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On the different "worlds" of intra-organizational knowledge management: Understanding idiosyncratic variation in MNC cross-site knowledge-sharing practices

This qualitative field study investigated cross-site knowledge sharing in a small sample of
multinational corporations in three different MNC business contexts (global, multidomestic,
transnational). The results disclose heterogeneous "worlds" of MNC knowledge sharing, ultimately raising the question as to whether the whole concept of MNC knowledge sharing covers a sufficiently unitary phenomenon to be meaningful. We derive a non-exhaustive typology of MNC knowledge-sharing practices: self-organizing knowledge sharing, technocratic knowledge sharing, and best practice knowledge sharing. Despite its limitations, this typology helps to elucidate a number of issues, including the
latent conflict between two disparate theories of MNC knowledge sharing, namely
"sender-receiver" and "social learning" theories (Noorderhaven & Harzing, 2009). More
generally, we develop the term "knowledge contextualization" to highlight the way that
firm-specific organizational features pre-define which knowledge is considered to be of
special relevance for intra-organizational sharing. (authors' abstract)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:4689
Date January 2013
CreatorsKasper, Helmut, Lehrer, Mark, Mühlbacher, Jürgen, Müller, Barbara
PublisherElsevier
Source SetsWirtschaftsuniversität Wien
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, PeerReviewed
Formatapplication/pdf
RightsCreative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Austria
Relationhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2012.05.001, http://www.elsevier.com, http://epub.wu.ac.at/4689/

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