Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
INTERCULTURAL
KNOWLEDGE
SHARING IN MNCS
A Glocal and Inclusive
Approach in the Digital Age
Intercultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs
Fabrizio Maimone
Intercultural
Knowledge Sharing
in MNCs
A Glocal and Inclusive Approach in
the Digital Age
Fabrizio Maimone
Università LUMSA
Rome, Italy
director had reported to senior colleagues: ‘We must learn from what
Professor Holden has found out.’ Second, the company had not appreci-
ated that receivers’ reaction to knowledge content and the perceived
manner of delivery changes the nature of the knowledge. By that, I mean
that the seemingly formal content had, as a result of negative reactions,
subliminally acquired tacit elements of which the company was unaware.
Furthermore, this negative tacit knowledge was being shared and elabo-
rated inter-culturally at the seminar I was running. The company image
was mocked.
This incident, by no means isolated of its kind, highlights a major
issue: that of mismatching explicit knowledge, whereby its value, rele-
vance and utility end up being inadvertently undermined and, in worst
case scenarios, even distorted at culturally and linguistically contrasting
receiving ends. But the same thing can happen in-house. I recall discuss-
ing this very matter with Mercedes-Benz executives, who were facing the
challenge of transferring their automotive expertise to two contrasting
operating environments: the USA and China. It startled me to learn in
that conversation that analogous problems occurred in knowledge trans-
fer even among the company’s plants in Germany! Geographically sepa-
rated groups of highly qualified engineers, all speaking German and
imbued with the same company culture, drew different inferences from
identical knowledge. The important thing in this case is that MercedesBenz
discovered the sticking-point. Often, firms don’t.
It is missing the point to say that firms are not sufficiently conversant with
the working environments of their various receivers worldwide—which is,
in any case, a completely unrealizable ideal. At the heart of the problem lies
a management failure to anticipate how inter-cultural knowledge transfer
and sharing can subject knowledge not only to the formal misunderstanding
of the content, but also to various misinterpretations of its purpose and sig-
nificance. Where such misunderstandings occur—and millions of lesser and
greater magnitude occur every single day—the result can entail delays in
project implementation and budget over-runs as well as diversions of man-
agement time and effort.
And all too often the people at the receiving end are blamed for incom-
petence, whilst those same people accuse companies of miscommunica-
tion. At that point people start to invoke the well-worn national
Foreword
vii
Nigel Holden
Acknowledgements
All those who contributed indirectly to the writing of this book, through
their examples, inspiration and generous knowledge exchange;
All my colleagues and friends who encouraged me to face this challenge;
The anonymous reviewers who provided very insightful comments on
the original book proposal;
Lucy Kidwell, who handled the editorial revision of the book (also for her
patience and comprehension);
Mrs Victoria Bailes, who helped me to cope with the ‘mission impossible’
of improving the quality of my English writing, giving me precious
suggestions and invaluable help;
Professor Matthew Fforde, for his precious suggestions and invaluable
encouragement;
Professor Alessia Sammarra, Professor Silvia Profili and Professor Laura
Innocenti, who organized the ‘Human Resources Management’ track
at the 2015 EURAM Conference in Warsaw, Poland (the paper that
ix
x Acknowledgements
provided the early concept for this book was presented and discussed
there in 2015);
Dr. Sara Mormino and Dr. Maria Rosaria Nava, who co-authored the
preliminary work, which was presented in Warsaw;
Dr. Maria Rosaria Nava, for her precious support in the editing of this
book;
Professor Pierfranco Malizia, who sparked my passion for organizational
and inter-cultural research and offered immeasurable guidance;
Prof Yih-Teen Lee, for sharing with me insightful findings from his latest
research on multi-cultural identities;
Professor Gabriele Grabrielli for the trust and the support he gave me;
My very glocal friends, Marta and Carl Sinclair, whose ‘inter-cultural’
friendship has been an invaluable opportunity for my professional and
personal growth;
Professor Francesco Sofo, who welcomed me down-under and persuaded
me to believe in glocal and multicultural learning;
The International Association of Cross-Cultural Competence and
Management (IACCM) board members, and particularly former
President Professor Marie-Thérèse Claes and former Vice-President
Professor Gerhard Fink, for the trust they placed in me;
Professor Chiara Cannavale, the current president of the IACCM, who
encouraged me to keep on researching and lecturing, overcoming all
the difficulties and obstacles that a ‘freelance scholar’ faces every day in
order to pursue research goals and cultivate a passion for knowledge;
Professors Brendan McSweeney and Yoachan Altman, vice-presidents of
the IACCM, and also AICCM General Secretary Miss Barbara
Covarrubias, for their support;
The editorial management and the editors of the European Journal of
Cross-Cultural Competence and Management, who reinforced my faith
in intercultural knowledge sharing; in particular, former Associate
Editor Nigel Holden, who traced the path for intercultural knowledge
sharing research;
Professor Gerhard Fink and Professor Slawomir Magala, for sharing with
me, on different occasions, invaluable suggestions and ideas that were
of great inspiration to my research;
Acknowledgements
xi
1 Introduction 1
Index 191
xiii
List of Figures
xv
xvi List of Figures
xvii
1
Introduction
Braking System (EBS), parking sensors, and the like. Every time we use a
credit card to buy a flight ticket or to order pizza on the Internet, we are
utilizing a digital platform and enacting an electronic procedure.
These transformations are very often the outcome of ‘glocal’ pro-
cesses. They are the result of the interconnection between local, trans-
local and global phenomena, and have a global impact. It is true also
for knowledge. The most famous smart-phone model is produced by
one of the most heterodox US high-tech companies, led (until he
passed away) by the charismatic entrepreneur and inventor Steve Jobs.
Jobs, a US Citizen of Syrian origin who spent his youth in California
during the rise of counter-culture, was proud to ‘think different’ and
suggested that the students of a famous Californian university should
‘stay foolish’. The iPhone is a concentrate of glocal knowledge. It is
designed in California, puts together hardware components and soft-
ware produced all over the world, and is assembled in China – and in
all likelihood, will be assembled in India in the near future. Moreover,
it is probable few people know that Steve Jobs’s passion for technology
design and human-friendly interfaces was inspired by Italian design
and by the heritage of a visionary and extraordinary Italian entrepre-
neur, Adriano Olivetti, in particular (Molella, 2012). The special rela-
tion between the design philosophy of Steve Jobs (and consequently of
Apple) and Italian design (with a particular regard to the Olivetti heri-
tage) was recalled by the director of the Lemelson Center for the Study
of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American
History, in a post (Ib.) that was published in the blog of the prestigious
American museum. According to Molella (Ib.), Steve Jobs had the
opportunity to attend the International Design Conference in Aspen
in 1981 and to meet the Italian protagonists of culture and design,
including the designer Mario Bellini, filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci
and carmaker Sergio Pininfarina. Moreover, when Jobs returned to
Apple in 1997, he sought out the car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro and
architect/designer Ettore Sottsass (both of them had collaborated
directly with Adriano Olivetti). Thus the iPhone design also has a bit
of an Italian touch.
The glocalization of knowledge obviously concerns management too.
For example, The Art of War, the military strategy book written by the
Introduction 3
ancient Chinese General Sun Tzu (1963), was one of the most popular
books on strategy of the last decades, at least among Western managers
and consultants (see Mintzberg & Lampel, 1999). Furthermore, the
Toyota production system (Ohno, 1988) greatly influenced the world
industrial sector and considerably transformed not only manufacturing
but also the service sector. And the same theoretical model proposed by
Nonaka and colleagues, one of the pillars of knowledge management phi-
losophy, may be considered a ‘made in Japan theory’ (see Nonaka &
Takeuchi, 1995).
Our everyday life is definitely glocal as well. When we go to the fitness
club to take our Pilates class, we are enjoying a discipline that was devel-
oped by a German fitness practitioner of Greek origin, Joseph Hubertus
Pilates, blending together exercises from yoga, an Indian discipline, Asian
martial arts, Western ballet, and so on. The most famous kung fu master,
Bruce Lee, was trained in the wing chun style (a heterodox style created
by a woman) in Hong Kong and then founded his own martial art, jeet
kune do, in the USA. Jeet kune do is an innovative blend of traditional
kung fu, boxing and modern martial arts and is very different from the
ancient wu shu discipline, popularly known as kung fu in the West. Even
pizza, the famous dish made in Naples, is served all over the world in
many different versions, adapted to local traditions and tastes, some of
which would be inconceivable for an Italian consumer. Business, and
more generally, life, are becoming, every day, more glocal, along with
knowledge.
Knowledge is the fuel that fosters economic growth. According to the
Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz (1999, p. 3), economic develop-
ment should be seen as ‘less like the construction business and more like
education in the broad and comprehensive sense that covers knowledge,
institutions, and culture’.- As a matter of fact, the emerging economies
that have had a better performance in terms of GDP growth were also the
nations that invested more in education. Therefore, the positive relation-
ship between human capital and economic development is recognized by
economic research.
Knowledge is also the fuel that fosters the growth of contemporary
MNCs (Ghoshal & Bartlett, 1990; Holden & Glisby, 2010), which need
to conciliate a global, holistic strategy with a local touch, and hence be
4 F. Maimone
violin is arguably one of the best known examples of the fruits of tacit
knowledge. Born in Cremona (a little town in the North of Italy) in
1644, Antonio Stradivari crafted a series of violins that produced a very
special and inimitable sound. The lutes made in Cremona, which were
played by Niccolò Paganini among others, were the result of a mix of
scientific and technical knowledge, artisan mastery and a particular form
of art. Even now, in the twenty-first century, it is practically impossible to
reproduce a Stradivari violin, even though researchers from all over the
world have tried to discover the magic recipe invented by the Italian mas-
ter. The secret of the precious violins, created by the lute maker from
Cremona, has been kept so well that even in the digital age no one is able
to reproduce a violin with the same quality and magical sound as
Stradivari did.
Thus, even though the common opinion tends to identify knowledge
with scientific and technological innovation, there are different types of
knowledge that pervade every aspect of our lives. Knowledge is a mixture
of tradition and innovation, personal and codified knowledge, scientific/
technical and humanistic thought, science and art.
Even if technological innovation is scientifically driven, in order to
effectively and sustainably use the outcome of innovation, a new kind of
humanistic awareness is needed. This is also because technology, contrary
to the positivistic thinking that still pervades Western society (which has
also influenced the viewpoint of non-Western business), does not always
lead to progress. Nuclear physics produced a new idea of the physical
world and gave way to the development of radiological diagnostics and
nuclear medicine. Nevertheless, at the same time, it brought about the
tragic events of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the
Chernobyl accident. The Internet changed our lives and laid down the
premises for a more connected and knowledgeable world, but at the same
time allowed the creation of the digital Far West of the dark Internet and
facilitated the rise of social problems like the diffusion of cyber bullying
and the emergence of the so-called post-truth era.
Moreover, it is argued that it is necessary to develop a sort of meta-
knowledge, a deeper awareness of the implications and limitations of
each field of knowledge and the ability to conciliate technological
progress with sustainable social and environmental change. This
6 F. Maimone
1.3 T
he Critical Role of Intercultural
Knowledge Sharing for MNCs
In this complex scenario, MNCs play a critical role. On the one hand,
they must adapt to foreignness (Matusitz, 2010). This means that they
should be able to ‘generate diversity in response to local conditions’
(Ib., p. 225; see also Ulrich & Smallwood, 2006). Sheth (2006) sug-
gested that MNCs will be able to conciliate anekanta, a Buddhist ‘phil-
osophical viewpoint that assumes that multiple perspectives of a single
observation or phenomenon can be true’ (Ib. p. 219), and the Gestalt,
in which the overall picture is more significant than the sum of the
single parts. So MNCs should learn to become more glocal (Robertson,
1995).
Moreover, according to Sarala and Vara (2010, p. 1366): -‘An impor-
tant part of the competitive advantage of multinational enterprises
(MNEs) is their ability to make use of knowledge residing in geographi-
cally dispersed units (Doz, Santos, & Williamson, 2001; Grant, 1996;
Gupta & Govindarajan, 2000).’-
On the other hand, MNCs, and more generally, transnational organi-
zations could play a crucial role in facilitating knowledge transfer and
exchange inside and outside local communities and on a global scale.
Glocal organizations can foster the creation, dissemination and sharing
of intercultural knowledge, facilitating the creation of bridges across
political, cultural, social and organizational boundaries.
10 F. Maimone
Lastly, the book aims to provide some suggestions to improve the qual-
ity of intercultural knowledge sharing in MNCs, providing case studies
and practical examples.
Even though this book is focussed on MNCs, many of the theories,
models and practices proposed in intercultural knowledge sharing in
MNCs could provide insights and suggestions to readers interested in
knowledge sharing in transnational and global organizations of every sort
(international organizations, governmental and public organizations,
NGOs, etc.).
The main target audiences of this book are scholars in management,
organization studies, economics, sociology, organizational psychology,
and communication sciences, as well as PhD and post-graduate univer-
sity students, managers and practitioners.
References
Andriopoulos, C., & Lewis, M. W. (2009). Exploitation-exploration tensions
and organizational ambidexterity: Managing paradoxes of innovation.
Organization Science, 20(4), 696–717.
Ashby, W. R. (1964). Principles of the self-organizing system. In H. von Foerster
& G. W. Zopf Jr. (Eds.), Principles of self-organization: Transactions of the
University of Illinois symposium (pp. 255–278). London: Pergamon Press.
Bartlett, C. A., & Ghoshal, S. (1989). Managing across borders: The transnational
corporation. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. R. (2000). Emotion, decision making
and the orbitofrontal cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 10(3), 295–307.
Bruni, L., & Zamagni, S. (2004). Economia civile. Efficienza, equità, felicità
pubblica, il Mulino.
Cochrane, P. (2014). Exponential technology and the singularity: The techno-
logical singularity (Ubiquity symposium). Ubiquity, 2014 (November), 1.
Doz, Y. L., Santos, J., & Williamson, P. (2001). From global to metanational.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Florida, R., Mellander, C., & Stolarick, K. (2008). Inside the black box of
regional development—Human capital, the creative class and tolerance.
Journal of Economic Geography, 8(5), 615–649.
14 F. Maimone
Mintzberg, H., & Lampel, J. (1999). Reflecting on the strategy process. Sloan
Management Review, 40(3), 21.
Molella, A. (2012, January 24). The Italian soul of Steve Jobs. Retrived December
12, 2016, from http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2012/01/the-italian-soul-
of-steve-jobs.html
Morris, M. W., Leung, K., Ames, D., & Lickel, B. (1999). Views from inside
and outside: Integrating emic and etic insights about culture and justice
judgment. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 781–796.
Nonaka, I. (1999). The dynamics of knowledge creation. The Knowledge
Advantage, 14, 64–87.
Nonaka, I., & Konno, N. (1998). The concept of “ba”: Building a foundation
for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3), 40–54.
Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company: How
Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. Oxford University Press.
Nonaka, I., & Toyama, R. (2003). The knowledge-creating theory revisited:
Knowledge creation as a synthesizing process. Knowledge Management
Research & Practice, 1(1), 2–10.
Ohno, T. (1988). Toyota production system: Beyond large-scale production. CRC
Press.
Pirson, M. A., & Lawrence, P. R. (2010). Humanism in business–Towards a
paradigm shift? Journal of Business Ethics, 93(4), 553–565.
Polanyi, M. (2015). Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Popadiuk, S., & Choo, C. W. (2006). Innovation and knowledge creation: How
are these concepts related? International Journal of Information Management,
26(4), 302–312.
Rai, R. K. (2011). Knowledge management and organizational culture: A theo-
retical integrative framework. Journal of Knowledge Management, 15(5),
779–801.
Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social theory and global culture. London:
Sage.
Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneity-
heterogeneity. Global Modernities, 2, 25–45.
Sachs, J. D. (2011). The price of civilization: Reawakening American virtue and
prosperity. New York: Random House.
Sarala, R. M., & Vaara, E. (2010). Cultural differences, convergence, and cross-
vergence as explanations of knowledge transfer in international acquisitions.
Journal of International Business Studies, 41(8), 1365–1390.
16 F. Maimone
Schneider, S. C., & Barsoux, J.-L. (1997). Managing across cultures. London:
Prentice Hall.
Sheth, J. N. (2006). Clash of cultures or fusion of cultures?: Implications for
international business. Journal of International Management, 12(2), 218–221.
Sinclair, M. (Ed.). (2011). Handbook of intuition research. Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar Publishing.
Sinclair, M. (2017). Intuitive knowledge generation in post-bureaucratic orga-
nizations. In P. Malizia, C. Cannavale, & F. Maimone (Eds.), Evolution of the
post-bureaucratic organization (pp. 383–400). Hershey: IGI Global.
Stiglitz, J. (1999). Public policy for a knowledge economy. Remarks at the
Department for Trade and Industry and Center for Economic Policy Research,
27, 1–28.
Sun Tzu. (1963). The art of war (S. B. Griffith, Trans.). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Tatli, A., & Özbilgin, M. F. (2012). An emic approach to intersectional study of
diversity at work: A Bourdieuan framing. International Journal of Management
Reviews, 14(2), 180–200.
The Economist. (2001, December 20). The history of the tango. A sense of
where you were. Retrieved January 7, 2017, from http://www.economist.
com/node/893086
Tregaskis, O., Edwards, T., Edwards, P., Ferner, A., & Marginson, P. (2010).
Transnational learning structures in multinational firms: Organizational con-
text and national embeddedness. Human Relations, 63(4), 471–499.
Ulrich, D., & Smallwood, W. N. (2006). How leaders build value: Using people,
organization, and other intangibles to get bottom-line results. New York: Wiley.
2
Culture, Glocalization, Complexity
2.2 T
he MNCs as Complex Organizational
and Cultural Systems
The rise of the internal rate of variety is one of the conditions that con-
tribute to enhance the level of MNC complexity. Therefore, contempo-
rary MNCs are expected to manifest the main characteristics of complex
non-linear systems (Cilliers, 2000; Mitleton-Kelly, 2003; Stacey, 1996;
Thiétart & Forgues, 1995; Tsoukas, 1998). According to this theory,
complex systems are characterized by interdependence, non-linearity,
path dependence, self-organizing processes, continuous change, para-
doxes and ambiguity (Contractor, 1999; Mitleton-Kelly, 2003; Thiétart
& Forgues, 1995).
Complex systems are also characterized by so-called auto-poiesis: they
are able to self-organize, creating order from disorder (Kauffman, 1993)
and generating higher-order patterns of interaction through the interplay
between micro and macro levels of the system and the enactment of cir-
cular processes (see Witherington, 2011).
It can be affirmed, moreover (Capra, 2002), that complex systems can-
not be described using the reductionist model, because it is not possible
to describe chaotic systems simply by isolating a reduced set of variables,
as generally happens in classical scientific models. It is also because the
emergence of higher-level orders from low-level patterns of interaction
may follow unexpected paths that cannot be explained using direct cau-
sality (Witherington, 2011).
System dynamics may be the result of both micro and macro processes
and the interplay between them (Ib.). Therefore, ‘descriptions at multiple
scales’ (Anderson, 1999, p. 221) are necessary to identify how emergent
properties are produced (Bar-Yam, 1997). Thus micro-level analysis and
holism should be seen as complementary strategies in analyzing such sys-
tems (Fontana & Ballati, 1999).
The complex systems theory may help scholars shed light on organiza-
tional culture and resolve the apparent paradox represented by the out-
comes of a number of pieces of field research conducted by Van Maanen
and Barley (1982), Barley and Kunda (1992, 2004), and Martin (1993),
among others. In fact, researchers found that the organizations studied
20 F. Maimone
2.3 T
oward a Multi-level Model
of Organizational Cultures
Another important question emerging from theory and empirical
research concerns the possibility of defining the boundaries of organi-
zational culture. Do the perimeters of culture and organization per-
fectly overlap? Is it possible to map different cultural sub-systems (at
national, corporate and local level), inside and outside organizational
boundaries?
Many authors (see Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005; Minkov & Hofstede,
2010) have adopted the mapping approach, assuming that it is possible
to classify cultural groups on the basis of their territorial distribution and
association with a community that is spatially located and generally cor-
responds to a national entity. These models will be described in the next
paragraph.
Gupta and Ferguson (1992), among others, criticized the basic prin-
ciples of cultural mapping, tackling the assumption of the isomorphism
of space, place, and culture. The authors (Ib. P. 7) argued against the ‘fic-
tion of cultures as discrete, object-like phenomena occupying discrete
spaces’. The criticism against the conception of culture as a homogeneous
and spatial phenomenon is based on four critical points:
Global culture
National cultures
Organizational cultures
Organizational subcultures
Individual
values and self
identities
2.4 T
he Role of National Identities
and Cultural Differences
In this paragraph a brief review of the main managerial theories of cul-
tural differences will be given. All the theories presented associate national
identities with some differences, in terms of people’s values, norms,
24 F. Maimone
Table 2.1 The relationship between universal values and personal attitudes
(Source: adapted from Schwartz, 2012)
Value types that serve primarily power, achievement, hedonism,
individual interests stimulation, self-direction
Value types that serve primarily benevolence, tradition, conformity,
collective interests
Boundary values types (that may be universalism and security
included in both previous types)
26
Values that are associated with Values that are associated with
anxiety for the future, prevention of goal achievement and self-growth
personal loss and self-protection
F. Maimone
Conservation Self-
Security Transcendence
Conformity Universalism
Tradition Benevolence
Socialfocus
Fig. 2.2 The relationship between universal values and personal attitudes (Source: adapted from Schwartz, 2012)
Culture, Glocalization, Complexity 27
Egalitarianism Harmony
Unity with
Social Jusce
nature
Equality
World at peace
Embeddedness
Intellectual Autonomy
Broadmindedness Social Order, Obedience
Respect for Tradion
Curiosity
Hierarchy
Affecve Autonomy
Authority
Pleasure
Humble
Mastery
Ambion
Daring
Fig. 2.3 Cultural values orientation model (Source: adapted from Schwartz 2006)
gap implies a direct association between values and practices, which is far
from being proved by cross-cultural management research. Instead, sta-
tistical analysis shows that the correlation between values and practices is
in many cases negative (see Maseland & Van Hoorn, 2009). The choice
of measuring values and practices separately was harshly criticized by
Hofstede (2006), who questioned the theoretical, methodological and
statistical validity of part of the model.
Notes
1. Otaku (おたく/オタク?) is a Japanese term meaning people with obses-
sive interests, commonly anime and manga fandom.
References
Ailon-Souday, G., & Kunda, G. (2003). The local selves of global workers: The
social construction of national identity in the face of organizational globaliza-
tion. Organization Studies, 24(7), 1073–1096.
Albert, S., & Whetten, D. A. (1985). Organizational identity. In L. L. Cummings
& B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 7, pp. 263–295).
Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Alvesson, M. (2010). Self-doubters, strugglers, storytellers, surfers and others:
Images of self-identities in organization studies. Human Relations, 63(2),
193–217.
Alvesson, M. (2012). Understanding organizational culture. Sage.
Alvesson, M., & Berg, P. O. (1992). Corporate culture and organizational symbol-
ism: An overview (Vol. 34). New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Alvesson, M., & Deetz, S. (2000). Doing critical management research. Sage.
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (2002). Identity regulation as organizational con-
trol: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies,
39(5), 619–644.
Anderson, P. (1999). Perspective: Complexity theory and organization science.
Organization Science, 10(3), 216–232.
Ashkanasy, N. M., Wilderom, C. P. M., & Peterson, M. F. (Eds.). (2012). The
handbook of organizational culture and climate. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.
Barinaga, E. (2007). ‘Cultural diversity’ at work: ‘National culture’ as a dis-
course organizing an international project group. Human Relations, 60(2),
315–340.
32 F. Maimone
Barley, S. R., & Kunda, G. (1992). Design and devotion: Surges of rational and
normative ideologies of control in managerial discourse. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 37, 363–399.
Barley, S. R., & Kunda, G. (2004). Gurus, hired guns, and warm bodies: Itinerant
experts in a knowledge economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Bar-Yam, Y. (1997). Dynamics of complex systems (Vol. 213). Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1991). The social construction of reality: A treatise
in the sociology of knowledge (No. 10). Penguin UK.
Capra, F. (2002). Complexity and life. Emergence, 4(1–2), 15–33.
Chao, G. T., & Moon, H. (2005). The cultural mosaic: A meta theory for under-
standing the complexity of culture. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 1128.
Chhokar, J. S., Brodbeck, F. C., & House, R. J. (Eds.). (2013). Culture and
leadership across the world: The GLOBE book of in-depth studies of 25 societies.
Abington, UK: Routledge.
Cilliers, P. (2000). What can we learn from a theory of complexity? Emergence,
2(1), 23–33.
Contractor, N. S. (1999). Self-organizing systems research in the social sciences:
Reconciling the metaphors and the models. Management Communication
Quarterly, 13(1), 154–166.
Denison, D. R. (1990). Corporate culture and organizational effectiveness. John
Wiley & Sons.
Fontana, W., & Ballati, S. (1999). Complexity. Complexity, 4(3), 14–16.
Foreman, P., & Whetten, D. A. (2002). Members’ identification with multiple-
identity organizations. Organization Science, 13(6), 618–635.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1992). Beyond “culture”: Space, identity, and the
politics of difference. Cultural Anthropology, 7(1), 6–23.
Hatch, M. J. (1993). The dynamics of organizational culture. Academy of
Management Review, 18(4), 657–693.
Hillman, A. J., Nicholson, G., & Shropshire, C. (2008). Directors’ multiple
identities, identification, and board monitoring and resource provision.
Organization Science, 19(3), 441–456.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: National differences in thinking and
organizing. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London:
McGraw-Hill.
Hofstede, G. (1993). Cultural constraints in management theories. The Academy
of Management Executive, 7(1), 81–94.
Culture, Glocalization, Complexity 33
Schwartz, S. H. (1999). A theory of cultural values and some implications for
work. Applied Psychology, 48(1), 23–47.
Schwartz, S. H. (2006). A theory of cultural value orientations: Explication and
applications. Comparative Sociology, 5(2), 137–182.
Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values.
Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1), 11.
Schwartz, S. H., & Boehnke, K. (2004). Evaluating the structure of human
values with confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Research in Personality,
38(3), 230–255.
Stacey, R. D. (1996). Complexity and creativity in organizations. San Francisco:
Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Stelzl, M., & Seligman, C. (2009). Multiplicity across cultures: Multiple
national identities and multiple value systems. Organization Studies, 30(9),
959–973.
Stryker, S., & Serpe, R. T. (1982). Commitment, identity salience, and role
behavior: Theory and research example. In Personality, roles, and social behav-
ior (pp. 199–218). New York: Springer.
Tatli, A., & Özbilgin, M. F. (2012). An emic approach to intersectional study of
diversity at work: A Bourdieuan framing. International Journal of Management
Reviews, 14(2), 180–200.
Thietart, R. A., & Forgues, B. (1995). Chaos theory and organization.
Organization Science, 6(1), 19–31.
Tsoukas, H. (1998). Introduction: Chaos, complexity and organization theory.
Organization, 5(3), 291–313.
Van Maanen, J., & Barley, S. R. (1982). Occupational communities: Culture and
control in organizations (No. Tr-Onr-10). Cambridge, MA: Alfred P Sloan
School of Management.
Witherington, D. C. (2011). Taking emergence seriously: The centrality of cir-
cular causality for dynamic systems approaches to development. Human
Development, 54(2), 66–92.
3
Organizational Knowledge and Inter-
cultural Management
judgement. For instance, the definition proposed by Bell (1999, pp. lxi–
lxiv) and cited by Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001, p. 976) affirmed:
‘Knowledge is the judgement of the significance of events and items,
which comes from a particular context and/or theory.’ Moreover (Ib.)
judgement is associated with the ability of an individual to draw distinc-
tions and with the individual collocation within (Ib. p.) ‘a collectively
generated and sustained domain of action—a “form of life” (Wittgenstein,
1958), a “practice” (MacIntyre, 1985), a “horizon of meaning” (Gadamer,
1989) or a “consensual domain” (Maturana & Varela, 1988)—in which
particular criteria of evaluation hold.’
The cognitive perspective helps us to understand how knowledge is
used and what (at least) one of the scopes of the process of knowing is.
On the other hand, when organizational knowledge scholars wrote their
works, the progress in the neurosciences and the complexity of science
were far from the organizational knowledge framework. More than thirty
years after the beginning of the new wave of organizational knowledge, it
is possible to complete this framework, as well as a few other elements.
As we know, judgement is basic to the decision-making process. The
belief that the decision-making process is completely rational was ques-
tioned by Simon (1982) who, arguing the epistemological premises of
the so-called rational choice, introduced the concept of bounded ratio-
nality. According to March and Simon (1958, p. 590), ‘Ideas of limited
rationality emphasize the extent to which individuals and groups simplify
a decision problem because of the difficulties of anticipating or consider-
ing all alternatives and all information.’ Moreover, the concept of contex-
tualized rationality (Ib.) ‘emphasizes the extent to which choice behaviour
is embedded in a complex of other claims on the attention of actors and
other structures of social and cognitive relations’.
The seminal work by March and Simon (Ib.) anticipated the rise of
new heterodox theories, that questioned the prevailing role of rationality
in decision-making processes. These (alternative) perspectives found
resounding confirmation in the progress of the neurosciences.
According to Sanfey, Loewenstein, McClure, and Cohen (2006,
p. 111), ‘Human behaviour is not the product of a single process, but
rather reflects the interaction of different specialized subsystems. Although
most of the time these systems interact synergistically to determine
Organizational Knowledge and Inter-cultural Management 43
(a) justified true belief: individuals test the truthfulness of their beliefs
through the interaction with their environment;
Organizational Knowledge and Inter-cultural Management 47
(codified) pieces of knowledge and also a set of meanings (that are related
to the responsibility of conducting a means of transportation that may
cause physical damage to people and things).
This book was written using a laptop. To use a laptop, it is necessary to
possess a set of fundamental notions of theoretical knowledge, but the
main actions associated with the day-by-day use of the personal com-
puter are part of the automatic behaviour that all human beings enact
every day. That is also true for group behaviour: When a medical team
performs surgery, or a fire brigade enters a burning building, or a special
force commando infiltrates enemy lines, they all are enacting (collective)
implicit behaviours that are the result of repeated training, experiential
learning, and team building processes that facilitate the construction of
social practices and take on the name of organizational practices in the
organizational context (Gherardi, 2010). Obviously, identity, beliefs and
meanings are also crucial for special categories of workers, but it is likely
that some of most important knowledge shared by them is out of the
sphere of awareness.
Even though the model proposed by Nonaka and colleagues (Nonaka,
1994) is arguably one of the most important contributions to the devel-
opment of the field of knowledge management and organizational learn-
ing, it is possible to assume that the theoretical premises of the same
model explain only a part of the process. Japanese people invented very
sophisticated and meaningful rituals to serve tea in an appropriate way
(the well-known tea ceremony), but it is likely that somewhere outside
the Japanese cultural milieu, people are sometimes less aware of the main
meanings and knowledge that are used on a daily basis to carry out rou-
tine activities.
The variety and diversity of organizational knowledge has been anal-
ysed by Blackler (1995). The author (Ib.) proposed five images of
knowledge, re-elaborating the taxonomy elaborated by Collins (1993)
that summarizes the different theoretical perspectives on organizational
knowledge:
3.2 T
he Role of Knowledge Spaces
and Networks
Nonaka (Nonaka & Konno, 1998) founded their theory of knowledge
creation on the concept of ba, a Japanese word that may be translated
to the English term ‘space’. The concept of ba derived from the theory
Organizational Knowledge and Inter-cultural Management 51
Knowledge
Space
Knowledge Knowledge
Space Space
Organizaon
3.3 T
he Relationship Between Organizational
Knowledge and Inter-cultural
Management
As was pointed out above, knowledge and culture are strictly interrelated.
To understand the role that cultural diversity can play in organizations, we
must refer to a theorem of cybernetics, the principle of requisite variety
(Ashby, 1964), which has already been described in this book’s Introduction.
This theorem postulates that the internal diversity rate of a system must be
at least equal to the level of environmental variety in which the system
operates. Therefore, the greater the variance of the environment in which
the company operates, in terms of geography, market, technology, and also
culture, the higher the rate of internal diversity will be.
Therefore, MNCs can obtain a competitive advantage by using this
knowledge on a global scale for local management, global integration and
global learning (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1989; Tregaskis, Edwards, Edwards,
Ferner, & Marginson, 2010). In other words, MNCs may use the knowl-
edge of strategic value and complex organizational networks to become
more glocal.
Notes
1. Oxford dictionary online: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/
philosophy
References
Anderson, P. (1999). Perspective: Complexity theory and organization science.
Organization Science, 10(3), 216–232.
Ashby, W. R. (1964). Principles of the self-organizing system. In H. von Foerster
& G. W. Zopf Jr. (Eds.), Principles of self-organization: Transactions of the
University of Illinois symposium (pp. 255–278). London: Pergamon Press.
58 F. Maimone
Bartlett, C. A., & Ghoshal, S. (1989). Managing across borders: The transnational
corporation. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York, NY: Ballantine.
Bell, D. (1999). The axial age of technology foreword: 1999. In D. Bell (Ed.),
The coming of the post industrial society (Special Anniversary ed., pp. ix–lxxxv).
New York: Basic Books.
Bhagat, R. S., Kedia, B. L., Harveston, P. D., & Triandis, H. C. (2002).
Cultural variations in the cross-border transfer of organizational knowledge:
An integrative framework. The Academy of Management Review, 27(2),
204–221.
Bierly, P. E., III, Kessler, E. H., & Christensen, E. W. (2000). Organizational
learning, knowledge and wisdom. Journal of Organizational Change
Management, 13(6), 595–618.
Blackler, F. (1995). Knowledge, knowledge work and organizations: An over-
view and interpretation. Organization Studies, 16(6), 1021–1046.
Bohm, D. (2006). Unfolding meaning: A weekend of dialogue with David Bohm.
Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Castells, M. (2011). The rise of the network society: The information age: Economy,
society, and culture (Vol. 1). John Wiley & Sons.
Cilliers, P. (2000). Knowledge, complexity, and understanding. Emergence, A
Journal of Complexity Issues in Organizations and Management, 2(4), 7–13.
Coffield, F. (2002). A new strategy for learning and skills: Beyond 101 initiatives.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Department of Education, University of Newcastle.
Collins, H. M. (1993). The structure of knowledge. Social Research, 60(1),
95–16.
Davenport, T. H., & Prusak, L. (1998). Working knowledge: How organizations
manage what they know. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Eco, U. (2011). Lector in fabula: la cooperazione interpretativa nei testi narra-
tivi. Giunti.
Fahey, L., & Prusak, L. (1998). The eleven deadliest sins of knowledge manage-
ment. California Management Review, 40(3), 265–276.
Gadamer, H. G. (1989). Truth and method (2nd ed.). London: Sheed & Ward.
Gherardi, S. (2000). Practice-based theorizing on learning and knowing in orga-
nizations. Organanization, 7(2), 329–349.
Gherardi, S. (2001). From organizational learning to practice-based knowing.
Human Relations, 54(1), 131–139.
Gherardi, S. (2010). Telemedicine: A practice-based approach to technology.
Human Relations, 63(4), 501–524.
Organizational Knowledge and Inter-cultural Management 59
Maimone, F., & Sinclair, M. (2014). Dancing in the dark: Creativity, knowledge
creation and (emergent) organizational change. Journal of Organizational
Change Management, 27(2), 344–361.
March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley.
Maturana, H. (2002). Autopoiesis, structural coupling and cognition: A history
of these and other notions in the biology of cognition. Cybernetics & Human
Knowing, 9(3–4), 5–34.
Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition. Dordrecht:
D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1988). The tree of knowledge. Boston: New Science.
Michailova, S., & Hutchings, K. (2006). National cultural influences on knowl-
edge sharing: A comparison of China and Russia. Journal of Management
Studies, 43(3), 383–405.
Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., & Yanow, D. (2003). Knowing in organizations: A
practice-based approach. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe.
Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and sys-
tems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review,
108(2), 291.
Nishida, K. (1970). Fundamental problems of philosophy. Tokyo: Sophia University.
Nonaka, I. (1991, November–December). The knowledge creating company.
Harvard Business Review, 69–104.
Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation.
Organization Science, 5(1), 14–37.
Nonaka, I., & Konno, N. (1998). The concept of “ba”: Building a foundation
for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3), 40–54.
Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge creating company: How
Japanese companies creates the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Nonaka, I., & Toyama, R. (2003). The knowledge-creating theory revisited:
Knowledge creation as a synthesizing process. Knowledge Management
Research & Practice, 1(1), 2–10.
Nonaka, I., Toyama, R., & Hirata, T. (2008). Managing flow: A process theory of
the knowledge-based firm. Springer.
Nonaka, I., & Von Krogh, G. (2009). Perspective—Tacit knowledge and knowl-
edge conversion: Controversy and advancement in organizational knowledge
creation theory. Organization Science, 20(3), 635–652.
Nonaka, I., Von Krogh, G., & Voelpel, S. (2006). Organizational knowledge
creation theory: Evolutionary paths and future advances. Organization
Studies, 27(8), 1179–1208.
Organizational Knowledge and Inter-cultural Management 61
Vance, D. M. (1997). Information, knowledge and wisdom: The epistemic hier-
archy and computer-based information system. Proceedings of the 1997
America’s Conference on Information Systems, August 1997.
Von Foester, H. (1984). Observing systems. Intersystems Publications.
Von Krogh, G. (1998). Care in knowledge creation. California Management
Review, 40(3), 133–153.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological pro-
cesses. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (rev. ed.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the pro-
cess of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16(4), 409–421.
Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Yeung, H. W.-C. (2005). Organizational space: A new frontier in international
business strategy? Critical Perspectives on International Business,1, 219–240.
Young, G. (1997). Adult development, therapy, and culture: A postmodern synthe-
sis. New York: Plenum Press.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities
of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
4
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing
in MNCs: Toward a Complex
and Dynamic Model
4.1 M
erchants, Sailors, Missionaries,
Samurais and Nerds: The Never-ending
History of Inter-cultural Knowledge
Sharing
Trans-national knowledge sharing is not a specific product of the con-
temporary era. Il milione, the novel written by Rustichello da Pisa on
behalf of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, was not only a travel story,
but also a romanticized testimony to the establishment of centuries-old
commerce between Europe and China via the Silk Road. This connection
was established and maintained through the contribution of merchants
and missionaries, like the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (see De Caro & Spadaro,
2016), who in 1600 succeeded in winning the trust of mandarins and
intellectuals of the Ming Court. He settled down in Peking and con-
structed long, fruitful relations with the functionaries of the Chinese
Empire. The fruits of this exchange are still present in our everyday life.
For example, the compass and paper (also used to produce the printed
version of this book) were invented by the Chinese and (reportedly)
introduced into Africa and Europe by the Arabs.
The French historian Fernand Braudel (1992) claimed that the discov-
ery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus was made possible by the
use of a special kind of boat, the caravel, which was the result of the
knowledge exchange between Northern European and Mediterranean
naval traditions, fostered by maritime trade relations. According to
Braudel (Ib., p. 405): ‘The Portuguese caravel, dating from about 1403,
was the issue of this marriage of North and South. It was a small clinker-
built sailing ship with centreline rudder, three masts, two square sails and
one lateen sail.’
Even though knowledge exchange among social groups is probably as
old as humankind, the contemporary epoch is considered the knowledge
age. Global knowledge flows have probably never been so extended and
pervasive as now. This is also thanks to the development of the Internet,
which is the very result of a trans-national exchange of knowledge. In
fact, the birth of the Internet was the result of the research carried out by
the DARPA, a US military research agency that developed the ARPANET
Project, along with universities, public and private research centres. The
ARPANET project was originally intended for the design and set-up of a
digital non-hierarchical network, capable of maintaining communica-
tions among the vital nodes of the US military/civil system, even in a
nuclear attack.1 Nevertheless, the HTML, URL and HTTP technologies
that make the system work were invented by the British computer scien-
tist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at CERN in Geneva.2 The Internet is thus the
result of the collaboration between a specific kind of inter-continental
‘nerd connection’, facilitated by governmental and non-governmental
institutions and by an international organization: CERN.
The historical events described above also show the key elements of
glocal knowledge sharing: local knowledge is exchanged through direct
and indirect interaction, across physical and digital boundaries, and pro-
duces new knowledge that may have a global impact. In some cases,
knowledge can already be global (in the case of the creation of the
Internet, CERN was already a global organization). In other cases, as
happened in the case of the discovery of the Americas, the knowledge
used by the carpenters to build caravels and by Christopher Columbus to
plot the course to ‘India’ is trans-local (e.g. the result of inter-exchange
among different regions and in the case of Columbus, European regions).
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs: Toward a Complex... 65
4.2 T
he Process of Inter-cultural Knowledge
Sharing
As was pointed out above, knowledge is a critical resource for the perfor-
mance of (not only) MNCs (Holden, 2002, Mudambi, 2002; Phene &
Almeida, 2008).
According to Foss and Pedersen (2002, p. 50): ‘It is widely accepted in the
literature that the MNC owes its existence to its superior ability (relative to
markets) to transfer knowledge and that this superior ability may at the same
time be a source of competitive advantage (relative to purely domestic firms).’
Bollinger and Smith (2001) claimed that knowledge, according to the
resource-based view (Barney, 2001; Grant, 1996; Penrose, 1995), is a
strategic resource. Therefore knowledge sharing should be considered a
key process for the competitive advantage of MNCs, and particularly for
the success of global companies that implement a glocal strategy.
Moreover, as claimed by Nonaka and colleagues (Nonaka & Tackeuchi,
1995), it is possible to assume that MNCs are knowledge-based organiza-
tions (Nonaka & Toyama, 2005; Nonaka, Toyama, & Hirata, 2008;
Nonaka, Toyama & Nagata, 2000).
Nevertheless, organizational knowledge may be considered as some-
thing more than a resource (i.e. a scarce finite good that can be stocked
and transferred at convenience). If we adopt the dynamic, dialogical and
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs: Toward a Complex... 67
4.3 T
he Cycle of Knowledge and
Inter-Cultural Dynamics
The so-called SECI model (Nonaka & Konno, 1998) is the most popular
and globally recognized theory of knowledge exchange and, consequently,
it is considered a meta-theory of knowledge sharing.
The model elaborated by Nonaka and colleagues (Nonaka & Takeuchi,
1995) is aimed at describing knowledge sharing in terms of knowledge
conversion (i.e. a dynamic and social process that entails the continuous
transformation of tacit/explicit knowledge). SECI is an acronym that
stands for socialization, externalization, combination and internalization,
the four phases of the cycle of knowledge (Ib.). The model is illustrated
in the figure below (see Fig. 4.1).
• Tacit • Explicit
Externalization
Socialization
(tacit to
(tacit to tacit)
explicit)
Internalization Combination
(implicit to (Explicit to
implicit) explicit)
• Tacit • Explicit
Fig. 4.1 SECI model (Source: adapted from Nonaka & Konno, 1998)
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs: Toward a Complex... 69
Epistemological
dimension
Explicit
Knowledge
Externalizaon
Combinaon
Socializaon
Internalizaon
Ontological
dimension
Tacit Individual Team Organizaon Inter-
Knowledge organizaonal
exchange
Organizaonal
level
Fig. 4.2 The spiral of knowledge (Source: adapted from Nonaka & Takeuchi,
1995)
(Krajeski, 2008): ‘There are these two young fish swimming along, and
they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods
at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two
young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks
over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”’ Fish don’t know
they are swimming in water and humans are not always aware of the
values, paradigms and deep assumptions that affect their judgement at
the individual and collective level—and this is not restricted to the
legitimacy of new knowledge.
New knowledge is sometimes created in a serendipitous manner and
triggered by the so-called insight driven by intuition, a complex and
definitely implicit process. According to Sanfey, Loewenstein, McClure,
and Cohen (2006, p. 111): ‘Human behaviour is not the product of a
single process, but rather reflects the interaction of different specialized
subsystems. Although most of the time these systems interact synergis-
tically to determine behaviour, at times they compete, producing differ-
ent dispositions towards the same information.’ The contribution of
psychology and neurosciences to decision-making theory led to the rec-
ognition of two parallel decision systems (Ib.): (a) system 1 which
includes automatic and non-conscious processes, and (b) system 2
which includes controlled rational processes based on judgement and
rational choice. Sinclair and Ashkanasy (2005, p. 7) defined intuition
as ‘a non-sequential information processing mode, which comprises
both cognitive and affective elements and results in direct knowing
without any use of conscious reasoning’. Moreover, according Sinclair
(2011, p. 5) it is possible to distinguish two kinds of intuition pro-
cesses: (a) inferential processing, consisting of automated responses
based on a quick recognition of memory patterns accumulated through
experience; and (b) holistic processing, based on jigsaw non-sequential
patterns (Sinclair & Ashkanasy, 2005). Therefore, it is possible to
assume there is also a collective (social) type of intuition and that, argu-
ably, intuitive knowledge is shared differently from analytic, concep-
tual, explicit knowledge (see Maimone & Sinclair, 2014).
As was pointed out in the previous chapter, explicit and tacit knowl-
edge should be seen in a holistic fashion and therefore it is very difficult
to distinguish them in operational terms. As Nonaka and Peltokorpi
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs: Toward a Complex... 75
• Cultural programmes;
• Strategies and social structures;
• Identities ‘in-search-of-an-author’;
• Values and norms, and so on.
76 F. Maimone
Interplay of Creation of
tacit and common
explicit cognitive
knowledge groud
Articulation
Fig. 4.3 The golden triangle of knowledge management (Source: adapted from Holden & Glisby, 2010a)
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs: Toward a Complex...
79
80 F. Maimone
draw on skills and resources resident in the external network that might
be valuable in a particular project.’
Some research has found that there is a correlation between the tie
strength and the level of knowledge transfer enacted through social net-
works (Hansen, 1996). Hansen (Ib.) argued that strong ties may promote
the transfer of complex knowledge, while weak ties may enhance the
transfer of ‘simple’ knowledge. Moreover, the level of the social cohesion
of the network may influence the quality and the level of knowledge shar-
ing as well (Reagans & McEvily, 2003). ‘Social embeddedness’ is the term
used to describe the strength of social ties, the level of network trust, and
the extent to which social networks share common processes and values
(Dhanaraj, Lyles, Steensma, & Tihanyi, 2004). The level of social embed-
dedness of personal networks is positively correlated to the level of knowl-
edge transfer (Ib.).
According to Reagans and Zuckerman (2001), collaboration among
people with different external contacts may bridge gaps, or ‘structural
holes’ among teams and networks, favouring the circulation of knowl-
edge across clusters, connecting social actors and bypassing social gaps.
Moreover, Tsai (2001) underlined the role of inter-unit networks: ‘By
linking different units together, a network arrangement provides a flexi-
ble learning structure that replaces old hierarchical structures’ (Ib.,
p. 997).
Some field research (Ailon & Kunda, 2009) has shown the significant
role of trans-national networks in fostering knowledge sharing. People
can use trans-national networks to communicate and interact with their
colleagues across and beyond their organization, seeking data and infor-
mation, finding helpful answers to their work problems. As did the case
of Nokia Italy, described above, Lyndsay et al. (2003, p. 11) shed light on
the role played by informal relationships in the international services sec-
tor: ‘Relationships between various actors in international services are
important determinants of knowledge transfer (Windrum & Tomlinson,
1999), competency development and perceived service quality (Eriksson,
Majkgård, & Deo Sharma, 1999).’
Moreover, Holden and Glisby (2010b, p. 304) pointed out the role of
the knowledge network and underlined the centrality of the concept of
the network package composed of ‘explicit and tacit elements intended
86 F. Maimone
C1
C2
C3
Fig. 4.4 The role of weak ties in the creation of small worlds (Source: adapted
from Metcalfe, 2005)
4.6 A
ffiliative and Homophilic Interactions,
Relation-Bound and Culture-Bound
Clusters and the Risk of Network Closure
Even though social networks play a critical role in (but not only in) inter-
cultural knowledge sharing, psycho-social, social and power-related
dynamics may influence inter-intra-organizational networking dynamics
and impact inter-cultural knowledge sharing.
As was pointed out above, knowledge sharing may be enacted through
affiliative clusters constructed on the base of personal ties, close relations,
power alliances, and the like. Affiliative clusters may be the outcome of
organizational emergent dynamics, or may be the outcome of strategic
actions, enacted by external and internal lobbies, interest groups, power
alliances and the like. Or they may be the outcome of social and organi-
zational routines that facilitated managerial careers and key roles—for
example, for managers coming from elite universities and business
schools. This phenomenon may lead to the formation of familistic and/
or elitist networks. In any case, if this process affects knowledge-sharing
dynamics, it is likely that clusters and organizational spaces (Maimone,
2007) based on self-referential processes and exclusive relations will
emerge and become an obstacle for effective and truly inclusive (not only)
knowledge sharing. This phenomenon, furthermore, could encourage a
knowledge struggle for power and hegemony (Gramsci, 1998).
Sometimes, new ideas and knowledge are created by individuals and
teams who are at the margins of institutional/organizational contexts.
(Darwin and Einstein were outsiders with respect to the academic orga-
nization of their epoch.) Inter-cultural knowledge sharing, to be really
effective and inclusive, should theoretically give an opportunity to every-
one to have something interesting/useful to share—to join the party. It is
obviously not only a matter of sharing, but also of legitimating. In fact,
knowledge sharing is also influenced by language, culture and power.
According to Kuhn (1970), new theories and discoveries become ‘scien-
tific knowledge’ only when they are recognized, accepted and legitimated
by the scientific community. Very often, this also happens in the case of
organizational knowledge. The process of knowledge legitimation that
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs: Toward a Complex... 89
underlies the SECI model (Nonaka et al., 2005) may also be a political
and power-related process.
Network structuring is also influenced by cultural homophily.
According to Centola, Eguiluz, and San Miguel (2007, p. 925):
‘Homophily is the tendency of people with similar traits (including phys-
ical, cultural, and attitudinal characteristics) to interact with one another
more than with people with dissimilar traits.’
Brannen and Salk (2000), adopting the theoretical perspectives of
social identity and social categorization theories, suggested that race,
accent, and situational factors may favour in-group preferences in spite of
inter-cultural policies and initiatives. According to Golub and Jackson
(2011, p. 2), homophily also affects network dynamics: ‘Homophily pro-
duces a signature in the structure of a network: a pattern of thick
concentrations of links within groups of individuals who have shared
characteristics and sparser connections between such groups.’
Mollica, Gray, and Treviño (2003) conducted field research on a sam-
ple of MBA students in the USA. The results of this research showed that
race was positively related to homophily.
Empirical research conducted by Yuan and Gay (2006) on the effect of
(digital) social networking on a distance learning class of multi-ethnic
North American students showed that (Ib., p. 1079) ‘homophily in social
characteristics was more important than either racial or gender homoph-
ily in driving the formation of network ties’.
Ibarra, Kilduff, and Tsai (2005) suggested that ethnicity may strongly
influence the formation and functioning of network ties. In particular,
homophile ties may limit access to resources and information within and
across organizations (Ibarra, 1992). The figure below provides an exam-
ple of homophilic networks (see Fig. 4.5).
In this example of a Chinese-US joint project, C2 represents the US
employees cluster and C3 represents the Chinese employees cluster.
The figure shown above represents knowledge exchange networks based
on cultural identity. In the example described in the figure, C1 is a multi-
cultural cluster, composed of employees of different nationalities who col-
laborate in the same project. The hypothesis is that one US employee is
connected with a cluster of North American co-workers employed in other
projects. The weak tie that connects the US employee to his colleagues is
90 F. Maimone
C3
(monocultural)
C1
(multicultural) C2
(monocultural)
Notes
1. See V.A. Brief History of the Internet, retrieved on 15th February 2017:
http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/what-internet/history-internet/
brief-history-internet#Origins
2. See History of the Web, http://webfoundation.org/about/vision/
history-of-the-web/
3. Information retrieved on 8th February 2017 from the Mercedes-Benz
media site: http://media.daimler.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/
Cooperation-of-Swatch-and-Mercedes-Benz.xhtml?oid=9274445
References
Adachi, Y. (2011). An examination of the SECI model in Nonaka’s theory.
Yamanashi Glocal Studies, 5, 99–108.
Adamic, L. (1999). The small world web. Lecture Notes in Computer Science,
1696, 443–452.
Ailon, G., & Kunda, G. (2009). ‘The one-company approach’: Transnationalism
in an Israeli-Palestinian subsidiary of an MNC. Organization Studies, 30,
693.
Alvesson, M. (1993). Organizations as rhetoric: Knowledge-intensive firms and
the struggle with ambiguity. Journal of Management Studies, 30(6), 997–1015.
Augier, M., & Thanning Vendelø, M. (1999). Networks, cognition and man-
agement of tacit knowledge. Journal of Knowledge Management, 3(4),
252–261.
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs: Toward a Complex... 93
Dhanaraj, C., Lyles, M., Steensma, H. K., & Tihanyi, L. (2004). Managing tacit
and explicit knowledge transfer in IJVs: The role of relational embeddedness
and the impact on performance. Journal of International Business Studies, 35,
428–442.
Dunbar, R. L., & Garud, R. (2009). Distributed knowledge and indeterminate
meaning: The case of the Columbia shuttle flight. Organization Studies,
30(4), 397–421.
Eco, U. (1990). I limiti dell’interpretazione. Milan: Bompiani.
Eco, U. (2011). Lector in fabula: la cooperazione interpretativa nei testi narrativi.
Giunti.
Eriksson, K., Majkgård, A., & Deo Sharma, D. (1999). Service quality by rela-
tionships in the international market. Journal of Services Marketing, 13(4/5),
361–375.
Feld, S. (1981). The focused organization of social ties. American Journal of
Sociology, 86, 1015–1035.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.
Fitzgerald, R. & Findlay, J. (2011). Collaborative research tools: Using wikis
and team learning systems to collectively create new knowledge. In
S. Teoksessa Hesse-Biber (Ed.), The handbook of emergent technologies in social
research (pp. 300–319). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foss, N. J., & Pedersen, T. (2002). Transferring knowledge in MNCs: The role
of sources of subsidiary knowledge and organizational context. Journal of
International Management, 8(1), 49–67.
Gherardi, S. (2001). From organizational learning to practice-based knowing.
Human Relations, 54(1), 131–139.
Ghoshal, S., & Bartlett, C. A. (1990). The multinational corporation as an
interorganizational network. Academy of Management Review, 15(4),
603–626.
Giovannoni, S. (2015, January 24). The king of scents of Tuscany. Perfumes
of Tuscany, Wall Street International. Retrieved February 16, 2017, from
http://wsimag.com/wellness/12867-the-king-of-scents-of-tuscany
Glancey, J. (2013). The Vespa: How a motor scooter became stylish. BBC
Culture. Retrieved February 17, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/culture/
story/20131122-the-vespa-motoring-with-style
Glisby, M., & Holden, N. (2003). Contextual constraints in knowledge man-
agement theory: The cultural embeddedness of Nonaka’s knowledge-creating
company. Knowledge and Process Management, 10(1), 29–36.
Golub, B., & Jackson, M. (2011). Network structure and the speed of learning:
Measuring homophily based on its consequences. Annals of Economics and
Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing in MNCs: Toward a Complex... 95
5.1 T
oward an Integrated and Inclusive
Approach
As was addressed in the previous chapter, social networks are critical for
knowledge sharing—and not only in MNCs. They may facilitate the
interconnection among teams, units and subsidiaries and create connec-
tions among knowledge spaces. Therefore, the approach presented in this
chapter sets out to exploit the power of social networks to trigger and
facilitate (not only) inter-cultural knowledge sharing. Moreover, other
factors and dynamics are highlighted that may contribute to the enhance-
ment of inter-cultural knowledge sharing.
Cultural barriers and cultural homophily may negatively impact inter-
cultural knowledge sharing, transforming the networked global company,
as theorized by Ghoshal and Bartlett (1990), into some kind of ‘Balkan
organization’, comprised of a differentiated and (at least partially) discon-
nected set of groups, units, networks and subsidiaries.
Ineffective inter-cultural knowledge sharing may also foster the
emergence of organizational silos (Diamond, Stein, & Allcorn, 2002;
Maimone, 2007; Serrat, 2010) and semi-closed clusters (Maimone,
2005). Consequently, knowledge spaces may produce self-referential
The road map proposed in this chapter tries to go beyond routine (see
Grant, Spender, & Grant, 1996; March & Simon, 1958) and practice-
based perspectives (see Gherardi, 2001) in search of a more holistic and
evolutionary approach. As Grandori pointed out (in Grandori & Kogut,
2002, p. 226): ‘I think that there is growing agreement and shared interest
in exploring other and more far-reaching consequences of taking into
account knowledge and cognition, rather than just information and infor-
mation costs; and heuristic, theoretical, and paradigmatic knowledge,
rather than just routine-based knowledge in organizational analysis.’
According to the epistemological premises, the approach presented in
this chapter is not aimed to propose structural models and/or to provide
magic solutions for the development of inter-cultural knowledge sharing.
As Wenger (in Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) claimed, knowl-
edge spaces should be cultivated, not planned. It is not a job for knowl-
edge engineers—even though, obviously, engineers may play an important
role in this process—but for knowledge ‘farmers’.
From the perspective adopted in this book, knowledge management is
a paradoxical activity: if it does really work, the outcome of the process
should not be totally expected.
MNCs need to assure the diffusion and the effective application of
standardized knowledge, especially as far as technical knowledge is con-
cerned. Aviation systems, for instance, should work in a similar manner
everywhere in the world. Nonetheless, differences matter, even in the case
of technical knowledge.
Therefore, it is possible to assume that knowledge sharing is not only a
matter of knowledge transfer (Tsai, 2001) knowledge flows and absorptive
110 F. Maimone
Fig. 5.1 The circular relation between inter-cultural knowledge sharing and gen-
eral knowledge sharing processes
General Knowledge
Sharing Processes
Intercultural
Knowledge
Sharing
Fig. 5.2 The location of inter-cultural knowledge sharing within general knowl-
edge sharing processes
strategies but also a key element of the company that has a value beyond
the strategic position of the MNC. This knowledge is not a monad, iso-
lated from the rest of the world, but a dynamic product of the wider
knowledge eco-system. According to the theoretical perspective adopted
in this book, knowledge justification (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) should
not only take into account organizational values, strategies and goals, but
also social and environmental sustainability (UN, 2017).
Inclusivity arguably plays an important role in inter-cultural knowl-
edge sharing, since the meta-principle of mutual recognition (i.e. ‘recog-
nizing difference while looking for the common bond’) (Pless & Maak,
2004, p. 131) may also be considered a driver of inter-cultural exchange.
According to Pless and Maak, mutual recognition has three key elements:
emotional recognition, solidarity and legal and political recognition. This
approach integrates affective—relational, social and institutional—
dimensions and may provide a road map for setting the right precondi-
tions for inter-cultural knowledge sharing. Only if people perceive that
their identity is recognized and respected by their organization and co-
workers do they feel at home in their company, no matter what their own
culture and identity may be, and only where there is a climate of mutual
trust and engagement, can inter-cultural knowledge sharing—especially
as far as concerns tacit knowledge exchange—be enacted pervasively and
effectively.
5.1.4 T
he Inclusive and Integrated Approach to
Inter-Cultural Knowledge Sharing
5.2 S
etting the Stage for Knowledge
Sharing: The Development
of a Knowledge-Oriented Workplace
and a Knowledge Culture
As has already been pointed out, knowledge sharing may be nurtured and
facilitated through the development of organizational cultures and the
creation and facilitation of knowledge and network spaces. At the same
time, knowledge sharing, as stated by Nonaka and colleagues (see
Nonanka & Takeuchi, 1995), is enacted by people and therefore is mainly
General workplace
seng
The development of
Culture sensiviness and
intercultural digital
competences intelligence
The facilitaon of
knowledge sharing and Intercultural competence
translaon processes
The creaon of an
inclusive workplace
115
Mikulincer (1997) reported the results of five studies showing the rela-
tionship between two key elements of information processing—informa-
tion search and integration of new information within cognitive
structures—and attachment working models. The attachment working
model is a projection of the personal attachment model (generally refer-
ring to parental figures), developed in early childhood. Individuals who
received adequate parental care are seen to be more secure and therefore
less concerned about the risk of being abandoned by adults and, later on,
Toward an Integrated and Inclusive Approach to Inter-cultural... 117
more self-confident about their own adulthood and even their workplace.
This attitude should influence (Ib.) personal orientations toward the
knowing process. In other words, if individuals can establish a positive
relation with co-workers and develop a self-confident and stable attitude
toward the workplace, they should be more capable of coping with the
uncertainty, ambiguity and efforts associated with learning processes. The
greater the self-confidence individuals possess, the more able they should
be to acquire new knowledge, questioning their own cognitive schemes
and beliefs. These findings suggest that (see Cabrera & Cabrera, 2005)
leadership can play a critical role in supporting less self-confident employ-
ees and encouraging them to go beyond their comfort zone.
Moreover, a study conducted by Wei, Liu, and Francesco (2010)
showed that personal and social norms influence motivation to share
knowledge. Personal norms are associated with intrinsic motivation.
Social norms influence individual attitudes to knowledge sharing through
internalization, identification and conformity. Therefore this study indi-
cates that managers and employees should be encouraged to engage in
knowledge sharing activities, fostering a shift in personal values and
norms. Change management initiatives (see Maimone, Ravazzani, &
Mormino, 2011) and training and coaching programs (see Sofo, Yeo, &
Villafañe, 2010) may favour a shift in norms and values and the diffusion
of knowing-oriented practices.
A survey conducted by Cabrera, Collins, and Salgado (2006) revealed
that self-efficacy, openness to experience and perceived support from col-
leagues and supervisors are strongly correlated to participation
(self-reported) in knowledge sharing. Organizational commitment, job
autonomy, perception of the availability and quality of knowledge man-
agement systems, and perception of rewards associated with active knowl-
edge sharing are also correlated (Ib.), though less significantly correlated
with self-perceived active engagement in knowledge sharing processes.
These findings support the human-centric perspective of knowledge
management. Therefore, individual engagement in knowledge sharing
activities is facilitated by knowledge management infrastructures and
policies, but it may also be fostered by human resources management and
people management practices.
118 F. Maimone
5.3 T
he Development of (Inter-)cultural
Sensitivity and Intelligence
Inter-cultural exchange presumes the ability of the actors to recognize
and appreciate cultural differences and therefore requires inter-cultural
sensitivity, which (Hammer, Bennet, & Wiseman, 2003, p. 424) refers to
128 F. Maimone
5.4 T
he Development of Inter-Cultural
Competences
Inter-cultural knowledge sharing is, arguably, leveraged by the develop-
ment of inter-cultural competences, which refer to the set of knowledge
and skills that enables individuals to interact effectively within different
cultural contexts and/or with interlocutors of diverse cultures.
According to Nava (2017, p. 405): ‘Intercultural competence is con-
sidered a set of cognitive, affective and behavioural skills, involving also
interaction, language and knowledge skills. A person with intercultural
competence has the ability to communicate effectively and successfully in
intercultural situations based on his or her intercultural knowledge, abili-
ties and attitudes.’
Furthermore, according to Cannavale (2017, p. 132), inter-cultural
competences have an impact on ‘individuals’ inclination to knowledge
transfer and sharing, on the way individuals decide to share knowledge,
130 F. Maimone
5.5 T
he Creation of Knowledge-Friendly
Multi-cultural Teams, Organizational
Spaces and Networks
The theory of similarity/attraction (Williams & O’Reilly, 1998) assumes
that people prefer to work and interact with other people they find simi-
lar in terms of values, beliefs, and attitudes. Therefore, multi-cultural
Toward an Integrated and Inclusive Approach to Inter-cultural... 131
A balanced and ‘wise’ team composition that takes into account cul-
tural diversity should help knowledge sharing inside and outside the
team’s boundaries.
Moreover, Stahl et al. (2010) found that culturally diverse teams showed
more team satisfaction than mono-cultural teams. These findings are con-
vergent with the results of two case studies of international organizations
(Maimone, 2005): in both cases managers and key people affirmed that
working in a multi-cultural environment is a very satisfactory experience
and they prefer to be employed in a multi-cultural context rather than in
a mono-cultural organization. Arguably, if people are keener to work in a
multi-cultural team, this should facilitate intra-group knowledge sharing,
even though it is not the only factor impacting this process.
Furthermore, (Stahl et al., 2010) dispersed multi-cultural teams seem
to be less conflictual than co-located ones. These findings support the
hypothesis that dispersed teams, operating through digital media, could
effectively facilitate inter-cultural knowledge sharing. Team tenure (Ib.),
on the other hand, is associated with more conflict and less effective com-
munication. It is a counter-intuitive finding that would suggest focussing
attention on the management of multi-cultural teams that have been
operating for a long-time—and this could work for knowledge sharing.
Furthermore, Jang (2014), conducted experimental research on cul-
tural brokerage. The author (Ib.) found that members of multi-cultural
teams that have relatively more cross-cultural experience are more ori-
ented to active engagement in cultural brokerage, where it is possible to
divide cultural brokers into two broad categories:
(a) cultural insiders who have a deep knowledge of the cultures of the
other members of the team and are more likely to enact brokerage,
thereby directly resolving cultural issues
(b) cultural outsiders who have a deep knowledge of other cultures (out-
side the group) and are more likely to enact brokerage facilitating
interactions
argued in the previous chapter. Pless and Maak (2004, p. 130) affirmed
that inclusivity can be an attribute of a specific kind of culture defined as
‘inclusive culture’. According to the authors (Ib., p. 130): ‘When we talk
about a culture of inclusion we think about an organizational environ-
ment that allows people with multiple backgrounds, mindsets and ways
of thinking to work effectively together and to perform to their highest
potential in order to achieve organizational objectives based on sound
principles.’
Chavez and Weisinger (2008, p. 340) suggested that inclusive culture
is based on three key elements: (a) a relational culture that allows people
to ’feel proud of their own uniqueness and at the same time to become
socially integrated into a larger group by celebrating the “me” within the
“we”’; (b) a strong orientation toward social inclusion that incentivizes
organizational learning; and (c) multiple organizational strategies, that
facilitate the individual participation in creative organizational processes,
fostering the attractiveness of the workplace and the level of well-being.
These elements are critical for the development of a culture that encour-
ages diversity and inclusion at the same time.
Holzinger and Dhalla (2007, p. 7) pointed out that ‘An inclusive cul-
ture will allow organizations to benefit from the talents of a diverse work-
force and, hence, from multiple identities’ (Barbosa & Cabral-Cardoso,
2007).
Inclusive culture is based also on mutual recognition, respect and trust
(Pless & Maak, 2004).
Inclusive culture is the result of the joint effect of organizational design,
human resources and internal communication management, and people
management.
Third culture and inclusive culture may be considered as the two faces
of the same coin: one is focused on cognitive and functional elements;
the other one on culture, relation, organizational justice. Each one may
reinforce the other through a circular relation. If people work and col-
laborate together effectively, work processes may foster the creation of an
inter-cultural cooperative spirit and cohesion and, therefore, it is more
likely that diverse people are included in the organization, no matter
what their nationality, language and identity may be. On the other hand,
only if the workplace is inclusive is it possible to create a really c ooperative
Toward an Integrated and Inclusive Approach to Inter-cultural... 137
5.7 T
he Development of Cultural Competent
Leaders
Leadership plays an important role in inter-cultural knowledge sharing,
as underlined above. Culture-sensitive managers who are capable of
building social ties within and across organizational boundaries can play
a key role in facilitating knowledge interchange, translation and cross-
fertilization of knowledge, according to Holden (2002).
More generally, inclusive leaders are more able to facilitate perfor-
mance and team members’ engagement and therefore to nurture an
inclusive breeding ground—and not only for knowledge sharing. For
instance, according to Nishii and Mayer (2009, p. 1421): ‘The pattern of
inclusion that leaders create through the relationships that they develop
with their followers has a significant impact on the relationship between
diversity and turnover.’
Research (Huffaker, 2010) conducted on a sample of participants in
Google groups indicated that the leaders of online communities are more
likely to (a) be expansive and more likely to serve as brokers between
otherwise disconnected participants, and (b) demonstrate greater talk-
ativeness, linguistic diversity, assertiveness and affect.
Formal and informal leaders may play the role of inter-cultural knowl-
edge broker in MNCs, favouring inter-cultural exchange, participating in
digital interactions, and bridging different cultural groups. They may also
facilitate a digital-positive inter-cultural climate (Holden, 2002), enact-
ing and facilitating inter-cultural dialogue, diversity-oriented storytelling
and co-evolutionary processes, according to the complexity theory per-
spective adopted in this paper (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). For Boal and
138 F. Maimone
5.8 T
he Facilitation of Inter-Cultural
Knowledge Networking, Translation
and Transformation Processes
5.8.1 Nurturing Knowledge Sharing
that can bring their KS contributions into view should be a more effec-
tive mechanism to spread KS for that organization.’ The authors further
state (Ib., p. 228): ‘Since Chinese are more sensitive to others’ apprecia-
tion when seen as good contributors, the appropriate compliments to the
Chinese employees who actively engage in KS would reinforce their
favorable attitudes toward KS.’
The results of this study suggest a two-step strategy: (1) to provide dif-
ferent incentives to encourage members of diverse cultural groups to
actively engage in knowledge sharing processes, also offering different
narratives that may facilitate culturally embedded sense-making pro-
cesses, and (2) to facilitate self-reflective and meta-cognitive processes in
order to help members of different cultural groups to be more aware of
the mechanisms that influence knowledge sharing, within and outside
their own national group, and to facilitate the creation of a foundation
for the development of a shared inter-cultural framework.
Ford and Chan (2002, p. 7) applied Hofstede’s model (Hofstede &
Bond 1988, Hofstede 1991) to knowledge sharing and suggested that an
individualistic culture may find it more difficult to exchange knowledge,
respect collectivistic culture. High-power distance cultures may prefer top-
down knowledge sharing, while low-power distance cultures may privilege
task-related and content-related knowledge sharing and horizontal pro-
cesses. Masculinity-oriented cultures may show less propensity toward
knowledge sharing if individualistic attitudes and behaviours prevail. For
this reason, inter-cultural knowledge-sharing processes should take into
account cultural differences but also facilitate meta-learning and the shift
of mindsets and behavioural patterns in order to facilitate inter-cultural
exchange through the development of common meta-knowledge and
practices.
Field research conducted by Ibarra (1992) showed that men were more
likely to form homophilic ties across multiple networks, while women
showed differentiated network patterns, and manifested less propensity
for homophilic relations.
The findings of qualitative field research (Maimone, Mormino, &
Guccione, 2011) involving twenty managers and employees of the Italian
branch of a Chinese MNC supported this assumption. Also, in this case,
women turned out to be less oriented to homophilic relationships in
terms of gender and cultural interactions with men.
146 F. Maimone
References
Abrams, L. C., Cross, R., Lesser, E., & Levin, D. Z. (2003). Nurturing interper-
sonal trust in knowledge-sharing networks. The Academy of Management
Executive, 17(4), 64–77.
Adair, W. L., Tinsley, C. H., & Taylor, M. (2006). Managing the intercultural
interface: Third cultures, antecedents, and consequences. In E. A. Mannix,
M. A. Neale, & Y.-R. Chen (Eds.), National culture and groups (pp. 205–232).
Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Aguinis, H., Boyd, B. K., Pierce, C. A., & Short, J. C. (2011). Walking new
avenues in management research methods and theories: Bridging micro and
macro domains. Journal of Management, 37, 395–403.
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2012). A stupidity-based theory of organizations.
Journal of Management Studies, 49(7), 1194–1220.
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (Eds.). (2003). Studying management critically.
London: Sage.
Amado, G. (1995). Why psychoanalytical knowledge helps us understand organi-
zations; A discussion with Elliott Jaques. Human Relations, 48(4), 351–357.
Ang, S., Van Dyne, L., Koh, C., Ng, K. Y., Templer, K. J., Tay, C., et al. (2007).
Cultural intelligence: Its measurement and effects on cultural judgment and
decision making, cultural adaptation and task performance. Management and
Organization Review, 3(3), 335–371.
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action
perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Ashby, W. R. (1964). Principles of the self-organizing system. In H. von Foerster
& G. W. Zopf Jr. (Eds.), Principles of self-organization: Transactions of the
University of Illinois symposium (pp. 255–278). London: Pergamon Press.
Ashkanasy, N. M. (2003). Emotions in organizations: A multi-level perspective.
In F. Dansereau & F. J. Yammarino (Eds.), Multi-level issues in organizational
behavior and strategy (pp. 9–54). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Toward an Integrated and Inclusive Approach to Inter-cultural... 147
Ashkanasy, N. M., & Härtel, C. E. (2014). Positive and negative affective climate
and culture: The good, the bad and the ugly. In K. M. Barbera (Ed.), The
Oxford handbook of organizational climate and culture (pp. 136–152).
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Ashkanasy, N. M., Wilderom, C. P. M., & Peterson, M. F. (Eds.). (2000).
Handbook of organizational culture and climate (pp. 131–146). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ashmos, D. P., Duchon, D., McDaniel, R. R., Jr., & Huonker, J. W. (2002).
What a mess! Participation as a simple managerial rule to ‘complexify’ orga-
nizations. Journal of Management Studies, 39(2), 189–206.
Aspara, J., Lamberg, J. A., Laukia, A., & Tikkanen, H. (2011). Strategic man-
agement of business model transformation: Lessons from Nokia. Management
Decision, 49(4), 622–647.
Azmat, F., Fujimoto, Y., & Rentschler, R. (2014). Exploring cultural inclusion:
Perspectives from a community arts organisation. Australian Journal of
Management, 40(2), 375–396.
Bamberger, P. (2008). From the editors beyond contextualization: Using context
theories to narrow the micro-macro gap in management research. Academy of
Management Journal, 51(5), 839–846.
Bandura, A. (2002). Social cognitive theory in cultural context. Applied
Psychology, 51, 269–290.
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entan-
glement of matter and meaning. London: Duke University Press.
Barbosa, Í., & Cabral-Cardoso, C. (2007). Managing diversity in academic
organizations: A challenge to organizational culture. Women in Management
Review, 22(4), 274–288.
Bar-On, R. E., & Parker, J. D. (2000). The handbook of emotional intelligence:
Theory, development, assessment, and application at home, school, and in the
workplace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Barner-Rasmussen, W., & Björkman, I. (2007). Language fluency, socialization
and inter-unit relationships in Chinese and Finnish subsidiaries. Management
and Organization Review, 3(1), 105–128.
Bartlett, C. A., & Ghoshal, S. (1989). Managing across borders: The transnational
solution. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Bennet, A., Bennet, D., & Long Lee, S. (2010). Exploring the military contri-
bution to KBD through leadership and values. Journal of Knowledge
Management, 14(2), 314–330.
Bennett, M. J., & Bennett, J. M. (2004). Developing intercultural sensitivity:
An integrative approach to global and domestic diversity. In D. Landis, J. M.
148 F. Maimone
Chang, H. H., & Chuang, S. S. (2011). Social capital and individual motiva-
tions on knowledge sharing: Participant involvement as a moderator.
Information Management, 48(1), 9–18.
Chavez, C. I., & Weisinger, J. Y. (2008). Beyond diversity training: A social infu-
sion for cultural inclusion. Human Resource Management, 47(2), 331–350.
Chen, M. L., & Lin, C. P. (2013). Assessing the effects of cultural intelligence
on team knowledge sharing from a socio-cognitive perspective. Human
Resource Management, 52(5), 675–695.
Conway, M. A., & Bekerian, D. A. (1987). Situational knowledge and emo-
tions. Cognition and Emotion, 1(2), 145–191.
Cropanzano, R., & Dasborough, M. T. (2015). Dynamic models of well-being:
Implications of affective events theory for expanding current views on per-
sonality and climate. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,
24(6), 844–847.
De Bono, E. (2010). Lateral thinking: A textbook of creativity. London:
Penguin.
Diamond, M. A., Stein, H. F., & Allcorn, S. (2002). Organizational silos:
Horizontal organizational fragmentation. Journal for the Psychoanalysis of
Culture & Society, 7(2), 280–296.
Dierksmeier, C. (2011). Reorienting management education: From homo oeco-
nomicus to human dignity. In H. M. Network (Ed.), Business schools under
fire. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Collective ratio-
nality and institutional isomorphism in organizational fields. American
Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (Eds.). (1991). The new institutionalism in
organizational analysis (Vol. 17). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Earley, P. C., & Mosakowski, E. (2004). Cultural intelligence. Harvard Business
Review, 82(10), 139–146.
Eastwood, M. A. (2016). Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. QJM, hcw193.
Eco, U. (1990). I limiti dell’interpretazione. Milan: Bompiani.
Endicott, L., Bock, T., & Narvaez, D. (2003). Moral reasoning, intercultural
development, and multicultural experiences: Relations and cognitive under-
pinnings. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 27(4), 403–419.
Fayol, H. (1990). General principles of management. In D. S. Pugh (Ed.),
Organizational theory (3rd ed., pp. 179–181). New York: Penguin Books.
Feely, A. J., & Harzing, A. W. (2003). Language management in multinational
companies. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 10(2),
37–52.
150 F. Maimone
Holden, N. J., & Von Kortzfleisch, H. F. (2004). Why cross-cultural knowledge
transfer is a form of translation in more ways than you think. Knowledge and
Process Management, 11(2), 127–136.
Holste, J. S., & Fields, D. (2010). Trust and tacit knowledge sharing and use.
Journal of Knowledge Management, 14(1), 128–140.
Holzinger, I., & Dhalla, R. (2007). Multiple identities in organizations: The
effects of diversity on organizational identity. International Journal of Diversity
in Organisations, Communities & Nations, 7(5), 43–51.
Huffaker, D. (2010). Dimensions of leadership and social influence in online
communities. Human Communication Research, 36(4), 593–617.
Ibarra, H. (1992). Homophily and differential returns: Sex differences in net-
work structure and access in an advertising firm. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 37, 422–447.
Ismail Al-Alawi, A., Yousif Al-Marzooqi, N., & Fraidoon Mohammed, Y.
(2007). Organizational culture and knowledge sharing: Critical success fac-
tors. Journal of Knowledge Management, 11(2), 22–42.
James, L. R., & Jones, A. P. (1974). Organizational climate: A review of theory
and research. Psychological Bulletin, 81(12), 1096.
Jang, S. (2014). Bringing worlds together: Cultural brokerage in multicultural
teams. Doctoral dissertation.
Jansink, F., Kwakman, K., & Streumer, J. (2005). The knowledge-productive
corporate university. Journal of European Industrial Training, 29(1), 40–57.
Jaques, E. (1955). Social systems as a defence against persecutory and depressive
anxiety. In M. Klein, P. Heimann, & R. Money-Kyrle (Eds.), New directions
in psychoanalysis (pp. 478–498). London: Tavistock Publications.
Johns, G. (2006). The essential impact of context on organizational behavior.
Academy of Management Review, 31(2), 386–408.
Jung, C. G., Shamdasani, S., & Hull, R. F. C. (2010). Synchronicity: An acausal
connecting principle (From Vol. 8. of the Collected Works of CG Jung, New
in Paper). Princeton University Press.
Kofman, F., & Senge, P. M. (1993). Communities of commitment: The heart of
learning organizations. Organizational Dynamics, 22(2), 5–23.
Kriemadis, T., Pelagidis, T., & Kartakoullis, N. (2012). The role of organizational
culture in Greek businesses. EuroMed Journal of Business, 7(2), 129–141.
Lee, A. S. (1991). Integrating positivist and interpretive approaches to organiza-
tional research. Organization Science, 2(4), 342–365.
Lee, Y. T., Masuda, A., Fu, X., & Reiche, B. S. (2017). Navigating between
home, host, and global: Consequences of multicultural team members’ iden-
tity configurations. Academy of Management Discoveries, amd-2016.
152 F. Maimone
Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2015). Exploring material-discursive prac-
tices. Journal of Management Studies, 52(5), 697–705.
Phillips, N., Lawrence, T. B., & Hardy, C. (2000). Inter-organizational collabo-
ration and the dynamics of institutional fields. Journal of Management Studies,
37, 23–45.
Pirson, M., & Von Kimakowitz, E. (2014). Towards a human-centered theory
and practice of the firm: Presenting the humanistic paradigm of business and
management. Journal of Management for Global Sustainability, 2(1), 17–48.
Pless, N., & Maak, T. (2004). Building an inclusive diversity culture: Principles,
processes and practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 54(2), 129–147.
Pliopaitė, I., & Radzevičienė, A. (2010). Intercultural competence development
in the banking sector. Science-Future of Lithuania, 2(2), 75–82.
Podsakoff, P. M., & Dalton, D. R. (1987). Research methodology in organiza-
tional studies. Journal of Management, 13(2), 419–441.
Reinholt, M. I. A., Pedersen, T., & Foss, N. J. (2011). Why a central network
position isn’t enough: The role of motivation and ability for knowledge sharing
in employee networks. Academy of Management Journal, 54(6), 1277–1297.
Riege, A. (2005). Three-dozen knowledge-sharing barriers managers must con-
sider. Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(3), 18–35.
Ritter, T., & Gemünden, H. G. (2003). Network competence: Its impact on inno-
vation success and its antecedents. Journal of Business Research, 56(9), 745–755.
Rivera-Vazquez, J. C., Ortiz-Fournier, L. V., & Rogelio Flores, F. (2009).
Overcoming cultural barriers for innovation and knowledge sharing. Journal
of Knowledge Management, 13(5), 257–270.
Ropo, A., & Parviainen, J. (2001). Leadership and bodily knowledge in expert
organizations: Epistemological rethinking. Scandinavian Journal of
Management, 17(1), 1–18.
Rullani, E. (1994). Il valore della conoscenza. Economia e politica industriale.
Rullani, E. (2006). Economia della conoscenza: creatività e valore nel capital-
ismo delle reti. Carocci.
Sacco, P. L., Vanin, P., & Zamagni, S. (2006). The economics of human relation-
ships. In S.-C. Kolm & J. M. Ythier (Eds.), Handbook of the economics of giving,
altruism and reciprocity. (Vol. 1, pp. 695–730). London: Elsevier.
Sammarra, A., Profili, S., Maimone, F., & Gabrielli, G. (2017). Enhancing
knowledge sharing in age diverse organisations: The role of HRM practices, in age
diversity in the workplace: An organizational perspective. Emerald Publishing.
Scharmer, C. O. (2007). Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges—The
social technology of presencing. Cambridge: Society of Organizational Learning.
Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership: A dynamic view. San
Francisco: Iossey-Bass.
Toward an Integrated and Inclusive Approach to Inter-cultural... 155
Tung, R. L. (2008). The cross-cultural research imperative: The need to balance
cross-national and intra-national diversity. Journal of International Business
Studies, 39(1), 41–46.
United Nations. (2017). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustain-
able development. Retrieved February 2, 2017, from https://sustainablede-
velopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld
Van Maanen, J. (1979). Reclaiming qualitative methods for organizational
research: A preface. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(4), 520–526.
Von Bertalanffy, L. (1972). The history and status of general systems theory.
Academy of Management Journal, 15(4), 407–426.
Von Kimakowitz, E., Pirson, M., Spitzeck, H., Dierksmeier, C., & Amann, W.
(Eds.). (2010). Humanistic management in practice. Springer.
Von Krogh, G. (1998). Care in knowledge creation. California Management
Review, 40(3), 133–153.
Vuori, T. O., & Huy, Q. N. (2016). Distributed attention and shared emotions
in the innovation process: How Nokia lost the smartphone battle.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(1), 9–51.
Wallis, S. E. (2011). Avoiding policy failure: A workable approach. Litchfield Park,
AZ: Emergent Publications.
Wei, J., Liu, L., & Francesco, C. A. (2010). A cognitive model of intra-
organizational knowledge-sharing motivations in the view of cross-culture.
International Journal of Information Management, 30, 220–230.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities
of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business Press.
Wigner, E. P. (1960). The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the nat-
ural sciences. Richard courant lecture in mathematical sciences delivered at
New York University, May 11, 1959. Communications on Pure and Applied
Mathematics, 13(1), 1–14.
Williams, K. Y., & O’Reilly, C. A., III. (1998). Demography and diversity in
organizations: A review of 40 years of research. In B. M. Staw & L. L.
Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 20, pp. 77–140).
Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Willmott, H. (Ed.). (1992). Critical management studies. London: Sage.
Wolfram, S. (1985). Complex systems theory. Princeton: The Institute for
Advanced Study.
Zakaria, N., Amelinckx, A., & Wilemon, D. (2004). Working together apart?
Building a knowledge-sharing culture for global virtual teams. Creativity and
Innovation Management, 13(1), 15–29.
6
An Integrated Approach to Facilitate
Knowledge Sharing Among and Beyond
Cultural Barriers, Using Social Media
argued that the social media may foster knowledge sharing only if they
are effectively designed, managed and used—and not only in multi-
cultural workplaces.
• Social interactions
• Experience sharing
• Informal relationships and social networking
• Observation and listening
• Swift trust (a special form of trust that may emerge in temporary teams
in online environments)
Tacit knowledge may also be shared through storytelling (see Sole &
Wilson, 2002). Stories are a powerful tool whereby to exchange experi-
ences and tacit knowledge. Narratives contribute to a cognitive, symbolic
and value-based framework, that makes it possible to include a specific
piece of knowledge in the general picture of overall knowledge and the
cultural system. As Wenger argued,1 communities of practices were prob-
ably born in the prehistoric age: After a long hard hunt, our ancestors
used to sit in front of the fire and tell stories. Storytelling, in fact, is asso-
ciated with oral communication and memories (see Tobin & Snyman,
2008). When prehistoric men learned to paint pictograms, storytelling
became visual.
Stories are culture bound and therefore cross-cultural and inter-cultural
issues should be considered, in storytelling (see Boje, Svane, & Gergerich,
2016).
Chatti, Jarke, and Frosch-Wilke (2007) proposed a map that matched
the SECI model phases (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) with knowledge
sharing and digital learning tools. The map proposed by the authors (Ib.)
indicated which tools were suitable to support each of the four SECI
phases ((Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995):
•Socialization •Externalization
(tacit - to - tacit) Blogs
(tacit - to -
E-collaboration tools Wikis explicit)
Social learning tools On line Forums
Digital Communities Istant messanging
F. Maimone
Fig. 6.1 Mapping of Web 2.0 tools for different phases of knowledge combination (Source: adapted from Chatti, 2007)
An Integrated Approach to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing... 163
Masters forums play a central role. They aim at sharing best prac-
tices and lessons learned, cultivating a community of practices, build-
ing cross-centre relationships, facilitating the realization of the ‘one
NASA’ vision, developing the leadership expertise of senior and junior
NASA project managers, creating a dialogue and facilitating network
building with influential leaders from government agencies, universi-
ties, and private industry. According to the Agency: ‘Consistent
throughout all Masters Forums is the belief in the power of storytell-
ing. Stories engage and motivate. They illuminate subtle and contrast-
ing points of view that otherwise might be missed. They provide a
framework to deal with extraordinary change, allowing us to imagine
new possibilities, preparing us for the supposedly unheard of and
unimaginable. Through storytelling we communicate our expectations
and expand the boundaries of the possible. Stories broaden our per-
spective, allowing us to see with the tellers’ eyes. Through stories, we
can convey knowledge that helps us innovate, problem-solve, and add
valuable tools to the toolboxes of project management and engineering
professionals.’ Moreover, digital content, e-learning courses and digi-
tal tools are used to facilitate knowledge sharing through the APPEL
networks.
164 F. Maimone
6.3 C
ultural Differences, Digital Interaction
and Knowledge Sharing
Even though Web 2.0 was a real revolution that changed the way we live,
communicate, share information and knowledge, work and learn, cul-
tural differences were not erased by the ascent of the digital society. As
mentioned in the previous chapters, we are living in a glocal world
(Robertson, 1992): global and local processes are entrenched in a com-
plex and intricate texture.
Chen (2012) highlighted the differences between low-context and
high-context cultures (Hall, 1976) in e-communication. As was illus-
trated in the previous chapter, the model elaborated by Hall (Ib.) made a
distinction between low-context culture, shared by Northern European
and Anglo-Saxon peoples, and high-context culture, characterizing the
Mediterranean and Asian peoples. Obviously, the theory should be inter-
preted cum grano salis, since, as many authors have pointed out, geo-
graphical and national borders do not necessarily correspond to cultural
boundaries and contemporary societies are a cultural patchwork.
An Integrated Approach to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing... 165
6.4 T
he Role of Digital Media in Improving
Inter-cultural Competences and Practices
Elola and Oskoz (2009) found that blogging might have a positive effect
on the development of inter-cultural relationships and inter-cultural
competence in the context of foreign language and study abroad. McEwan
and Sobre-Denton (2011) believe that computer-mediated communica-
tion may contribute to the development of virtual cosmopolitanism and
virtual third cultures (Casmir, 1999).
It is possible to affirm that in certain conditions Web 2.0 might foster
a change of attitudes, values and competences in terms of cultural aware-
ness and inter-cultural communication.
According to Thorne, Black, and Sykes (2009), virtual environments,
such as online game communities for foreign language learners, may fos-
ter linguistic and meta-linguistic learning and the development of com-
municative practices. Bridging practices play a positive role in the
process.
Lee (2012) reported the findings of an online survey of foreign lan-
guage learners who used blogs to communicate. According to these
findings, digital communication fostered the increase of cultural aware-
ness, the shift from ethnocentrism to ethno-relativism (Bennett, 1993).
The results of that survey were convergent with the findings of a study
carried out by Wang and Vasquez (2012) on the use of Web 2.0 tech-
nologies for foreign language learning: The authors (Ib.) found that the
utilization of digital media may contribute to a rise in the level of cul-
tural awareness.
168 F. Maimone
6.6 T
he Ad Hoc Design and Management
of Corporate Social Media
6.6.1 T
he Role of Digital Media in the Development
of Inter-cultural Knowledge Sharing Processes
to share not only their opinions and knowledge, but also their personal
skills and behaviors, and innovative work practices. This enables the cre-
ation of a common ground, the so-called third culture, creating a bridge
between cultural differences and facilitating inter-cultural knowledge
sharing.
Fujimoto, Bahfen, Fermelis and Hartel (2007) assumed that an effec-
tive strategy to enhance the level of inter-cultural exchange in virtual
exchanges is to take into account the differences between high-
contextualization and low-contextualization cultures (Hall, 1976).
According to the authors, the combination of individualistic/collectivis-
tic practices may facilitate the convergence and integration of low-context
and high-context users in a business context.
6.6.2 H
ow to Design and Manage Corporate Social
Media
(a) Audit: This is designed to gather, elaborate and interpret data (quan-
titative, qualitative and mixed research methodologies) in order to
analyse the context, map out tools and initiatives that have been
already implemented, and gather the demands, expectations and
needs of top managers, middle managers and employees, organiza-
tional functions, foreign subsidiaries, different national and ethnic
groups, and various stakeholders. Social network analysis (Cross,
Parker, Prusak, & Borgatti, 2001; Cross, Parker, & Borgatti, 2002)
and online tracking may provide a powerful insight into the hidden
fabric of knowledge sharing. Nevertheless, it is necessary to find a
wise balance between the completeness of the analysis, the respect for
people’s privacy and the confidentiality of information and the finan-
cial sustainability of the investigation.
(b) Design of platform and tools: This includes the choice of digital solu-
tions and the adaptation of platforms and tools to meet the expecta-
tions, demands and needs of different targets involved in the
project—and also in cultural terms.
(c) Planning of activities and communication strategies: The implementa-
tion of corporate social media encompasses the communication
strategy aimed at fostering the kick-off of the project, obtaining the
sponsorship of top management, and the engagement of organiza-
tional key roles: stakeholders, members and more influential mem-
bers of different national and ethnic groups. And social media
facilitate the coordination and entanglement of online and offline
activities. The launch of the corporate social tool may be associated
with specific activities: storytelling, project work, gamification,
knowledge contests, and the like.
(d) Tutoring role design and staffing: The development of the project also
encompasses the design of tutoring and animation roles and the
An Integrated Approach to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing... 177
Planning of activities
Design of platforms
Audit and communication
and tools
strategies
Project monitoring
Project Tutoring roles design
and continuous
implementation and staffing
improving
possess all the qualities listed above. The final composition of the support
team that will be called upon to co-operate with company experts, pro-
fessionals and managers depends on the characteristics and needs of the
company and its staff.
Participants could also play the role of digital facilitators, contributing
to the kick-off of the project, promoting the project to their professional
and personal contacts, providing feedback to the project management,
facilitating knowledge translation and transformation and facilitating the
cross-fertilization of new/adapted knowledge produced by knowledge
sharing, hybridization and re-elaboration processes. They can also con-
tribute to the development of a culture of knowledge and inter-cultural
practices and facilitate the construction of a common framework and a
shared meta-narrative, the diffusion of organizational stories, the enhance-
ment of the level of organizational interconnection among various teams,
units, clusters and small worlds. They can also counter the tendency to
develop homophilic relations and create organizational silos, and they
can facilitate organizational synchronization.
6.7 T
he Development of Inter-cultural Digital
Competencies
According to the European Commission and Council (Alan-Mutka,
2011, p. 6): ‘Digital competence involves the confident and critical use
of Information Society Technology (IST) for work, leisure and com-
munication. It is underpinned by basic skills in ICT: the use of com-
puters to retrieve, assess, store, produce, present and exchange
information, and to communicate and participate in collaborative net-
works via the Internet.’
According to Ferrari (2012), digital competences encompass the fol-
lowing dimensions:
1. Information
2. Communication
3. Content creation
180 F. Maimone
4. Security
5. Problem-solving
1 . Instrumental knowledge and skills for digital tool and media usage
2. Advanced skills and knowledge for communication and collaboration,
information management, learning and problem solving, and mean-
ingful participation
3. Attitudes to strategic skills usage in inter-cultural, critical, creative,
responsible and autonomous ways
6.8 Conclusion
It is assumed that an integrated, inclusive and human-centric approach to
inter-cultural knowledge sharing is needed in order to foster the effective-
ness of knowledge exchange and to create a better workplace.
Inter-cultural knowledge sharing is not only a matter of scientific and
technical knowledge, but also a matter of epistemological, conceptual
and practical views. Moreover, there is an ethical stance underpinning the
theoretical and practical issues. Inter-cultural knowledge sharing should
contribute to creating a fairer and more inclusive workplace. It is sug-
gested that a humanistic perspective may help MNCs to become a better
knowledge space.
Informal personal networks may facilitate the circulation of informa-
tion and knowledge within and between organizational boundaries,
bridging the knowledge and competence gaps among teams, business
units and different branches of trans-national companies. At the same
time, social networks may become an obstacle for cross-fertilization and
knowledge sharing processes, especially if personal bonds generate closed
and/or mono-cultural networks.
The previous chapters have provided a road map to improve the effec-
tiveness and inclusiveness (not only) of MNCs. The organizational strate-
gies proposed are glocal to meet the contemporary tendency of business
dynamics to follow glocal patterns.
The approach proposed in this book is based on conscious wise man-
agement of teams, business units, organizational spaces and informal net-
works. It also assumed that to match external diversity, glocal MNCs
should create a complex and highly diversified web of connections and
relations, which should play the role of intelligent interface and organiza-
tional attractor—and not only for inter-cultural knowledge sharing.
This approach attributes a critical role to the development of inter-
cultural competences and social interactions, also through the design
182 F. Maimone
Notes
1. E. Wenger, presentation delivered at the seminar ‘Cultivating Communities
of Practices’, Regione Umbria, Perugia, Italy, 2005.
2. Eni, ‘Knowledge Management System’, retrieved on 15th February 2017
from: https://www.eni.com/en_IT/innovation/our-skills/knowledge-
management-system.page
3. NASA, APPEL, ‘Knowledge Sharing’, retrieved on 15th February 2017,
from: https://appel.nasa.gov/knowledge-sharing/
An Integrated Approach to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing... 183
References
Ala-Mutka, K. (2011). Mapping digital competence: Towards a conceptual under-
standing. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Retrieved
15, 2017, from http://www.jrc.ec.europa.eu
Aral, S., Dellarocas, C., & Godes, D. (2013). Introduction to the special issue—
Social media and business transformation: A framework for research.
Information Systems Research, 24(1), 3–13.
Asaro, P. M. (2000). Transforming society by transforming technology: The sci-
ence and politics of participatory design. Accounting, Management and
Information Technologies, 10(4), 257–290.
Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall.
Barnes-Mauthe, M., Arita, S., Allen, S. D., Gray, S. A., & Leung, P. (2013). The
influence of ethnic diversity on social network structure in a common-pool
resource system: Implications for collaborative management. Ecology and
Society, 18(1), 23.
Bate, P., & Robert, G. (2007). Toward more user-centric OD: Lessons from the
field of experience-based design and a case study. Journal of Applied Behavioral
Science, 43, 41–66.
Bennett, M. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A development model of inter-
cultural sensitivity. In M. Paige (Ed.), Education for the inter-cultural experi-
ence (pp. 21–71). Yarmouth, ME: Inter-cultural Press.
Boje, D. M., Svane, M., & Gergerich, E. M. (2016). Counternarrative and ante-
narrative inquiry in two cross-cultural contexts. European Journal of Cross-
Cultural Competence and Management, 4(1), 55–84.
Buchmüller, S., Joost, G., Bessing, N., & Stein, S. (2011). Bridging the gender
and generation gap by ICT applying a participatory design process. Personal
and Ubiquitous Computing, 15(7), 743–758.
Byrne, E., & Sahay, S. (2007). Participatory design for social development: A
South African case study on community-based health information systems.
Information Technology for Development, 13(1), 71–94.
Carroll, J. M., & Rosson, M. B. (2007). Participatory design in community
informatics. Design Studies, 28(3), 243–261.
Casmir, F. L. (1999, January). Foundations for the study of inter-cultural com-
munication based on a third-culture model. Inter-cultural Relations, 23(1),
91–116.
Chatti, M. A., Jarke, M., & Frosch-Wilke, D. (2007). The future of e-learning:
A shift to knowledge networking and social software. International Journal of
Knowledge and Learning, 3(4–5), 404–420.
184 F. Maimone
Fujimoto, Y., Bahfen, N., Fermelis, J., & Hartel, C. E. J. (2007). The global
village: Online cross-cultural communication and HRM. Cross Cultural
Management: An International Journal, 14(1), 7–22.
Gibbs, J. L., Rozaidi, N. A., & Eisenberg, J. (2013). Overcoming the “ideology
of openness”: Probing the affordances of social media for organizational knowl-
edge sharing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 102–120.
Golub, B., & Jackson, M. (2011). Network structure and the speed of learning:
Measuring homophily based on its consequences, annals of economics and
statistics, forthcoming. Retrived from http://stanford.edu/˜bgolub/papers/
DWH.pdf
Hagen, P., & Robertson, T. (2009, November). Dissolving boundaries: Social
technologies and participation in design. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual
Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest
Group: Design: Open 24/7 (pp. 129–136). ACM.
Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Hatchuel, A., Lemasson, P., & Weil, B. (2006). Building innovation capabilities:
The development of design-oriented organizations. In J. Hage & M. Meeus
(Eds.), Innovation, science and industrial change: The handbook of research
(pp. 294–312). London: Oxford Press.
Hemp, P. (2009). Death by information overload. Harvard Business Review,
87(9), 83–89.
Hinds, P. J., & Mortensen, M. (2005). Understanding conflict in geographically
distributed teams: The moderating effects of shared identity, shared context,
and spontaneous communication. Organization Science, 16, 290–307.
Jarvenpaa, S. L., Knoll, K., & Leidner, D. (1998). Is anybody out there?
Antecedents of trust in global virtual teams. Journal of Management
Information Systems, 14(4), 29–64.
Johnson, M., & Hyysalo, S. (2012, August). Lessons for participatory designers
of social media: Long-term user involvement strategies in industry. In
Proceedings of the 12th Participatory Design Conference: Research Papers—
Volume 1 (pp. 71–80). ACM.
Jung, C. G. (1964). Man and his symbol. New York: Dell.
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The chal-
lenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68.
Kauppila, O. P., Rajala, R., & Jyrämä, A. (2011). Knowledge sharing through
virtual teams across borders and boundaries. Management Learning, 42(4),
395–418.
Kautz, K. (2011). Investigating the design process: Participatory design in agile
software development. Information Technology & People, 24(3), 217–235.
186 F. Maimone
Kensing, F., & Blomberg, J. (1998). Participatory design: Issues and concerns.
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 7(3/4), 167–185.
Kim, Y., Sohn, D., & Choi, S. M. (2011). Cultural difference in motivations for
using social network sites: A comparative study of American and Korean col-
lege students. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(1), 365–372.
Lai, I. L. A. (2005). Knowledge management for Chinese medicines: A concep-
tual model. Information Management & Computer Security, 13, 244–255.
Lee, L. (2012). Engaging study abroad students in intercultural learning through
blogging and ethnographic interviews. Foreign Language Annals, 45(1), 7–21.
Lévy, P. (2010). From social computing to reflexive collective intelligence: The
IEML research program. Information Sciences, 180(1), 71–94.
Light, A., Kleine, D., & Vivent, M. (2010). Performing Charlotte: A technique
to bridge cultures in participatory design. International Journal of
Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development (IJSKD), 2(1), 36–58.
Lin, J. H., Peng, W., Kim, M., Kim, S. Y., & LaRose, R. (2012). Social network-
ing and adjustments among international students. New Media & Society,
14(3), 421–440.
London, M., & Hall, M. J. (2011). Unlocking the value of Web 2.0 technolo-
gies for training and development: The shift from instructor-controlled,
adaptive learning to learner-driven, generative learning. Human Resource
Management, 50(6), 757–775.
Maimone, F. (2007). Dalla rete al silos. Dalla rete al silos. Modelli e strumenti per
comunicare egestire la conoscenza nelle organizzazioni “flessibili”. Milan: Franco
Angeli.
Maimone, F. (2010). La comunicazione organizzativa: comunicazione, relazioni e
comportamenti organizzativi nelle imprese, nella PA e nel no profit. Milan:
Franco Angeli.
Malhotra, A., Majchrzek, A., & Rosen, B. (2007). Leading virtual teams.
Academy of Management Perspective, 21(1), 60–70.
Marwick, A. D. (2001). Knowledge management technology. IBM Systems
Journal, 40, 814–830.
McEwan, B., & Sobre-Denton, M. (2011). Virtual cosmopolitanism:
Constructing third cultures and transmitting social and cultural capital
through social media. Journal of International and Inter-cultural
Communication, 4(4), 252–258.
Mohrman, S. A. (2007). Having relevance and impact: The benefits of integrat-
ing the perspectives of design science and organizational development.
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 43, 12–24.
An Integrated Approach to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing... 187
NASA. (2017). APPEL, knowledge sharing. Retrieved February 15, 2017, from
https://appel.nasa.gov/knowledge-sharing/
Newman, L. L., & Newman, D. A. (2005). Network structure, diversity, and
proactive resilience building: A response to Tompkins and Adger. Ecology and
Society, 10(1), r2.
Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company, how
Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford
University Press.
O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0? Design patterns and business models for
the next generation of software. Retrieved February 15, 2017, from http://
www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.
html
Oertig, M., & Buegri, T. (2006). The challenges of managing cross-cultural vir-
tual project teams. Team Performance Management, 12(1-2), 23–30.
Orlikowski, W. J. (2002). Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability
in distributed organizing. Organization Science, 13(3), 249–273.
Panahi, S., Watson, J., & Partridge, H. (2012) Social media and tacit knowledge
sharing: Developing a conceptual model. In World Academy of Science,
Engineering and Technology (pp. 1095–1102). Paris, France: World Academy
of Science, Engineering and Technology (WASET).
Pascal, A., Thomas, C., & Romme, A. G. L. (2013). Developing a human-
centred and science-based approach to design: The knowledge management
platform project. British Journal of Management, 24(2), 264–280.
Pawson, R. (2006). Evidence-based policy: A realist perspective. London: Sage.
Peters, L. M., & Manz, C. C. (2007). Identifying antecedents of virtual team
collaboration. Team Performance Management, 13(3/4), 117–129.
Phua, J., & Jin, S. A. A. (2011). ‘Finding a home away from home’: The use of
social networking sites by Asia-Pacific students in the United States for bridg-
ing and bonding social capital. Asian Journal of Communication, 21(5),
504–519.
Plsek, P., Bibby, J., & Whitby, E. (2007). Practical methods for extracting
explicit design rules grounded in the experience of organizational managers.
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 43, 153–170.
Prop, V. (1982). The morphology of fairy tales. Belgrade, Serbia: Prosveta.
Ray, D. (2014). Overcoming cross-cultural barriers to knowledge management
using social media. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 27(1),
45–55.
Rheingold, H. (1993). The virtual community: Finding connection in a computer-
ized world. Chicago, IL: Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co, Inc.
188 F. Maimone
Van Aken, J. E. (2004). Management research on the basis of the design para-
digm: The quest for field-tested and grounded technological rules. Journal of
Management Studies, 4, 219–246.
Vogel, D. R., Van Genuchten, M., Lou, D., Verveen, S., Van Eekout, M., &
Adams, A. (2001). Exploratory research on the role of national and profes-
sional cultures in a distributed learning project. IEEE Transactions on
Professional Communication, 44, 114–125.
Wahlroos J. K. (2010). Social media as a form of organizational knowledge shar-
ing: A case study on employee participation at Wärtsilä. Master, Department
of Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki,
Helsinki.
Wang, S., & Vasquez, C. (2012). Web 2.0 and second language learning: What
does the research tell us? CALICO Journal, 29(3), 412–430.
Wei, K. (2007). Sharing knowledge in global virtual teams. In K. Crowston,
S. Sieber, & E. Wynn (Eds.), Virtuality and virtualization (pp. 251–265).
Boston, MA: Springer.
Wilson, J. H., Guinan, P. J., Parise, P., & Weinberg, B. (2011). What’s your
social media strategy. Harvard Business Review, 89(7/8), 23–25.
Yoo, S. J., & Huang, W.-H. D. (2011). Comparison of Web 2.0 technology
acceptance level based on cultural differences. Educational Technology &
Society, 14(4), 241–252.
Index
E H
Economic development, 3 High-contextualization cultures, 172
Education, 3, 6, 107, 116, 119, 123, Hofstede’s model, 25, 29
134, 142, 170 Homophilic relations, 77, 145, 179
Embedded knowledge, 49 Horizontal approach to the
Embodied knowledge, 49 management of Web 2.0 tools,
Embrained knowledge, 48 173
Emic perspective, 11, 30, 131 Human behaviour, 42, 74, 125
Emotional display, 133 Human intelligence, 38, 70
Empathy, 121, 134 Human resources management
Encoded knowledge, 49 (HRM), 117, 119, 133, 136,
Encultured knowledge, 49 144, 172, 175, 177
Ethnic diversity, 110 Human resources practices, 119
Etic perspective, 11 Human resources strategies, 119
Index
193
J L
Judgement, 42, 43, 50, 73, 74, 122 Language diversity, 143
Justified true belief, 39, 46 Lave, J., 45
Law of requisite variety, 11, 116, 121
Leadership, 27, 40, 76, 107, 117,
K 133, 137, 138, 140, 145, 163,
Knowledge, 37, 64, 104, 157 170, 178
Knowledge age, 1–6, 64 Linguistic competences, 143
Knowledge articulation, 80 Low-contextualization cultures, 172
194 Index
N P
National cultures, 22, 29, 138, 140 Participative competence, 144
Network position, 110, 119 Participatory design, 173–175
Network society, 53 Particularistic cultures, 56
Neurosciences, 42, 43, 74 People management, 117, 119, 136
Person centric approach, 104
Philosophy, 2, 3, 38, 55, 67, 116,
O 159
Organizational ambiguity, 116 Phronesis, 50, 106
Organizational attractor, 181 Post-modern organization, 75
Organizational climate, 105, 107, Practice-based perspectives, 109
108, 119 Proxemics, 133
Organizational communication, 119,
133
Organizational connectivity, 123, R
124 Reflexivity, 120, 144, 173
Organizational culture, 17–23, 27, Resource-based view, 66
50, 56, 105, 112, 114, 120, Reverse mentoring, 180, 181
158, 170 Rituals, 18, 28, 48, 49, 65, 133
Index
195