Knowledge-Sharing Networks: Language Diversity, Its Causes, and Consequences

The Impact of Language Diversity on Knowledge Sharing Within International University Research Teams: Evidence From TED Project

In today's knowledge economy, knowledge and knowledge sharing are fundamental for organizations to achieve competitiveness and for individuals to strengthen their innovation capabilities. Knowledge sharing is a complex language-based activity; language affects how individuals communicate and relate. The growth in international collaborations and the increasing number of diverse teams affect knowledge sharing because individuals engage in daily knowledge activities in a language they are not native speakers. Understanding the challenges they face, and how they manage the emerging difficulties is the main aim of this manuscript. For this purpose, an explorative case study was conducted in an international university research project, namely the TED project. Both interviews and direct observations were employed to understand the phenomenon better and deliberately triangulate data and improve validity. Results show that non-native language use determines the emergence of different language proficiency, depending on the nature of the knowledge domain-job-related vs. non-job-related. Within non-job-related knowledge domains, the lack of linguistic abilities, summed to the perceived cultural diversities, mainly affects people's propensity to engage in personal and more intense social relationships. Under such circumstances, tacit knowledge sharing is reduced with negative consequences on the project's long-term innovative performance. Since the project is still running, detecting language challenges will allow the partners to design and apply effective measures to support cooperation with language and cultural barriers. Among them, code switching, adopted by "bridge" actors, already emerges as tool supporting communication and knowledge exchange.

Antecedents of Knowledge Withholding: A Systematic Review & Integrative Framework

The purpose of this research is to provide a systematic review and integrative framework of the antecedents of knowledge withholding. A systematic literature review led to a selection of 42 empirical research papers that collected data from 16,649 respondents. The included papers identified 93 antecedents that showed a high degree of theoretical variety. We used the theories of interdependence, social exchange, and social identity to construct a framework that integrates and explains why people withhold their knowledge. We developed propositions of the antecedents of knowledge withholding, which we compare against the SLR. We propose and find that (a) negative interdependence increases knowledge withholding behaviors, but (b) positive versus negative social exchanges may respectively decrease or increase withholding in situations where the default may be positive interdependence. We also propose and find that actors who strongly identify with their immediate team will less likely withhold knowledge from them. In contrast, actors who strongly identify with a different identity will more likely withhold knowledge from their team. The integrative framework provides a strong theoretical foundation for future study and identifies many valuable new research questions

Organizational changes, trust and information sharing: an empirical study

Purpose

While there is relatively plenty of evidence for the positive impact of communication on the perceptions of organizational change, how organizational changes affect information sharing is relatively unknown. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a favorable perception of ongoing organizational changes has a positive impact on information sharing and whether trust mediates this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire (n=317) was administered to the employees of a large Finnish multinational organization. Partial least square structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses based on earlier research findings.

Findings

The results show that a positive perception of recent organizational changes improves information sharing both directly and indirectly, mediated by trust. Consequently, when changes are perceived negatively, employees recoil from information sharing which is known to have negative implications for organizations.

Research limitations/implications

Data were collected in a single organization. The nature of the specific changes in the studied organization and its particularities undoubtedly had an effect on respondents’ perceptions.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to organizational information management research by elaborating on the relationship between organizational changes and interpersonal information sharing between employees. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first quantitative study confirming the impact of the perception of organizational changes on employee information-sharing behavior.