Knowledge sharing in the automotive sector: a comparative study of chinese and brazilian firms

Abstract

Paper aims:This research aims to evaluate factors that influence knowledge sharing in automotive production context in Brazil and China.Originality: Despite the growing recognition of the factors that enable knowledge sharing in organizations, our understanding about the unique challenges encountered by the blue-collar workers in a production context is rather limited. Also, the paper raises issues and challenges involved for production organizations to engage in cross-national knowledge sharing, which remain relatively under-explored.Research method: Drawing on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach, we conduct a comparative survey among the production managers in five automotive plants in China and Brazil. The AHP approach is based on Objective: Promote knowledge sharing among production workers; Criteria of knowledge conversion as Socialization, Externalization, Internalization; and Alternatives as Structure, Communication, Training, Incentive, Standard Operating Procedure, Problem Solving Methodology. The methodology focused on the 3 Brazilian and 2 Chinese automotive plants in our fieldwork.Main findings: While many authors argue that socialization (dialogue) is the key form of worker knowledge sharing, our findings indicate that workers and managers perceive internalisation as more important in the automotive context. The significant differences between Chinese and Brazilian workers on the relative importance they attributed to knowledge sharing processes and corresponding enabling factors reinforce our understanding about the challenges of knowledge sharing across cultures and lends support to a more particularistic debate of knowledge management. While automotive workers in Brazil preferred to receive more training and better incentive schemes as essential knowledge sharing support mechanisms, Chinese workers valued more standardization through structure and standard operation procedures. The study reaffirms the role of knowledge sharing in continuous improvement and incremental innovation in shop floor operations. Implications for theory and practice:In lieu of the gaps in the extant literature, this research aims to further identify and evaluate factors that influence cross-national knowledge sharing in automotive production contexts. The research addressed the gaps to promote supportive ways to provide employees interaction, best practices and lessons learning sharing.

Worker and manager judgments about factors that facilitate knowledge‐sharing: Insights from a Brazilian automotive assembly line

“…Potentially significant knowledge sharing factors were selected based on a systematic literature review that started in 2010 (Muniz Jr. et al, 2010a, 2010b) and was updated through a systematic search on the web of science and scopus databases, using the descriptors “knowledge sharing” (Nakano & Muniz Jr., 2018). Items for the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP‐IPC) analysis were applied and validated in pilot studies in Brazil (Muniz Jr et al, 2019). Follow up interviews with survey respondents revealed that the factors selected seem to provide sufficient construct and face validity, though for future research we would aim to test the validity of the items using Cronbach's Alpha.…”

“…The use of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) developed by Saaty (1980) to some extent addresses these concerns. AHP, as a multi‐criteria decision method, breaks‐down complex decision‐making problems (i.e., with multiple judgments at different levels) into sub‐problems with hierarchical levels (see e.g., Muniz Jr et al, 2019). Each hierarchical level represents a set of attributes or alternatives related to each sub‐problem.…”

Scaling social impact in women-led social enterprises in developing countries: a knowledge-based perspective

“…Cabrera and Cabrera (2005) found that team-building and cross-training encourage crossfunctional collaboration, trust and knowledge transfer to increase employee social capital by bringing together employees from different departments. Formal training is found to lead to shared language and closer interpersonal ties in the form of social capital (Victor and Kathaluwage, 2019;Muniz et al, 2019), stimulating knowledge flows within organizations. and enhancing innovation among employees (Jimenez-Jimenez and Sanz-Valle, 2013;Victor and Kathaluwage, 2019).…”

Logistics Projects Based on Radio Frequency Identification: Multi-Criteria Assessment of Brazilian Aircraft Industry

“…Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a MCDM method and is commonly used to assess strategy, performance, and ranking alternatives in supply chain and logistics (Sipahi & Timor, 2010). AHP, as a multi-criteria decision method, decomposes complex decision-making problems (i.e., with multiple judgments at different levels of criteria and alternatives) into sub-problems with hierarchical levels (see for example Muniz Jr. et al, 2019).…”