Strategic management of knowledge is considered one of the key factors for a sustainable competitive advantage. Knowledge sharing in particular is the most essential part of the knowledge management process. Its relation with the organisational culture has been the focus of attention of several studies especially in American, Asian and European companies. Firms are organising their work around project and project teams. Moreover, multinational project teams are seen as a source for knowledge generation. They can provide information about the needs of customers geographically dispersed, from different cultural backgrounds, who speak different languages and with different set of preferences. Nevertheless, the temporary nature, uniqueness, and complexity of international projects present their own set of challenges and companies need to work different in order to achieve project success. This study aims to analyse the organisational culture features that enhances or hinder the knowledge sharing process in multinational project teams working in Latin America. Although studies regarding the topic have been made before, they not provide empirical evidence or do not consider project teams working in a multinational environment. Furthermore, previous studies do not consider Latin American & Caribbean organisations, a region where foreign investment has continuously increased in the last decades and as a whole, is considered the third-fastest growing economy in the globe. A mixed approach is used to answer the research question, a deductive rationale to create a theoretical framework and an inductive approach to provide some theoretical propositions based on the findings. Seven semi-structured interviews were done to analyse two cross-sectional case studies. Our study identified several characteristics of organisational culture that influence knowledge sharing, some of them have a direct influence whereas others have an indirect influence. Speaking a different language and cultural differences are the main challenges faced by multinational project teams in order to enable knowledge sharing. Fear was also found to act as a barrier regarding the knowledge sharing process but is not specific only for this type of organisation. In contrast, trust in colleagues, positive relationships among employees and a culture of collaboration were found to enhance the knowledge sharing process but are not specific to multinational project teams.Finally, some managerial and theoretical implications are provided as well as suggestions for future research.

I en tid när globaliseringen ökar och det blir allt vanligare att organisationer använder multinationella projektteam, så det finns goda skäl att fördjupa sig i hur dessa team kan ledas på bästa sätt. Syftet med den här studien är att utforska hur projektledare tillämpar ledarskapsstrategier för att hantera och dra nytta av pluralismen i projekt med multinationella projektgrupper. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien är de tre strategier för att leda multinationella team som identifierats av Chevrier (2003): låt-gå-ledarskap, relationsorientering och gemensam yrkes- eller organisationskultur. Grunddragen i de respektive strategierna är att lämna det upp till projektmedlemmarna att på egen hand att överbrygga barriärerna; att främja utveckling av relationer och ömsesidigt acceptabla rutiner; att förlita sig på redan etablerade yrkes- eller organisationskulturer. Resultatet har även relaterats till bilden av norsk ledarstil i befintlig teori; en ledarstil som präglas av jämlikhet, kollektivism och konsensus. Det empiriska underlaget för studien har samlats in med hjälp av semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer. Intervjupersonerna var projektledare verksamma inom ett norskt företag med verksamhet i stora delar av världen. Resultaten visar att det främst är den relationsorienterade strategin (Chevrier 2003) som används i den undersökta kontexten. Användningen av den relationsorienterade strategin är starkt kongruent med beskrivningarna av den norska ledarstilen i den studerade litteraturen. De strategitillämpningar som observerades i studien var huvudsakligen framväxande strategier, det vill säga strategin uppstår över tid genom konsekvens i handlingar trots avsaknad av en medveten plan eller en uppsättning riktlinjer som utformas i förväg för att hantera pluralismen (Mintzberg 1987). / In times with increasing globalization and when multinational project teams are frequently used in organizations, there are good reasons to study how these teams can be managed in the best way. The purpose of this study is to explore how project managers apply leadership strategies to manage and take advantage of the pluralism in projects with multinational project teams. The theoretical starting point for the study is the three strategies for leading multinational teams that are identified by Chevrier (2003): Laissez-faire leadership, relationship orientation and relying on transnational cultures. The basic features of the respective strategies are to leave it up to the team members on their own to overcome barriers; to promote the development of relations and mutually acceptable procedures; relying on already established professional or organizational cultures. The results have also been related to the image of the Norwegian leadership style in existing theory; a leadership that is characterized by equality, collectivism and consensus. The empirical basis for the study was collected using semi-structured qualitative interviews. The interviewees were project managers working for a Norwegian company with operations in many parts of the world. The results show that it is primarily the relationship-oriented strategy (Chevrier 2003) that is used in the examined context. The use of the relationship-oriented strategy is highly congruent with the descriptions of the Norwegian leadership style in the studied literature. The strategy applications that were observed in the study were mainly emergent strategies, that is, the strategy arises over time through consistency in actions, despite the absence of a conscious plan or a set of guidelines prepared in advance to deal with the pluralism (Mintzberg 1987).