Knowledge-sharing and social interaction within MNEs

Noorderhaven, Niels; Harzing, Anne‐Wil

doi:10.1057/jibs.2008.106

Cited by 327 publications

(260 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…Fundamentally, knowledge flows depend on human interactions and people"s abilities to transfer knowledge Argote, Ingram, Levine, & Moreland, 2000;Argote, McEvily, & Reagans, 2003;Noorderhaven & Harzing, 2009): it is not units as such that exchange knowledge, but individuals within those units. Previous studies that examined MNC knowledge flows from the perspective of the individual focused for example on expatriates (Bonache & Zárraga-Oberty, 2008;Crowne, 2009;Engelhard & Nägele, 2003;Hocking, Brown, & Harzing, 2004, 2007Lazarova & Tarique, 2005), knowledge workers (Sunaoshi, Kotabe, & Murray, 2005) or general knowledge sourcing efforts within MNCs (Teigland & Wasko, 2009).…”

Section: Mnc Knowledge Flows At the Individual-level: The Central Rolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subsidiary managers’ knowledge mobilizations: Unpacking emergent knowledge flows

Tippmann

Scott²,

Mangematin

2014

Journal of World Business

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Knowledge flows are a key source of advantage for multinational corporations (MNCs). As research on subsidiary knowledge flows to date has mostly focused on organization-level investigations, often using quantitative methodologies, the nuances of knowledge flows practices and their micro-foundations require further theoretical development. Using detailed qualitative data on 40 cases of subsidiary managers" knowledge mobilizations, this paper unravels some of the micro-level practices of knowledge mobilizationsin MNCs. We find that subsidiary manager"s knowledge mobilization practices initiate a complex pattern of subsidiary knowledge inflows, pinpointing the significance of lateral and bottom up exchanges (locally as well as internationally)and the emergent nature of utilizing practices, specialist skills and expertise, as well as experience and advice to develop solutions. We use these insights to distinguish between two types of subsidiary knowledge flows: deliberate and emergent knowledge flows and highlight how their differences have profound implications for the investigation of subsidiary and MNC knowledge flows and their microfoundations.

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Section: Mnc Knowledge Flows At the Individual-level: The Central Rolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subsidiary managers’ knowledge mobilizations: Unpacking emergent knowledge flows

Tippmann

Scott²,

Mangematin

2014

Journal of World Business

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“…In contrast, teams with a high level of social interaction did not significantly perform application capacity better than those teams with other conditions of social interaction. These findings reflect that a high level of social interaction provides synchrony and bandwidth (Noorderhaven & Harzing, 2009) for parallel and simultaneous information to enhance the capacity in assessment and assimilation, but the advantage of synchrony and bandwidth does not enhance capacity in application. This result should not be surprising because the knowledge of application in product design and sales service teams can be associated with functional specialty, i.e., computer programming language, database, and interface design, thereby, the condition of physical proximity has no direct impact on exploiting the new knowledge.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) emphasized that knowledge transferring can be better conducted via a more direct and natural routine for both socialization and internalization. Noorderhaven and Harzing (2009) indicated that communication intensity and bandwidth enhance social interaction, and argued that social interactions under rich communication media facilitate the movement of knowledge. The communication setting that provides wider bandwidth and better synchrony allows parallel information for simultaneous interactions.…”

Section: Prediction Based On Condition Of Social Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Language Diversity and Social Interaction on Knowledge Transfer

Fletcher-Chen¹

2015

UCER-A

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Minbaeva (2007) highlighted two essential factors that challenge the success of knowledge transfer, namely, the characteristics of the individuals involved in the knowledge transfer process and the characteristics This research calls attention to how language diversity and social interaction play a pivotal role in influencing the aspects of absorptive capacity and communication for knowledge transfer. The multinational corporation (MNC) is a multilingual community where culture is a given but language itself is a choice in communication. While MNCs are geographically dispersed organizations, the social interaction at the team level is based on the physical proximity and the channels of computer-medicated communication (CMC). This research has conducted a field study within the information technology (IT) industry, including 296 product design and sales service teams from 115 MNC foreign subsidiaries based in formerly colonized countries in Southeast Asia. The results partially support the conceptual model and demonstrate an impact of language diversity and social interaction on knowledge transfer. These findings contribute to the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of knowledge transfer and how product design and sales service teams in particular cope with the challenge of language diversity and condition of social interaction.

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“…MNE knowledge flows may occur in multiple directions, vertically between the HQ and a subsidiary, and horizontally between different subsidiaries (Noorderhaven & Harzing, 2009;Yang et al, 2008). However, while subsidiaries' contributory roles depend on a specific set of subsidiary resources or the overall MNE strategy (e.g., Birkinshaw, Hood, & Jonsson, 1998), virtually all subsidiaries receive knowledge from HQ.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why and How Does Shared Language Affect Subsidiary Knowledge Inflows? A Social Identity Perspective

Reiche¹,

Harzing²,

Pudelko³

2017

Language in International Business

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Copyright and moral rights to this thesis/research project are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. The work is supplied on the understanding that any use for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. A copy may be downloaded for personal, non-commercial, research or study without prior permission and without charge. Any use of the thesis/research project for private study or research must be properly acknowledged with reference to the work's full bibliographic details.This thesis/research project may not be reproduced in any format or medium, or extensive quotations taken from it, or its content changed in any way, without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s).If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Middlesex University via the following email address:eprints@mdx.ac.ukThe item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated. AbstractExtending existing international business (IB) research, we conceptualize shared social identity as an outcome rather than only an antecedent of multinational enterprise knowledge flows to provide an alternative reason for why such knowledge flows occur. We further argue that shared language among subsidiary and headquarters (HQ) managers is an insufficient condition for subsidiary knowledge receipt. Accordingly, we develop a moderated mediation model at the subsidiary level to examine how shared language affects subsidiaries' tacit knowledge inflows from HQ. Specifically, we study (1) whether this relationship is mediated by the extent to which subsidiary managers share HQ goals and vision, and the extent to which Human Resources decisions are centralized at HQ; and (2) whether subsidiary type (greenfields vs acquisitions) moderates these mediated relationships such that in both cases the mediation will be stronger in foreign acquisitions compared with foreign greenfields. Building on a sample of 817 subsidiaries in 9 countries/regions and a novel subjective measure of shared language, we find support for our model. Implications for research on HQ-subsidiary knowledge flows, social identity theory and the literature on sociolinguistics, and international Human Resource Management are discussed and managerial implications outlined.

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Knowledge-sharing and social interaction within MNEs

Cited by 327 publications

References 79 publications

Subsidiary managers’ knowledge mobilizations: Unpacking emergent knowledge flows

Subsidiary managers’ knowledge mobilizations: Unpacking emergent knowledge flows

Impact of Language Diversity and Social Interaction on Knowledge Transfer

Why and How Does Shared Language Affect Subsidiary Knowledge Inflows? A Social Identity Perspective

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