Problem: While the multinational teams consisting of members from different nationalities,backgrounds and cultures have advantages of diversity in the workplace, the differencesbetween team members can also pose the challenges. Our study focuses on InformationTechnology (IT) project teams in organizations located in Sweden. The rapid growth oftechnology and IT sector, increasing demand in IT professionals, and the knowledge ofwriting universal code allow people to work internationally regardless of citizenship.Therefore, the workforce in the IT sector is rapidly growing and diversifying — it ischaracterized by teams consisting of different nationalities. However, these differences incultures, languages and nationalities can complicate the communication processes betweenthe team members. Therefore, efficient cross-cultural communication within a team isessential for team collaboration and performance. Purpose: The study aims to find the significant issues in the process of adaptation to the newculturally diverse environment faced by immigrant professionals in IT project teams. Thestudy mainly focuses on an individual level, consequently expanding it to a collective level,as the related challenges refer to collaboration among the team members. Method: The study was conducted by interviewing immigrant professionals who have beenworking in IT project teams in the companies, located in Sweden. The participants belong tosix different nationalities and have worked in Sweden for approximately 2-8 years. They areall male aged between 30-33 years old. After the interviews, we can present findings, whichdemonstrate the points of similarity and difference. Conclusion: Technology, which is a significant factor in IT projects, constantly changes, andtherefore, IT project teams that work with innovation require high adaptability to explore newopportunities. That makes effective coordination and communication essential. In theculturally diverse team, managers should manage global mindset and cultural intelligence forindividuals to help team members in adaptation process. Cross-cultural training should beprovided to the migrant professionals in the team to avoid miscommunication based oncultural differences, hence overcoming challenges.

The potential importance of managing knowledge for competitive advantage has been widely discussed according to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), with the sharing and application of knowledge being widely identified in recent years as key sources of sustained competitive advantage (Hall & Sapsed 2005, p57). While Alavi and Leidner (2001, p216) agree that much theory already exists on knowledge management, they argue that little empirical work has been undertaken and hence there are large gaps in the body of knowledge in this area. Bresnen, Edelman, Newell, Scarbrough, and Swan (2003) further suggest that only recently has attention been specifically directed towards managing knowledge in project environments. Evidence of poor IT project success continues to be provided by many researchers even though today's corporations recognize that to be successful, they need to understand modern project management techniques (Schwalbe 2002, p2). With Kotnour (2000) finding that project performance is positively associated with project knowledge, a better understanding of how to effectively manage knowledge in IT projects should have considerable practical significance for increasing the chances of project success. The focus of this research centres on the question of why individuals working within IT project teams might be motivated towards, or inhibited from, sharing their knowledge and experience in their activities, procedures, and processes. Using a combined qualitative/quantitative method of data collection in multiple case studies spanning four continents, and comprising a variety of organisational types, the research concludes with the development of a new theoretical model of knowledge sharing behaviour, &quotThe Alignment Model of Motivational Focus". This model suggests that an individual's propensity to share knowledge and experience is a function of perceived personal benefits and costs associated with the activity, balanced against the individual's alignment to a group of 'institutional' factors. These factors are identified as alignments to the project team, to the organisation, and dependent on the circumstances, to either the professional discipline or community of practice, to which the individual belongs. The model might be used within knowledge intensive projects, to help identify an individual's latent propensity to share knowledge, and to identify actions that may need to be taken in order to modify knowledge sharing behaviour.