洞通过回避隐藏对创造力有积极的间接影响，而通过装傻和合理化隐藏对创造力的间接影响是消极的。此外，我们揭示了视角采择减轻了结构孔对规避隐藏和装傻的积极影响。