Capturing Value through Secrecy: A Process-Oriented Model of Secret Keeping in Organizations

This paper considers an under-researched phenomenon – secret keeping in organizations. To improve understanding of this complex phenomenon, we develop a process model that identifies how secret keeping in organizations occurs through six distinct stages: Origination, Elaboration, Maintenance, Review, Disruption, and Termination. When developing this model, we consider the forces that move knowledge through the secret keeping process, with an emphasis on identifying the drivers that determine the trajectory of a secret across each of its stages. The proposed model provides a generative framework that serves as a foundation for future empirical and theoretical research.