The Influence of Cultural Values on Knowledge Sharing across Organizational Boundaries

Abstract

In order to fully derive business value from the knowledge of employees, companies introduced various knowledge management initiatives to overcome boundaries. However, knowledge sharing is still a delicate process because the willingness to share knowledge might be hindered by the lack of favorable cultural antecedents or functional and geographic distances between the persons involved. Existing studies concerning knowledge cultures have discovered isolated cultural values favorable for individual knowledge sharing. However, studies taking cultural elements and boundary spanning knowledge sharing into consideration are still missing. To close this gap, a qualitative and inductive study has been conducted in an Austrian engineering company. We researched cultural antecedents for knowledge sharing between project teams. The results provided by the analysis technique of GABEK indicate that there are several cultural elements that foster knowledge sharing across boundaries as well as starting points for managers and employees to develop a knowledge culture.