What Kind of Employees’ Team is Necessary for Industrial Digital Transformation? Theoretical and Practical Analysis

The article considers cross-functional teams as an alternative to the traditional team-building approach in industrial digital transformation. Based on the contextual analysis of the reasons for creating cross-functional teams, their polyphonic nature and exclusivity signs are revealed. The paper demonstrates particular importance of knowledge sharing in cross-functional teams for efficient work. Knowledge sharing among employees serves as a source for obtaining necessary and useful information and a condition for the successful functioning of cross-functional teams. The purpose of the study was to perform a comparative analysis of the influence of organizational and managerial factors on knowledge sharing in cross-functional teams. The academic environment of two universities in Russia and Germany was used as an example to determine the obstacles and conditions of this process. In the study, two groups of employees from Russian (Ekaterinburg) and German (Brandenburg an der Havel) universities were examined. The paper determines the degree of influence of various organizational and managerial factors on the intensity of knowledge sharing in cross-functional teams under the national context.