Interunit interaction contexts, interpersonal social capital, and the differing levels of knowledge sharing

Abstract

Abstract Firms use different structural arrangements to carry out their internal work, and interunit interactions that take place in the context of these arrangements may have different consequences for knowledge sharing. We explore four contexts of such interunit interaction—interunit meetings, project groups, cross‐border teams, and expatriate/ repatriate interactions—and we examine the extent to which they are associated with social capital and knowledge sharing. Data from structured interviews with multinational corporation (MNC) managers, which we explored using MANCOVA/ANCOVA and regression analysis, showed that cross‐border and expatriate/repatriate interaction contexts are associated with more interpersonal trust and shared cognitive ground than interunit meeting and project group ones, and the expatriate/repatriate context with more shared cognitive ground than all other contexts. The regression results show a significant relationship between the cross‐border team and expatriate/repatriate contexts and knowledge sharing. We also find that affective and cognitive social capital mediate the relationship between cross‐border team and expatriate/repatriate contexts and knowledge sharing. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.