Purpose
This paper aims to study the adverse effects of performance motivation and goal setting. The study investigates the unethical behavior of knowledge hiding that requires moral disengagement. The research further investigates the influence of performance motivation on knowledge hiding, along with investigating the mediating effect of moral disengagement.

Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling has been adopted to understand the relationships. Data was collected from 288 students from Indian higher education institutions to understand how social cognitive aspects of performance influenced knowledge hiding.

Findings
The findings revealed that students hide knowledge from peers and rationalize the hiding process through social cognition of moral disengagement to justify the hiding process. It was further observed that performance motivation has a stronger relationship with rationalized knowledge hiding as compared to evasive knowledge hiding or playing dumb.

Research limitations/implications
By exploring the potential unintended yet detrimental consequences of performance motivation, this study adds to the scant literature on the drawbacks of ambitious goal setting. It also advances the performance motivation and knowledge hiding literature by exploring these constructs through the behavioral ethics lens of moral disengagement.

Practical implications
Awareness about the ill-effects of performance motivation of students and understanding the role of moral disengagement in the same will help administrators and policymakers to cautiously promote performance-driven culture within academia as well as in designing effective interventions for curbing the same.

Originality/value
The current study advances the extant literature on the negative side of ambitious goal setting and provides new insights into how it can encourage moral disengagement and knowledge-hiding behavior. Further, academic research on moral disengagement among students has been scarce. This study thus investigates how moral disengagement among students can promote detrimental behavior(s) of knowledge hiding. The study is one of the early studies to uncover moral disengagement as an antecedent to knowledge hiding.