Virtual knowledge sharing in a
cross-cultural context
Wei Li
Wei Li is a Consultant
based in Rockville,
Maryland, USA.
Received 12 July 2008
Revised 18 December 2008
Accepted 26 January 2009
This work was supported by the
Dissertation Travel Grant from
the Graduate College and the
Graduate School of Library &
Information Science at the
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. The
author would also like to thank
the Fortune 100 corporation
that was the research site.
PAGE 38 j JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify what factors impact employees’ online knowledge
sharing in a cross-cultural context.
Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative research design was used. Data were collected from
41 in-depth interviews with Chinese and American employees who worked for a multinational Fortune
100 company.
Findings – The research discovered that three categories of factors were critical in impacting Chinese
and American participants’ online knowledge sharing: organizational issues, national cultural
differences, and online communities of practice (CoPs). Organizational issues, including performance
expectancy, compatibility based on work practice, knowledge-sharing culture and time pressures, were
identified as being important factors that strongly influenced both Chinese and Americans’ knowledge
sharing. Three major national culture-related differences emerged as significant: language, different
thinking logic, and different levels of perceived credibility of voluntarily shared knowledge. These
cultural differences made Chinese participants contribute knowledge less frequently than their US
peers. Online CoPs showed both advantages and disadvantages in facilitating knowledge sharing
among globally distributed members, and these factors influenced both cultural groups in similar ways.
Research limitations/implications – The findings were based on a single case study from one
business sector. Only US and Chinese participants were included in the study.
Originality/value – Research on knowledge sharing among geographically distributed and culturally
diversified employees through online systems is still in its infancy. The paper integrates research from
multiple disciplines (organizational studies, national culture and online CoPs) to address the literature
gap. The findings will assist knowledge management managers to make global knowledge sharing
more fruitful in multinational organizations.
Keywords Knowledge management, Organizations, National cultures
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The emergence of the knowledge-based economy, the vast size of global organizations, and
the intensification of competition have come together to require organizations to be as agile
and intelligent as they can be, and one important way for organizations to meet this
requirement is to enable organizational members to share their knowledge efficiently
(Nissen, 2007). As large organizations go global, they tend to recruit members from various
countries and these members bring different national cultural values to workplaces. National
culture influences people’s knowledge sharing by shaping their knowledge sharing attitudes
and impacting their cognitive styles (Bhagat et al., 2002; Ford and Chan, 2003; Leidner and
Kayworth, 2006). As the trend of globalization continues, the need has never been greater
for understanding the complicated process of knowledge sharing among organizational
members in cross-cultural contexts, but research in this area is still in its infancy (Peltokorpi,
2006; Yoo and Torrey, 2002).
j VOL. 14 NO. 1 2010, pp. 38-50, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270 DOI 10.1108/13673271011015552
Empirical research has shown a strong and positive relationship between the adoption of
knowledge management practices and firms’ performance (Marqués and Simón, 2006;
Small, 2005). Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that many multinational corporations
have adopted knowledge management practices and implemented online knowledge
sharing systems by taking advantage of advanced information and communication
technologies (ICTs) in order to support knowledge sharing between geographically
distributed and culturally diversified members (Michailova and Nielsen, 2006; Yoo and
Torrey, 2002). As cross-cultural knowledge sharing goes online, the computer-mediated
environment adds another layer of complexity to the already complicated cross-cultural
sharing process in organizational settings. Although real knowledge management practice
presents a strong need to explore how people share knowledge and what influences their
sharing behavior in online, cross-cultural contexts, very little research has been conducted
to date in the field of cross-cultural knowledge sharing among organizational members
through online systems (Ardichvili et al., 2006).
To address the research gap, this study examined a specific knowledge sharing system,
given the pseudonym ShareNet, within a US-based multinational corporation. The research
objectives were to find out what factors impact Chinese and American users’ online
knowledge sharing in ShareNet.

Literature review
In order to get some ideas about what factors influence cross-cultural knowledge sharing
through online systems in organizations, let us look at the three relevant research fields:
1. the influence of organizational issues on knowledge sharing;
2. the impact of national cultural differences on knowledge sharing; and
3. the effect of computer-mediated communication (CMC) on knowledge sharing.
Many studies have been carried out to examine how organizational issues such as reward
systems, work practices and organizational culture impact on knowledge sharing (Chong,
2007; Davenport and Prusak, 1998). This body of rich research is very valuable in explaining
why people share knowledge to different extents in organizational environments, but cannot
explain why, within the same organization, different cultural groups share knowledge
differently.
In the area of cross-cultural research, many scholars have highlighted the importance of
cross-cultural consideration in cross-border knowledge sharing, and some have explored
how national cultural differences impact knowledge sharing (Bhagat et al., 2002; Dulaimi,
2007). For example, researchers use national culture models, such as Hofstede’s (2001)
model, to propose theoretical frameworks of how national culture might influence knowledge
sharing between people from different cultures (Bhagat et al., 2002), but these hypotheses
have not been tested yet. Other researchers use national cultural theories, such as
collectivism-individualism and Confucian dynamism to set up hypotheses and then use
survey data to test these hypotheses, but more hypotheses are disproved than supported
(Zhang et al., 2006). Some researchers have conducted case studies on knowledge sharing
in multicultural settings (Ford and Chan, 2003). What is in common among all these efforts is
that researchers try to use national culture to explain the difference observed among people
from different countries, with many other possible factors left out, such as organizational
issues. Therefore, they cannot provide a sound explanation for the fact that even within the
same cultural group, individuals share knowledge differently.
Research on the effect of CMC on knowledge sharing has provided mixed findings. For
example, some researchers find that CMC has a negative effect on knowledge sharing
(Roberts, 2000), while some researchers report the opposite (Pan and Leidner, 2003).
Empirical studies also indicate that sometimes there is no direct influence of CMC on
knowledge sharing (Hooff and Ridder, 2004). Considering these mixed findings, more
research should be carried out in order to find out how online media impact knowledge
sharing.

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 ‘‘ Knowledge sharing is a joint process in nature because
participants need to be engaged in the process if they really
want to share knowledge. ’’

Besides the research done in each of the three single areas, some researchers have looked
at the intersection of two of the three areas. For example, some studies have looked at how
people from different countries share knowledge in organizational settings (Chow et al.,
2000; Ford and Chan, 2003; Pak and Park, 2004; Peltokorpi, 2006). These studies provide
important empirical findings on how national culture can impact knowledge sharing, but
these studies either did not address the influence of online environments or failed to address
organizational issues and national cultural factors in a systematic way. Some studies have
looked at knowledge sharing through online systems in organizational settings (Kwok and
Gao, 2004) or knowledge sharing between project/team members in virtual environments
(Soule, 2003; Zakaria et al., 2004). But these studies did not integrate cross-cultural factors.
Therefore, we can see that each of these reference areas is limited in some way for
understanding why and how people with different national cultural values share or do not
share knowledge through online systems within the same organization. In addition, when a
domestically used online system is used by people from other countries, the cross-cultural
factor should be included in a systematic way, because this addition may bring an
interaction effect between national culture and organizational culture and/or an interaction
effect between national culture and online environments. But researchers have not yet
looked into this complexity.

Theoretical development
Knowledge sharing and communities of practice
The theoretical perspectives developed by Brown and Duguid (1991, 2001), Lave and
Wenger (1991), Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) and Wenger (1998) suggest that participants,
either experts or novices, partake jointly in the process of learning from each other and
creating new knowledge. People take part in knowledge sharing activities in order to acquire
new knowledge. According to Brown and Duguid (2001), ‘‘learning is inevitably implied in
the acquisition of knowledge’’ (p. 200), so learning is an indispensable component of the
knowledge sharing process. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) also suggest that learning and
knowledge sharing are interdependent. Building on these theoretical perspectives, I define
‘‘knowledge sharing’’ in this study as the activity in which participants are involved in the joint
process of contributing, negotiating and utilizing knowledge. Knowledge sharing is a joint
process in nature because participants need to be engaged in the process if they really want
to share knowledge. The form of engagement can be contributing their ideas, or negotiating
the meaning of knowledge, or absorbing and making sense of others’ ideas in order to use
them for future tasks; therefore, knowledge sharing activities include both knowledge
contributing and knowledge consuming aspects. Other researchers have also argued that
knowledge sharing is a two-way process with both knowledge providers and knowledge
consumers involved (Hendriks, 1999; Hooff and Ridder, 2004; Koh and Kim, 2004).
In their book on situated learning, Lave and Wenger (1991) establish the notion of a
‘‘community of practice’’. Wenger et al. (2002) define communities of practice (CoPs) as
‘‘groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and
who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis’’
(p. 4). In recent years, CoPs have been described and justified as an effective way for
knowledge sharing and learning because CoPs can provide the right context and shared
language (Brown and Duguid, 1991, 2001; Chua, 2006; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger
et al., 2002). The rationale for this strategy is that knowledge is embedded in communities,

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socially generated through member interactions, maintained and exchanged within CoPs
(Hasan and Crawford, 2003; Wasko and Faraj, 2000).

Conceptual framework
Some scholars from information system research have constructed a unified model that
summarizes the factors influencing user acceptance and behavior within information
systems, known as the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)
(Venkatesh et al., 2003, p. 447). The contributors to the UTAUT have suggested that the core
determinants (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating
conditions) in this model can be used to explain actual usage of information technologies.
According to the UTAUT, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and
facilitating conditions influence use behavior in information systems. Knowledge sharing
systems are information and communication systems designed to support and enhance
knowledge sharing activities (Carlsson, 2003; Feng et al., 2004); therefore, research results
from the area of information systems can inform us as to what factors might influence
people’s behavior within knowledge sharing systems. A modified version of this model is
adopted in this study to build a guiding framework. For the purpose of this study, ‘‘use
behavior’’ is replaced with ‘‘knowledge sharing behavior’’. By adapting the UTAUT to the
particular knowledge sharing context for this study, the author has built a conceptual
framework that guides this study (see Figure 1). In this conceptual framework, knowledge
sharing is the response variable, which may be influenced by four categories of explanatory
variables:
1. performance expectancy;
2. effort expectancy;
3. social influence; and
4. facilitating conditions.
A detailed explanation of the four categories of variables is provided by Venkatesh et al.
(2003).
According to Kling (2000), the social and cultural contexts in which ICTs are situated do
matter, so he argues for a social-technical perspective for studying the design, uses and
consequences of ICTs. The ShareNet examined in this research is one type of ICTs.
Therefore, based on Kling’s arguments, not only is the technical aspect important, but the
institutional and cultural contexts where the ShareNet is implemented should also be taken
into account in order to understand American and Chinese users’ knowledge sharing
behavior. In this study, the ‘‘institutional and cultural contexts’’ specifically refer to the
multinational corporation that the Chinese and American participants work for and the
cross-cultural environment where they act based on different national cultural values.
This study takes the customized UTAUT (Venkatesh et al., 2003), namely the conceptual
framework presented in Figure 1, as a starting-point and tests it qualitatively by collecting
data in order to find out what factors impact American and Chinese users’ knowledge
sharing behavior. A bottom-up strategy is employed for treating all the possible factors that

Figure 1 Conceptual framework

Performance Expectancy

Effort Expectancy
Knowledge Sharing
-Knowledge consumption
Social Influence -Knowledge contribution

Facilitating Conditions

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 influence their knowledge sharing in order to avoid bias as much as possible. The impact of
national cultural differences is expected to emerge from the research process, if they are
important, as this study employs the bottom-up strategy to treat cultural factors instead of
asking participants culture-related leading questions.

Research method
To fulfill the research goals, the author conducted 41 in-depth interviews. The interviewees
were 21 American and 20 Chinese employees who worked for a multinational Fortune 100
company (to maintain confidentiality, a pseudonym, Alpha, is used for this company). These
interviewees played various job roles in Alpha. In order to facilitate knowledge sharing
among its globally dispersed employees, Alpha provides various advanced ICTs as
collaborative tools and one of them is the ShareNet. The ShareNet is internet-based and
password-protected. It hosts thousands of CoPs and each of them is devoted to one specific
topic area. The ShareNet allows users to consume knowledge in the form of browsing or
searching, and to contribute knowledge in the form of posting (e.g. asking questions,
answering questions, making recommendations and posting materials) in communities.
An interview instrument was developed to guide the interviews. The semi-structured
interview instrument covered the factors that were expected to influence knowledge sharing
in the conceptual framework. Questions that operationalized performance expectancy, effort
expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions were developed based on existing
literature and information obtained from the knowledge-sharing representatives in Alpha.
The interviewees were also invited to discuss any factors that they thought impact their
knowledge sharing, but were not mentioned by the interviewer. The 41 interviews lasted from
42 to 126 minutes, with an average of 75 minutes. Of the 41 interviews, 30 were completed
face-to-face in participants’ working locations and the other 11 were done over the phone.
When collecting data, the author visited Alpha’s headquarters and its subsidiaries in China
(Beijing and Shanghai) multiple times and had meetings with Alpha’s knowledge sharing
managers in order to gain field experiences and better understand employees’ working
environments. All the interview data were coded and analyzed in ATLAS.ti (version 5.0) using
the qualitative data analysis method proposed by Miles and Huberman (1994). In order to
increase credibility of the findings from the interview data, the author did member checking
(Lincoln and Guba, 1985) at the end of the interview. Senior researchers in the field of
knowledge sharing were invited to review the study findings. In addition, knowledge sharing
managers from Alpha reviewed the findings and acknowledged that the findings were
credible.

Findings
This section presents the results of the interview data analysis. Three categories of factors
were identified by the study participants as being critical in impacting their knowledge
sharing in the ShareNet:
1. organizational issues;
2. national cultural differences; and
3. online CoPs.

The impact of organizational issues

In this study, performance expectancy, compatibility based on work practice, knowledge
sharing culture and time pressure turned out to be important organizational factors that
strongly influenced both Chinese and Americans’ knowledge sharing.
Performance expectancy turned out to be the strongest driver for both cultural groups to
share knowledge through the ShareNet, either in the consuming or the contributing manner.
Almost all the interviewees commented that people were motivated to share knowledge in
the ShareNet because they realized its value for their jobs. In particular, the interviewees

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‘‘ Performance expectancy turned out to be the strongest driver
for both cultural groups to share knowledge through the
ShareNet, either in the consuming or the contributing
manner. ’’

mentioned three main reasons for using the system to improve their job performance. First,
they perceived that the ShareNet could help them solve problems by reaching out to many
people quickly or conveniently. Second, the participants stated that the ShareNet helped
them stay on top of developments in their professional areas. Many interviewees explained
that they spent time reading postings in the ShareNet because they wanted to stay current.
Third, most interviewees emphasized that the ShareNet provided them unique benefits that
were hard to gain from elsewhere. They identified several unique benefits that could only be
gained through the ShareNet. These unique benefits included building/expanding networks,
harvesting collective intelligence, and providing a final resort for community members to
seek for help. And respondents felt very strongly about these benefits.

This study also provides clear evidence that the value of knowledge sharing for improving
job performance was closely related to compatibility, i.e. the fit between knowledge
sharing and work practice. Both Chinese and American participants explicitly remarked
that the compatibility influenced the extent to which they used the system. And the level
of compatibility was determined by what job roles people were in and whether they
thought using the system could help them fulfill job responsibilities. Actually, half of the
interviewees explicitly said that people’s job roles impacted their participation level in the
ShareNet.
In terms of posting in the ShareNet, characteristics of job tasks made a big difference
because people with different assignments perceived different levels of fit between
contributing and their job needs. For some participants, answering questions or sharing
materials in the ShareNet was part of their job duties, as one can see from quotes like
‘‘sharing is part of my job’’. However, if answering questions was not viewed as included in
people’s job scope, they would not be motivated much to spend time in offering ideas, as
indicated by such comments as ‘‘it is not my duty to answer others’ questions in the
ShareNet’’.
In addition, some interviewees mentioned that they participated in knowledge sharing
differently simply because of the different job roles they played during different periods of
time. Most of the interviewees perceived that Alpha had a fairly strong knowledge sharing
culture. And they made remarks such as ‘‘Alpha emphasizes teamwork. An individual can
not perform well if his team does not perform well’’. With an open, sharing attitude and high
teamwork spirit, most people interviewed seldom sheltered knowledge for the purpose of
keeping personal competitive advantage. Situated in such a sharing-friendly culture, if
someone did not share proactively it typically was not due to knowledge hoarding.
Participants from both cultural groups rarely mentioned any factors related to peer
competition for not sharing. Influenced by this strong sharing culture, some people were
motivated to share knowledge out of reciprocity or for the purpose of helping colleagues
grow.

Time constraint was also an important factor influencing how frequently participants used
the ShareNet. Even though there was a strong knowledge sharing culture in Alpha, half of the
interviewees mentioned that lack of time prevented them from using the ShareNet more
heavily. Some participants, especially Chinese participants, even stayed up late to finish
their daily routine and this type of workload did not leave much time for them to consume

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 knowledge, let alone contribute knowledge, as seen from the interesting words offered by a
Chinese Traffic Manager:
Our department is called ‘‘night club’’. ‘‘Night club’’ means ‘‘ ’’ in Chinese, ‘‘ ’’ means
‘‘at night,’’ ‘‘ ’’ means ‘‘always’’ and ‘‘ ’’ means ‘‘have meetings’’, so ‘‘night club’’ means
‘‘always have meetings at night’’.

This Chinese participant used a metaphor in a joking way to express the fact that they had to
work overtime. Her words illustrate the fact that many participants were under pressure to
finish their own job responsibilities. Besides, knowledge sharing was not directly considered
in Alpha’s job evaluation process. Therefore, many interviewees put knowledge sharing as a
lower priority than their assigned tasks unless sharing was part of their job tasks. Some
participants also mentioned that the time constraints made the sharing culture in Alpha were
more reactive than proactive in nature. They remarked that Alpha employees were generous
with sharing upon request. When asked directly, they were enthusiastic to respond to the
best of their abilities. However, most people did not share proactively because of the
fast-paced work dynamics.

The influence of national cultural differences

This study identified three major national culture-related differences between the Chinese
and American groups. To be more specific, language, different thinking logic, and different
levels of perceived credibility of what was shared in the ShareNet emerged as important
factors in this study that influenced participants’ knowledge sharing.
Findings from this study indicate that English created some barriers for Chinese participants
to share knowledge. The negative influence of different languages was clearly reflected in
Chinese participants’ reluctance to post. Chinese participants in this study did not want to
make extra effort to express their ideas in a second language when they were not required to
do so. In addition, they might be concerned that what they wrote in English would be
interpreted differently from what they intended to communicate. The negative influence
caused by the language barrier was well stated by a Chinese Certified Public Accountant
who had working experience in both China and the USA. She said:
When Chinese people have to solve problems in English, they can overcome the language
barrier. However, in a free space like the ShareNet, people may not be willing to post. They are
concerned whether they can freely express their ideas and whether what they write will be
understood as they wish.

However, in terms of consuming knowledge, language did not seem to be a huge barrier.
With sufficient English skills, many Chinese did not perceive that text only being available in
English made much difference for them to browse what others posted.
Different thinking logic was the second cultural difference suggested by the study findings.
Interview data show that Chinese and American participants emphasized context to different
extents and thus had different thinking logics. Most Chinese participants hesitated to borrow
knowledge accumulated from a different context because they placed high weight on
context when interpreting knowledge. For example, a Market/Administrative Assistant
explained why she did not want to raise questions in the ShareNet this way:
If I ask a question on the ShareNet and get answers from the US or Australia, I don’t know whether
their answers will be valuable for me considering different situations in different locations. We do
different work in different locations.

Chinese interviewees also felt more reluctant to broadcast their knowledge to people who
work in radically different environments. They were less willing to answer questions or to
exchange ideas with American colleagues because Chinese interviewees thought that
different working contexts made it not as valuable to share with Americans. Also, they were
concerned about the possibility of introducing confusion rather than helping by sharing the
knowledge they gained in Chinese subsidiaries, where practices can be unique to the local
areas.

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However, the interview data indicate that most American users adopted a different thinking
style. They thought that different working contexts made knowledge sharing not only a
necessary task but also a rewarding one. Most American interviewees expressed strong
interests in reading non-English postings because they thought that postings from other
countries could bring unique information and ideas. For example, an IT Analyst remarked
that he found that some unique information came from areas of the world where people do
not use English. Here is the instance he used to explain his point of view:
Chinese and Japanese characters use the double-byte links. They run into that kind of stuff much
more often than we do. Sometimes they have specialized information that can be extremely
useful.

From these quotes, we can see that the different perceived connection between diverse
working contexts and the necessity to share made a difference in participants’ knowledge
sharing: Americans asked/answered questions more often and shared personal
experiences more often than Chinese users in the ShareNet.
The ShareNet examined in this study was a free and equal space for members to post
voluntarily. Most American users perceived that what was posted in the ShareNet was
credible and therefore they thought the system was a great resource to tap into. And some of
the American participants asked questions in the ShareNet in order to collect inputs from
multiple people and then create solutions by using their own judgment. They thought the
ShareNet was a fairly credible source for getting opinions as reference. An American Human
Resource Manager explained this way:
When a question is asked, typically who responds is someone who is an expert or who knows the
subject matter. I don’t think I will have a problem to trust the answer that is given.

Differently, some Chinese did not feel as comfortable as their American peers when using
the voluntarily shared knowledge since in their opinions the ShareNet was not official and
thus could not function as a source for authoritative answers. And Chinese participants did
not seem to think of using the ShareNet to collect different ideas. A Chinese Direct Sales
Representative provided a typical quote:
I dare not trust the answers from the ShareNet since people just volunteer to answer questions
there. I need someone to answer my question and be responsible for his or her answer. I question
the qualification of respondents on the ShareNet.

The effects of online CoPs

In this study, online CoPs showed both advantages and disadvantages in facilitating
knowledge sharing among globally distributed members when compared with other media.
Participants in this study stressed a unique benefit of sharing knowledge through online
CoPs, saying that the key value of the ShareNet resided in its communities. People could set
up communities or join those they were interested in, and then obtained a list of people with
common professional interests. Besides, this list kept being updated automatically as
community members joined or left. For example, an American engineer in the Global Mining
Division said:
If you are a member of a community, you have a list of the people who have the same interest with
you. There is no other way to get it easily.

As soon as a message was posted in the virtual community, all the community members
received that message via e-mail and some of those who had opinions to share would
respond. Some of these interviewees clearly recognized that the electronic ties through
online CoPs could bring out the power of collective intelligence and thus secure a way to
solve problems as quickly as possible; therefore, they posted questions in communities or
read others’ postings in order to gather general information or opinions on a topic, collect
suggestions and find solutions to specific problems.
Although online CoPs have the advantages of connecting people who are electronically
weakly tied, they are not without limitations. In this study, some participants did not ask
questions in online CoPs because of the special nature of questions they encountered, such

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 as questions that are hard to explain online or sensitive issues that it is not proper to disclose.
In these situations, these people preferred to consult someone one-on-one rather than ask in
a public space like the ShareNet.
In addition, participants in this study stressed a compelling factor – the presence of multiple
sharing channels, such as e-mail, face-to-face meetings and videoconferencing, which
were often more direct and efficient. In many cases, these more direct sharing means with
higher media richness were more effective for accomplishing jobs than the ShareNet, and
thus using other channels was beneficial for their performance. Among all the supplemental
sharing channels for the ShareNet, personal networks were the most frequently mentioned
by both cultural groups. For example, when explaining the reasons for not asking questions
in the ShareNet, many interviewees said that they usually preferred to use their personal
networks, because they knew who in their networks could answer their questions.

Discussion and implications

The findings from this study help confirm the significant impact of organizational issues on
knowledge sharing, as reported by previous research. Performance expectancy and
compatibility with job needs were critical factors influencing participants’ knowledge
sharing. Indeed, literature in information system research has unanimously agreed that
performance expectancy is what motivates people to use the systems (Venkatesh et al.,
2003). According to Rogers (2003), people have to see the compatibility between using a
knowledge sharing system and a felt need in order to be motivated to use it. The influence of
job tasks on knowledge sharing has also been documented by previous research (Chong,
2007).
Together these findings suggest the importance of building a connection between
knowledge sharing and one’s felt job needs in order to motivate knowledge sharing.
Organizations should provide enough support, such as training and communication on how
the knowledge sharing system can fit into targeted users’ jobs, to help them build the
connection instead of merely providing the technical component. The findings also imply
that organizations should make efforts to provide knowledge sharing systems that can be
integrated into employees’ daily work practice or design jobs that entail knowledge sharing if
they want to promote knowledge sharing effectively.
Three major national cultural differences emerged as important in impacting Chinese and
American participants’ knowledge sharing. These findings were consistent with previous
research. First, the present study reported a negative effect of lack of a common language
on knowledge sharing, which is consistent with existing empirical studies (Peltokorpi, 2006;
Wei, 2007). The negative impact of the linguistic barrier on Chinese participants’ willingness
to contribute suggests that multinational organizations might want to allow members working
in overseas subsidiaries to post in their native language and then translate their postings for
circulation to a larger audience.
The second cultural difference is that Chinese and American interviewees showed different
thinking logics. This difference might be rooted in collectivism/individualism, one of the five
main national cultural dimensions theorized by Hofstede (2001). Bhagat et al. (2002) argue
that collectivism and individualism significantly influence people’s cognitive styles. Drawing
on evidence from different fields, including ethnography and philosophy, they claim that

‘‘ This study also provides clear evidence that the value of

knowledge sharing for improving job performance was closely
related to the fit between knowledge sharing and work
practice. ’’

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people in an individualist society tend to adopt the ‘‘analytic’’ mode of thinking while
collectivists tend to have a ‘‘holistic’’ mode of thinking (p. 215). According to Bhagat et al.
(2002), Americans tend to adopt the ‘‘analytic’’ mode and ‘‘analyze each piece of
information, taken one at a time, for its unique contribution to knowledge’’; however, Chinese
usually have the ‘‘holistic’’ mode and like to ‘‘analyze the entire spectrum of information’’,
which is called ‘‘contextualism’’ (p. 215). Indeed, existing studies have reported similar
cultural differences between people from collectivistic societies and those from
individualistic societies (Husted and Michailova, 2002; Peltokorpi, 2006).
The third cultural difference regarding different levels of perceived credibility of what was
shared might be caused by participants’ different levels of uncertainty avoidance, another
important dimension to differentiate Chinese culture from American culture (Hofstede,
2001). According to Hofstede, Chinese like to seek a precise match or authoritative answers
since they come from a culture with high uncertainty avoidance, while Americans are used to
taking various types of explicit knowledge and integrating them to create something new,
since they are from a culture with low uncertainty avoidance. These theoretical perspectives
are echoed by Triandis (1995). Actually, uncertainty avoidance has been documented as a
common factor in the existing literature that can affect how people share knowledge
(Ardichvili et al., 2006; Yoo and Torrey, 2002).
Research on CoPs, CMC, and social networks suggests that online CoPs can have both
positive and negative impacts on knowledge sharing (Granovetter, 1973; Haythornthwaite,
2002; Wenger et al., 2002). This is indeed the case of the present study. The main advantage
of online CoPs was that ShareNet users could take advantage of ‘‘the strength of weak ties’’
(Granovetter, 1973). However, online CoPs also had limitations. Actually, experts in
knowledge sharing have pointed out that although virtual CoPs have been used widely by
organizations and discussed abundantly in the literature, they are supplemented by many
other sharing channels (Dalkir, 2005). In this research, participants emphasized that they
shared through a collection of multiple channels. There is a critical practical implication from
this fact. Organizations should provide an appropriate mix of communication media in order
to optimize the whole knowledge sharing process as different sharing channels can
complement each other. Participants in this study repeatedly pointed out their reliance on
personal networks for sharing knowledge. Other researchers have also reported similar
findings (Ardichvili et al., 2003). Considering the key role played by personal networks in
facilitating knowledge sharing, organizations should make efforts to help people build and
maintain professional networks. In particular, they can help build fairly strong connections
between people from different cultures in order to encourage cross-cultural knowledge
sharing.
Finally, this research has suggested the strong need to synthesize theories from different
disciplines to examine the complex phenomenon of online knowledge sharing among
organizational members in cross-cultural settings because they can all make a contribution
to understanding people’s knowledge sharing patterns. By focusing on knowledge sharing
through one specific system, this study has identified three categories of factors that
impacted Chinese and American participants’ knowledge sharing, namely:
1. organizational issues;
2. national culture; and
3. online CoPs.

Future scholars can investigate online knowledge sharing in other types of organizations or
in contexts of different cultural mixes in order to further this area of research. Two limitations
should be kept in mind when interpreting findings from this study. First, the study findings
were based on a single case study from one business sector and thus could be
industry-specific. Second, only American and Chinese users were included in this study.
Further research is needed to see whether the findings from this study can be transferred to
other types of cross-cultural settings.

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VOL. 14 NO. 1 2010 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PAGE 47
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About the author

Wei Li holds a PhD from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master’s degree in Information Science
from Beijing University. Her research interests include knowledge management,
cross-cultural knowledge sharing and international entrepreneurship. She has carried out
extensive research on cross-cultural knowledge sharing among Chinese and US employees
through online systems. She has presented papers at multiple conferences and published
peer-reviewed articles in both knowledge management and entrepreneurship. Wei Li can be
contacted at: weili6@gmail.com

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