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Barriers to knowledge seeking within MNC teams: Which differences matter most?

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Abstract

Do international or non-international differences between members matter most for multinational corporation (MNC) teams? We consider two types of international differences, arising from geographic locations and national origins, and two types of non-international differences, arising from structural affiliations and demographic attributes. Examining the barriers to knowledge seeking between MNC team members, we argue that whether international or non-international differences create greater barriers depends on whether they are position-based or person-based. Using the Social Relations Model to analyze 13,616 dyadic interactions among 2090 members of 289 teams in a large MNC, we find that, for both international and non-international differences, those that are position-based (i.e., geographic and structural differences) created greater barriers than those that are person-based (i.e., nationality and demographic differences). In addition, familiarity from a prior team reduced the barriers created by international and non-international differences that are position-based more than those that are person-based. We discuss the implications of our study for understanding the micro-foundations of knowledge flows in MNCs.

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Notes

  1. Our focus on interpersonal knowledge seeking within MNC teams complements research on knowledge search across MNC subsidiaries as well as knowledge sourcing from outside MNCs (e.g., Almeida, 1996; Cantwell, 2009; Jeppesen & Lakhani, 2010; see Laursen, 2012 for a recent review). We use the term “seeking” rather than “search” or “sourcing” to capture the more focused nature of this behavior, which targets a particular individual for knowledge.

  2. Concerns about communication costs between team members who are different may be reinforced by the lower interpersonal attraction that often accompanies interpersonal differences, as emphasized by the literatures on similarity-attraction and homophily (e.g., Byrne, 1971; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001).

  3. Indeed, to the extent that differences in age, tenure, or education level are associated with different levels (rather than domains) of task-related knowledge, the barriers created by these differences may even be reduced as team members see potential value in seeking knowledge from those, for example, who are older, more senior, or more educated than themselves.

  4. We also created an additional continuous measure of geographic differences using distance in miles between the country locations of the two members of a dyad; this measure was highly correlated with the dichotomous measures (r=0.69, r=0.90, r=0.81) and gave consistent results.

  5. Nationality may be based on citizenship as well as birth, and the cross-cultural literature points out that individuals may have more than one citizenship as well as bicultural or multicultural identities (see Leung, Bhagat, Buchan, Erez, & Gibson, 2005). While recognizing that other approaches are possible (and should yield consistent results), in this study we focus on national origins based on birthplace.

  6. Following Hansen and Løvås (2004), we also created an additional continuous measure of nationality differences using the Hofstede dimensions of cultural distance between each dyad’s countries of origin (Hofstede, 1991); this measure was highly correlated with the dichotomous measures (r=0.88, r=0.71, r=0.53) and gave consistent results.

  7. We focused on the demographic attributes with most direct relevance to knowledge seeking in MNC teams. However, we also conducted empirical analyses with gender, and found the same pattern of results as for age, tenure, and education level; data on race were not available.

  8. In addition, we constructed two alternative directional measures to capture whether the seeker was older, more experienced, or more educated than the target, and whether the seeker was younger, less experienced, or less educated than the target. We also constructed an alternative distance measure to capture the extent of the differences in age, tenure, and education between the seeker and target. These alternative measures gave the same patterns of results as the dichotomous measures.

  9. While it is possible that team members had worked together on multiple teams, it was not very common in the MNC we studied to work with the same people repeatedly (in our sample, only 12% of pairs reported working together in a previous team). We would expect that two team members who had worked with each other on multiple previous teams would be even more likely to overcome the barriers created by differences between them than those who had only worked together once.

  10. Variance inflation factors for the difference variables in this model were all below 3.0, indicating that multicollinearity was not a concern.

  11. While we recognize the possibility of common-method bias in member-rated performance measures, knowledge seeking was reported at the dyad level while performance was reported at the team level, reducing its likelihood in our study. In addition, a Harman’s single-factor test for common-method bias did not indicate cause for concern.

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Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article won the Academy of International Business’s Temple/AIB Best Paper Award and was a finalist for the Academy of Management’s Carolyn Dexter Best International Paper Award. We thank our editor, John Cantwell, and the anonymous reviewers for their guidance during the review process. We also thank Drew Carton, Tiziana Casciaro, Vit Henisz, Katherine Klein, Andrew Knight, Bill McEvily, Rachel Pacheco, Nancy Rothbard, and seminar participants at Bocconi, INSEAD, Rutgers, and Toronto for helpful comments. The research reported in this article was funded by NSF Award #IIS-0603667.

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  1. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

    Martine R Haas

  2. Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, USA

    Jonathon N Cummings

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Accepted by John Cantwell, Editor-in-Chief, 4 June 2014. This article has been with the authors for three revisions.

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Haas, M., Cummings, J. Barriers to knowledge seeking within MNC teams: Which differences matter most?. J Int Bus Stud 46, 36–62 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2014.37

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