How the coordination affects the knowledge sharing within project teams

Abstract

The ongoing discussion about the knowledge based enterprise (Grant, 1996) and the learning organization (e.g. Senge, 1993; Garvin, 1993) has explored knowledge as an important driver of corporate success (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, Teece, 2003). This line of reasoning is manifested in concepts such as core competences (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990) and dynamic capabilities (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Teece et al., 1997; Stalk et al., 1992) as the idiosyncratic building blocks (Argote and Ingram, 2000) of organizations and major sources of rent creation (Galunic and Rodan, 1998). Grounded in the discussion about the impact of knowledge, research has also shifted focus to group and team oriented organizational forms (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Rattay, 2003) as an appropriate way of handling complex and non-routine tasks. But for knowledge to bear significantly on firm performance, the transfer processes of individual expertise from one unit to another need to function smoothly and without hindering frictions (Argote et al., 1990). So far, the impact of culture on knowledge sharing has only been investigated by a few researchers. Ford and Chan (2003) focus on cultural influences on knowledge sharing in organizations using the culture dimensions of Hofstede (1980). Ipe (2003) considers organizational culture as one of several influencing factors on knowledge sharing in addition to the nature of knowledge, motivation and the opportunity to share. McDermott and O'Dell (2001) explore the idea of a knowledge sharing culture in order to enhance the flow of knowledge among members of an organization.

Although various antecedents of knowledge sharing have been addressed in recent research such as care (von Krogh, 1998), trust (Scott et al., 2005; Renzl et al., 2005) and aspects of the role of culture in knowledge sharing, the existing literature does not explicitly address the question of knowledge sharing in project teams with a focus on the cultural dynamics involved. This is acknowledged by Henrie and Sousa-Poza (2005) who revealed that although culture has been identified as a cause of project failure (Dinsmore, 1984; Jaeger and Kanungo, 1990; Verma, 1995; Muriithi and Crawford, 2003), the project management literature still shows a low level of culture research. We want to contribute to this stream of research with an exploration of cultural impacts on knowledge sharing in culturally diverse project groups. By drawing on the concept of cultural complexity we argue that the cultural diverse structure of temporary teams has a major impact on knowledge sharing behavior. A simulation setting with both executives and master students is applied in order to assess the impacts of culture on knowledge sharing. The findings are explored and discussed in terms of seven propositions, which are compared to findings in recent research both on small groups in general, and knowledge sharing in particular. Based on their findings the authors develop recommendations both for project management on how to enhance knowledge sharing behavior in culturally diverse temporary project teams and for future research.

Table of Contents

Abstract2

Chapter 1: Introduction5

Chapter 2: Literature Review8

Chapter 3: Methodology20

Knowledge Sharing in Project ...