Knowledge hiding is an intentional attempt by an employee to conceal knowledge that has been requested by his or her coworkers. At present, the research review is mainly based on qualitative methods, using subjective ideas to establish the theoretical framework. However, the review neglects quantitative analysis. To fill this void, taking on knowledge hiding of core journals in Web of Science database as the target, through citespace4.0 visualization software in analyzing of annual distribution, journal distribution and co-occurrence analysis, we explore the basic status of study on knowledge hiding; through the clustering analysis of high frequency keywords, we extract five hot topics in the research of knowledge hiding, which are basic concepts, structural measurement, theoretical support, influencing factors and mechanism of action; and we identify the evolution of knowledge hiding. The conclusions are:（1）Before 2007, 35 articles were published in foreign journals. Knowledge hiding is in the description stage and has not been an independent research subject;（2）From 2008 to 2013, 47 foreign journals focused on the concept, structure and influencing factor of knowledge hiding, and knowledge hiding became an independent research focus; （3）From 2014 to 2019, 131 foreign studies were published, and various emerging outcome variables and influencing mechanisms proved to be the foci. Knowledge hiding developed rapidly. Although the research in this field has made some achievements, there are still many deficiencies, such as lack of cross-cultural research, narrow theoretical perspectives, lack of result robustness and so on. Therefore, this paper puts forward some suggestions, such as integrating cultural factors, expanding theoretical perspectives, and enhancing the robustness of results.