Cultural antecedents and performance consequences of open communication and knowledge transfer in multicultural process-innovation teams

Citation

Puck JF, Rygl D & Kittler M (2007) Cultural antecedents and performance consequences of open communication and knowledge transfer in multicultural process-innovation teams. Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change, 3 (2), pp. 223-241. https://doi.org/10.1386/jots.3.2.223_1

Abstract
Processes in multinational corporations (MNCs) have to be configured with regard to the challenges of a permanently evolving environment. Process-innovation teams are considered to be powerful tools inside organizations to cope with this necessity. Their performance is of major importance for most MNCs. As a response to the increasing internationalization and globalization of markets, these teams show a growing culturally diverse composition. This article focuses on two major processes that are discussed to decide about a positive or a negative performance of a team: intra-team communication style and knowledge transfer. Explicitly, this article (1) tests for the influence of cultural diversity on intra-team communication and knowledge transfer, and (2) empirically examines the impact of the openness of intra-team communication and knowledge transfer on the performance of multicultural teams. A quantitative empirical survey among 84 team-members of 20 culturally diverse teams within a German sportswear company is used to test the relationships. Findings reveal that national cultural diversity has no significant impact on intra-team communication and knowledge transfer but both of them have significant influences on different measures of performance.

Keywords
team; culture; communication; knowledge management; performance

Journal
Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change: Volume 3, Issue 2