Dynamics of knowledge sharing in professional service teams

Team knowledge sharing and the causal dynamics in professional service project teams 61 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2 .... In professional servicefirms, where most work is done by project teams d

SERVICE TEAMS

PHD DISSERTATION SPECIALIZATION: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

DECLARATION

I have read and understood the University’s policy on plagiarism I hereby declare on

my honor that this research proposal is my own work and does not violate the regulations on good academic practices.

PhD candidate

Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Research objectives and research questions 5

3 Subjects and scope of the research 5

4 Original contributions of the research 7

5 Structure of the dissertation 9

CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW 12

1.1 Overview of work teams and project teams 12

1.1.1 Definitions and types of work teams 12

1.1.2 Definitions and characteristics of project teams 14

1.2 Overview of knowledge, knowledge sharing, team knowledge sharing 15

1.2.1 Definitions and Types of knowledge 15

1.2.2 Definitions of knowledge sharing, team knowledge sharing, and dynamics of team knowledge sharing 19

1.2.3 Roles of team knowledge sharing 23

1.2.4 Factors influencing team knowledge sharing 28

1.3 Overview of motivation and motivations of team knowledge sharing 39

1.4 Overview of professional service firms 40

1.4.1 Definition and types of professional service firms 40

1.4.2 Importance of team knowledge sharing in professional service firms 41

1.5 Research Gaps in Team knowledge sharing literature 43

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 1 46

CHAPTER 2 – THEORETICAL FOUNDATION 47

2.1 Rationales for the choice of Groups as complex systems theory and Incentive theory 47

2.2 Key ideas of Groups as complex systems theory and Incentive theory 48

2.2.1 Key ideas of Group as complex systems theory 48

2.2.2 Key ideas of Incentive theory 51

2.3 Applications of Groups as complex systems theory and Incentive theory in

prior studies 52

2.3.1 Application of Groups as complex system theory in prior studies 52

2.3.2 Application of Incentive theory in prior studies 55

2.4 Applications of Groups as complex systems theory and Incentive theory for Dynamics of Knowledge sharing in professional service project teams 56

2.4.1 Modes of project life in professional service project teams 57

2.4.2 Team knowledge sharing and Functions of professional service project teams 57

2.4.3 Team knowledge sharing and Composition of professional service project teams 60 2.4.4 Team knowledge sharing and the causal dynamics in professional service project teams 61

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2 62

CHAPTER 3 – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 64

3.1 Reasons for choosing the exploratory sequential mixed methods research 64 3.2 Mixed method research design 65

3.2.1 Research context – Audit industry in Vietnam and audit project teams 65

3.2.2 General mixed methods research design 69

3.3 Qualitative data collection and data analysis 72

3.3.1 Qualitative data collection procedures 73

3.3.2 Qualitative data analysis 79

3.3.3 Data quality procedures 85

3.4 Quantitative data collection and data analysis 87

3.4.1 Sample 87

3.4.2 Data collection 87

3.4.3 Measures 88

3.4.4 Data analysis 92

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 3 92 CHAPTER 4 – FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 93

4.1 Qualitative data analysis and findings 93

4.1.1 Interactions of team knowledge sharing elements at Stage 1 – Planning 93 4.1.2 Interactions of team knowledge sharing elements at Stage 2 – Execution

99

4.1.3 Interactions of team knowledge sharing elements at Stage 3 – Completion 105

4.1.4 General model of Team knowledge sharing dynamics 108

4.2 Quantitative data analysis and findings 110

4.2.1 Hypothesis development 111

4.2.2 Measure reliability and validity 117

4.2.3 Hypothesis testing 119

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 4 131

CHAPTER 5 – DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 132

5.1 Discussions 132

5.2 Theoretical implications 140

5.3 Practical implications 143

5.3.1 Recommendations for team leaders or project leaders at team level 143

5.3.2 Recommendations for team members at individual level 146

5.3.3 Recommendations for top managers at organization level 147

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 5 150

CONCLUSION 151

REFERENCES 153

APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW GUIDE 184

APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 186

APPENDIX 3: EXAMPLE OF PRELIMINARY MANUAL CODING PROCESS 190

APPENDIX 4: EXAMPLE OF CODING LEVEL 1 191

APPENDIX 5: EXAMPLE OF CODING LEVEL 2 192

APPENDIX 6: EXAMPLE OF CODING LEVEL 3 193

APPENDIX 7: EXAMPLES OF THE CODING RESULTS 194

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1.1: Summary of representative studies on taxonomy of knowledge 16

Table 1.2: A summary of the empirical studies on the roles of team knowledge sharing 27

Table 1.3: A summary of empirical studies on factors influencing knowledge sharing within teams 32

Table 3.1: Number of audit firms in Vietnam in the period 2019–2020 66

Table 3.2: Workforce of audit firms in Vietnam in the period 2019–2020 67

Table 3.3: Data collection methods 74

Table 3.4: Profile of Interviewees 76

Table 3.5: Definitions and coding scheme 84

Table 3.6: Profile of respondents 88

Table 3.7: Measurement scales of variables 90

Table 4.1: Summary of hypotheses on Team Knowledge sharing Dynamics 116

Table 4.2: Validity and Reliability of Variables 117

Table 4.3: Pearson correlations 119

Table 4.4: Mauchly’s test of sphericity 120

Table 4.5: Univariate tests 122

Table 4.6: Pairwise comparisons 127

Table 4.7: Summary of the research findings 130

Figure 3.1: The exploratory mixed methods research design 70

Figure 4.1: Model of Team knowledge sharing dynamics 109

The previous studies have made significant contributions to our understanding

of knowledge sharing within organizations Particularly, in the context of team which

is considered as the crucial building block in today’s knowledge-based organizations,knowledge sharing is an important factor affecting team performance because forattainment of common goals, team members with unevenly distributed expertise andknowledge need to interact regularly and depend on each other In professional servicefirms, where most work is done by project teams delivering customized client services,project teams are becoming more commonly used to take advantage of resources andenhance competitive advantages (Batistič & Kenda, 2018; Fu et al., 2021).Professional service firms have received widespread attention from both practitionersand researchers because professional services are an increasingly important driver ofeconomic activity in the knowledge economy (Hertog, 2000; Kox, 2004), and in thissetting, the process of sharing knowledge has been identified as a key source ofcompetitive advantage (Carmel, 2005) Processes within project teams forcoordinating resources to solve

problems, implement procedures, and complete tasks has attracted the attention of bothresearchers and practitioners in the past decade (Carter et al., 2019) Among theseprocesses, there are an increasing number of studies on the importance of productiveknowledge sharing behavior (Zhang & Min, 2019) that plays significant roles in teamperformance and project delivery (Ahmad & Karim, 2019; Calamel et al., 2012).

Professional service firms are characterized by knowledge intensity, low capitalintensity, and professionalized workforce (Von Nordenflycht, 2010), and categorizedinto technology developers, professional campuses, neo professional service firms andclassical professional service firms (von Nordenflycht, 2014) On the base of technicalaspect, technology developers, professional campuses are technical professionalservice firms with enough capital, they can invest in unique machinery, tools orequipment to deliver services Neo professional service firms and classicalprofessional service firms are nontechnical professional service firms which rely more

on their internal and external management of knowledge However, most empiricalstudies of knowledge sharing are focused on technical professional service firms ortechnological perspective (Wang & Noe, 2010)

Among the non-technical professional service firms, audit firms have the mostcomprehensive characteristics of professional service firms Knowledge sharing isespecially vital in auditing firms, as these firms depend on the quality of servicesprovided by their professionals to succeed (Curtis & Taylor, 2018; Vera Munoz et al.,‐2006) To be specific, audit firms are put under high pressure to improve quality,efficiency, and effectiveness of audit process because of regulatory environment,updating auditing standards, and scandal events related to financial fraud.Furthermore, in each audit engagement, knowledge about the client’s environment,industry, business model, and operations are typically distributed unevenly amongaudit team members (Harding & Trotman, 1999; Kerr & Murthy, 2004) Therefore,knowledge sharing capability of industry-specific trends, accounting, auditing,regulatory issues determine the outcome of the audit services Despite the potentialimportance of knowledge sharing to auditing firms, accounting practitioners andscholars have made little progress in understanding its anatomy (Vera Munoz‐ et al.,2006)

While knowledge sharing and its related processes in teams are inherentlydynamic (Heizmann & Olsson, 2015; Kwok & Gao, 2005), prior research has mostlyexplained these team processes through static models Especially at different stages ofthe project team life cycle, these team processes have been studied at a certain stage of

a project rather than considering their impacts at different project stages (Zhang &Guo, 2019) Few have actually studied project teams over time to uncover workprocesses in a real life setting (Jørgensen, 2018) Failing to address team knowledgesharing dynamics can lead to insufficiently understanding the nature of this teamprocess and hampers practical measures as different managerial interventions may berequired at different project stages In professional service teams, team membersinteract at all stages of the project to generate solutions and deliver customizedservices to clients (Gardner, 2015) Effective interactions among team memberspromote knowledge sharing along with new knowledge generation (Morris, 2001).There raises a question that how team knowledge sharing changes in its dimensions asthe project moves from one stage to the next

One of the most frequently studied dimensions of knowledge sharing is whypeople share knowledge This dimension is criticized for being not clearly delineated(Nguyen et al., 2019; Stenius et al., 2016) and managerially impractical (Foss et al.,2010) Empirically, how to motivate professionals to share their knowledge is stillchallenging, especially in professional service teams (Fu et al., 2021) As knowledgesharing in teams is both goal driven and social exchange (Zhao et al., 2021), whatmotivate people to contribute their efforts and resources during the project time arecontingent upon the nature of team goals, tasks, and social interactions among teammembers Hence, the economic, sociological, and psychological aspects shouldsimultaneously be brought into the picture of motivation to share knowledge withinproject teams

What people share as the other important dimension of knowledge sharing hassuggested to be different at each project stage (Gomes et al., 2018) While knowledge

in team process exists in different typologies, it has been mostly treated as one singleconstruct in the team knowledge sharing literature (Ahmad & Karim, 2019) This isunfortunate since the nature and relevance of knowledge shared for a specific task arecritical for the achievement of team goals (Ahmad & Karim, 2019) Thus, without

consideration of sharing different knowledge types, there may lead to the insufficientexplanation of team knowledge sharing.

The theory of groups as complex systems (Arrow et al., 2000) provides someinsights on the dynamics of team knowledge sharing This theory proposes that groupsare complex and dynamic systems in which the group behaviors change over the grouplife course, yielding temporal patterns of development The group behaviors involveinteractions across at least three levels including constituent elements of groups, thegroup as an entity, and the contexts in which a group is embedded Besides, the theoryproposes that the priorities a group placed on its various functions do not remain staticbut interplay dynamically over time In this view, the nature of knowledge sharingamong team members changes over the project stages to complete the project tasks,fulfill members’ needs, and maintain the team integrity However, it has not been clearthat what and how team elements related to knowledge sharing interact and change asthe project teams move from one stage to the next

Relating to the context of knowledge sharing, Asrar-ul-Haq and Anwar (2016)suggests that knowledge sharing practices demonstrates a significant advantage fororganizations, especially in developing countries where resources are limited.However, knowledge sharing in professional service firms have been studied mostly indeveloped countries, thus, there is a call for further research of knowledge sharing inprofessional service firms in developing countries (Asrar-ul-Haq & Anwar, 2016) Inparticular, 30-year- old audit sector in Vietnam operates in an environment withdistinctive characteristics With a history of thirty years, Vietnamese audit sector hasbeen still in the reforming progress for a comprehensive accounting and auditingsystem and a regulatory framework for harmonizing with international standards.Vietnamese business environment has been ranked at a low level of market institutionstrength for many indices (Klonowski, 2013) Under weak corporate governance laws,Vietnam lacks valid controls to protect against related party transactions andmanagement conflicts of interest (Le et al., 2020) Furthermore, corruption andfraudulent scandals have involved top audit firms, which shows the asymmetricinformation problem in the country (Klonowski, 2013) In short, in the context ofunderdeveloped market institutions and the ongoing changes in the auditing sector'sregulatory environment, auditors' decision-making process becomes

more challenging and circumspect This requires auditing teams to possess solidtechnical knowledge, understanding of businesses and contexts, and a strong ability tomake sound judgment when confronted with grey areas in their assignments It urgesfor a cohesive and frequent knowledge sharing in audit teams Despite the pivotal role

of knowledge sharing, there have been very few studies on knowledge sharing in auditfirms in Vietnam and to date there has been no study focusing on dynamics ofknowledge sharing in audit teams in Vietnam

2 Research objectives and research questions

This dissertation aims at exploring the dynamics of team knowledge sharingalong the different stages of a professional service team working process Findings ofthis research would contribute to the body of knowledge regarding to the complex anddynamic nature of team knowledge sharing and the theory of groups as complexsystems

In details, the dissertation aims at achieving the following research objectives:

- Developing the dynamic model of team knowledge sharing in professional serviceteams; and

- Examining the developed dynamic model of team knowledge sharing in professionalservice teams

These objectives are reified into two research questions:

Research question 1: What and how do types of knowledge shared change as the

professional service project team moves from stages to stages?

Research question 2: What and how do motivations to share knowledge change as the

professional service project team moves from stages to stages?

3 Subjects and scope of the research

Research subjects

The main research subjects of this dissertation were the changes of teamknowledge sharing in types of knowledge shared and motivations to share knowledgeamong team members when the audit team projects move from one stage to the next.Audit projects encompass several distinct steps, which are organized into planning,fieldwork and completion In the first stage of planning, the objective is setting aneffective audit plan to accumulate sufficient and appropriate evidence, to keep

reasonable audit cost, and to avoid misunderstandings with the client The secondstage of execution is a process that auditors perform specific audit procedures tocollect sufficient appropriate audit evidence to be able to conclude with reasonableassurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatement The thirdstage of completion includes evaluation of obtained results, aggregation of findings,drawing conclusions with the final version of the financial statements to form theauditor’s opinion, preparation and approval of audit report.

Research scope

Among the four types of professional service firms suggested by VonNordenflycht (2010) including classic professional service firms, professionalcampuses, neo-professional service firms, technology developers, this dissertationfocuses one of the classic type of professional service firms which is audit firm Thecontext of auditing was chosen because only classic professional service firmsillustrate all three typical features of professional service teams which are knowledgeintensity, low capital intensity and professionalized workforce (Von Nordenflycht,2010) This dissertation uses the exploratory sequential mixed method design in thesample of auditing teams in Vietnam to develop and examine the dynamic model ofteam knowledge sharing The teams were chosen based on purposive sampling tomake sure that the sample include different types of audit firms (Big-4, internationaland local audit firms which are certified by the Ministry of Finance to provide auditingservices in Vietnam) The balance between males and females was considered toensure that both genders are represented in the study The teams came from audit firmslocating in Hanoi and Hochiminh City which are the two largest cities of Vietnam

An audit project is an arrangement that an auditor has with a client to perform anaudit of the client's accounting records and financial statements The work in an auditproject is allocated according to knowledge and experience of auditors in a projectteam that includes Partner, Manager, Senior, and Associates Audit partners whonormally purchases equity in the firm and must be a CPA are at the top of the auditteam hierarchy and ultimately responsible for the audit The role of the partner is toreach agreement with the client on the scope of the services to be provided and ensurethat the audit is properly planned and the audit teams has the required skills andexperience; they

supervise the audit team and review the working papers; finally they sign the finalaudit report Managers, with a typical audit experience of 5 – 10 years, ensure that theaudit is properly planned, which includes scheduling of team members; reviewing theworking papers, the financial statements and the audit report; dealing with invoicingand ensuring collection of payment for audit services; and finally, informing thepartner about any auditing or accounting problem encountered Seniors with 2 to 5years of experience generally assist in the development of the audit plan, preparation

of an audit budget, assigning audit tasks to juniors, and directing the day-to-day auditactivities Seniors also supervise and review the work of juniors and inform managersabout any auditing or accounting problems encountered At the bottom of thehierarchy, associates typically have up to two years of audit experience and undertakemostly routine work Their duties consist of performing the audit procedures assigned

to them, preparing adequate and appropriate documentation of completed work, andinforming the senior about any auditing or accounting problems encountered (Griffith

et al., 2015)

4 Original contributions of the research

The exploratory sequential mixed research method was used to capture thecomplexity of team knowledge sharing dynamics in the professional service teams Inthe first phase, the qualitative study was conducted through interviewing 36 auditors of

12 audit teams in Vietnam In the second phase, based on the insights of the qualitativeresearch, a survey-based study was conducted with a sample of 263 Vietnamese auditteams to examine the model The researcher found that motivations to shareknowledge exist in all perspectives of cost/benefit calculation, normative conformity,and affective bonding A surprising finding is that professionals within audit teams donot only share client-based and technical knowledge as suggested by the priorliterature, but also share their practical judgement Overall, the integrated results fromtwo studies proves that team knowledge sharing is hardly homogeneous as oftenassumed in the literature and consistently support the argument that team knowledgesharing changes in its dimensions of motivations to share knowledge and types ofknowledge shared as a professional team project moves from stage to stage

This study makes contributions to the team management literature by addressingthe gaps related to complex and dynamic nature of team knowledge sharing whichincludes (1) different types of knowledge shared, (2) motivations to share knowledge,

and (3) evolution of team knowledge sharing over project stages First, while teamknowledge sharing literature has mostly treated knowledge as a single construct, thisstudy distinguished knowledge into different types addressing the calls of scholars.There has been a surprising finding that one more type of knowledge shared duringprofessional service project work was emerged from our interviewing data, referred aspractical judgement Second, this study addresses the call for integrating theoreticalperspectives of economics, sociology, and psychology to comprehensively understandmotivation to share knowledge Applying Incentive theory of Knoke and Wright-Isak(1982), this study found that team members are motivated to share knowledge bydifferent combination of calculative, normative, and affective motivations Third, thisdissertation made one of the initial attempts to develop and examine the dynamicmodel of team knowledge sharing emphasized to change over time yet mostly treated

in static models This study recognized three knowledge sharing modes, includingtransferring, integrating, and role-modelling, which are utilized as a team projectmoves through stages Each mode reflects a different combination of types ofknowledge shared and motivations to share knowledge

Besides, this dissertation contributes to the seminal work of Arrow et al (2000)who presented a compelling thoroughly argument for why teams should be thought ascomplex, dynamics, and adpative systems by empirical examining the dynamics ofknowledge sharing as a specific team process within professional service team setting

in Vietnam First, although Arrow et al (2000)’s argument has been agreed broadly,there has been noticeably less research taking this approach in the managementliterature This dissertation applied this theory to explore the temporal dynamics ofteam knowledge sharing as a critical and specific team process for team effectiveness.Second, most of prior studies that apply Groups as complex systems theory haveneglected the temporal dynamics of teams (Ramos-Villagrasa et al., 2017) In thisstudy, the researcher developed a dynamic model that tracks the qualitative patterns ofteam knowledge sharing over team project duration This study found that the globaldynamics reflects three team knowledge sharing modes of transferring, integrating,and role-modelling These modes are shaped and emerged from the local-levelcoordination of team components that include team members, project tasks, andknowledge as the teams carry out their functions Third, in terms of methodology, most

of the prior studies

used experiments and comprised lab data (Ramos-Villagrasa et al., 2017) This studyconducted a sequential exploratory mixed method which combines both qualitativeand quantitative studies to collect data in auditing project teams in Vietnam.

This study also yields critical takeaways for practice in professional servicefirms Overall, in order to facilitate knowledge sharing among professionals inprofessional service firms, managers have to be aware of knowledge sharing multi-dimensions and how each dimension changes through stages In another words, formanagers, it is important to recognize the dynamic and multidimensional nature of teamknowledge sharing Different conditions are needed to nurture team knowledge sharing

at different project stages

5 Structure of the dissertation

Besides the Introduction and Conclusion, there are five chapters in thisdissertation, as follows:

Chapter 1 reviews and synthesize the literature related to knowledge sharing,teams, project teams, motivations, and professional service firms The first sectionexplores definitions, classification, and characteristics of work teams and projectteams The following section reviews the definition of knowledge and how knowledgehas been categorized The third section reviews the concepts of knowledge sharing,team knowledge sharing, and dynamics of knowledge sharing The next sectionexplains the concept of motivation and motivations to share knowledge Thedefinitions, categories, and importance of knowledge sharing in professional servicefirms are presented in the following section The discussion is followed by another keysections, which explores the roles of team knowledge sharing, the factors influencingknowledge sharing Finally, the limitations of the literature have been acknowledgedand discussed

Chapter 2 presents the theoretical foundation which provides the overall orientinglens for the question of how knowledge sharing evolves over time in team projects.The first section explains the suitability of Groups as complex systems theory andIncentive theory as a theoretical foundation for this study The second section outlinesthe theories’ origins and key ideas The next section reviews how these theories havebeen applied in the team literature This chapter ends with a section describing howGroups as complex systems theory and Incentive theory are applied to study teamknowledge sharing as an important team process in professional service project teams

Chapter 3 describes the exploratory sequential mixed methods used in thisdissertation This chapter starts with the explanation of the reasons for choosing themixed methods research, and describes the research context, the general researchdesign used in this study Then, the qualitative methodology as the first phase in thismixed methods research is described The first part of this section describes qualitativeresearch design and the abductive approach for theory development, participantselection, data collection, and interview guide The second part of this section which isqualitative analysis describes data preparation, thematic analysis, and data qualityprocedures Based on the findings of the qualitative study, six hypotheses on theevolution of types of knowledge shared and knowledge sharing motivations inprofessional service project teams are formulated The quantitative study tested thesehypotheses in a sample of Vietnamese audit project teams Hence, the second section

of this chapter describes this quantitative methodology as the second phase in thismixed methods research This section includes sample, data collection, measures, anddata analysis

Chapter 4 provides the analysis of two study phases including qualitative andquantitative studies The first part of this chapter presents the findings by themesemerged through the data analysis of the interviews Each section starts with the mainobjectives and tasks of a specific project stage, then the dominant types of knowledgeshared in that stage, and the dominant motivations driving team members to shareknowledge Each section ends with how the interactions of team knowledge sharingelements form team knowledge modes represented for each project stage The nextsection connects the three preceding sections and presents how the team knowledgesharing modes changes over time when the project moves from stage to stage Inanother words, the model of temporal dynamics of team knowledge sharing inprofessional service project teams is proposed The second part of this chapter presentsthe six hypotheses on the evolution of types of knowledge shared and knowledgesharing motivations in professional service project teams formulated based on thefindings of the qualitative study presented The quantitative study tested thehypotheses in a wider sample of Vietnamese audit project teams A strong associationbetween the dimensions of team knowledge sharing with the project stages wouldsupport the model and provide

better understandings of how team knowledge sharing changes in professional serviceteam context.

Chapter 5 concludes this dissertation by presenting an overview of this researchand highlighting the contributions to the body of knowledge in team knowledgesharing literature and groups as complex systems theory This chapter offers adiscussion of these results and shows the relationship to the background literaturediscussed in earlier chapters The discussion is aligned to the objectives of the study,

so as to provide a concise and coherent account of the interpretation In particular, thechapter consists of four sections which are discussion, theoretical implications,practical implications, limitations and recommendations for future research

CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews and synthesize the literature related to knowledge sharing,teams, project teams, motivations, and professional service firms The first sectionexplores definitions, classification, and characteristics of work teams and projectteams The following section reviews the definition of knowledge and how knowledgehas been categorized The third section reviews the concepts of knowledge sharing,team knowledge sharing, and dynamics of knowledge sharing The next sectionexplains the concept of motivation and motivations to share knowledge Thedefinitions, categories, and importance of knowledge sharing in professional servicefirms are presented in the following section The discussion is followed by another keysections, which explores the roles of team knowledge sharing, the factors influencingknowledge sharing among individuals in general and among individuals within teams

in particular Finally, based on the reviewing of the current studies on team knowledgesharing, some limitations of the literature have been acknowledged and discussed

1.1 Overview of work teams and project teams

1.1.1 Definitions and types of work teams

Under the pressures of increasing global competition, consolidation, andinnovation, teams have been emerging as the core building blocks of the modernorganizations (Kozlowski & Bell, 2013) From the perspective of systems, Kozlowskiand Ilgen (2006) define teams as “complex dynamic systems that exist in a context,develop as members interact over time, and evolve and adapt as situational demandsunfold” (p 78) Focusing on the relationship between teams and the organization, ateam is defined by Cohen and Bailey (1997) as “a collection of individuals who areinterdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who seethemselves and who are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one ormore larger social systems, and who manage their relationships across organizationalboundaries” (p 241) The defining qualities of a team as a work group of employeesare formal establishment, assigned autonomy, and interdependence (Rasmussen &Jeppesen, 2006; Sundstrom et al., 2000) Furthermore, teams operate in anorganizational context that influences their functioning and teams are complexdynamic systems in which members interact for shared common goals (Bourgault &Drouin, 2009)

In work settings, there are two trends of defining a team and a group Somescholars make no distinction between work teams and work groups and use theseterms interchangeably (e.g., Kozlowski & Bell, 2013; Parks & Sanna, 2018;Sundstrom et al., 2000) Other theorists classify a team as a special type of group andfocus on how team behaviors are different from that of groups (Arrow et al., 2000;Forsyth & Elliott, 1999; Katzenbach & Smith, 1993) Teams are structured groups ofpeople who work together and coordinate interactively to accomplish certain tasks ondefined common goals (Forsyth & Elliott, 1999) The first difference relates toapplication that teams typically are used in sports or work organizations In practice,teams often are within larger organizations and the team members have specializedknowledge and skills to function their assigned roles and tasks In research, whilestudies on teams are conducted with field data collected from the teams in workplace,studies on groups are carried out in lab conditions (Kerr & Tindale, 2004) Second, thetwo concepts are distinct in terms of size and interdependence While a group can havefrom two to thousands of members, a team has a narrower size range Members inwork groups jointly function the same tasks but not necessarily integrate andcoordinate Whereas team members with complementary skills are mutuallyaccountable for working to accomplish common performance goals (Katzenbach &Smith, 1993) The third distinction relates to power According to Hayes (1997), forachieving the team goals, the team must be empowered and have authority to controlpart of their operations.

Based on the functions the teams perform, Sundstrom et al (2000) classifies sixteam categories that include production teams, service teams, management teams,project teams, action and performing teams, and advisory teams Production teamsconsist of core employees who repeatedly manufacture or assemble tangible products

in long periods of routinized tasks Service teams conduct repeated transactions withcustomers with various needs Managers who work together for planning, developingpolicies, directing and coordinating lower-level units compose management teams.Project teams execute specialized tasks within a defined period Action and performingteams comprise experts with specialized skills and engage in complex time-constrained performances Advisory teams are temporary teams providingrecommendations for an organization

1.1.2 Definitions and characteristics of project teams

Among these above-mentioned types of teams, this dissertation focuses onproject teams which are commonly utilized to take advantages of resources and toenhance competitive advantages in modern organizations (Batistič & Kenda, 2018; Fu

et al., 2021) To be specific, project teams are teams with generally cross-functionalmembers performing a specialized project within a definite time period and disbandingafter project termination (Sundstrom et al., 2000) PMI Standards Committee (2004)defines that “the project team is composed of the people who have assigned roles andresponsibilities for completing the project and is composed of the project manager, theproject management team and for some projects, the project sponsor” (p.199) Fromthe internal aspect, Englund and Graham (1999) explains that project teams “… iscomposed of representatives for each department involved in developing andimplementing the new product or application: they stay on the project from beginning

to end to direct the work of the people in the departments” (pp 92–93) From anexternal aspect, Devine et al (1999) defines project teams as “standing teams withrelatively stable membership that solve problems, make plans or decisions, or interactwith clients or customers” (pp 683–684) As a comprehensive review of project teamdefinitions, Chiocchio et al (2015) proposes that “A project team unites people withvaried knowledge, expertise and experience who, within the life span of the project butover long work cycles, must acquire and pool large amounts of information in order todefine or clarify their purpose, adapt or create the means to progressively elaborate anincrementally or radically new concept, service, product, activity, or more generally, togenerate change” (p 54) Many industries rely on project teams to deliver outcomes toexternal clients, such as professional services, construction, information systems,research and development, manufacturing, and telecommunication (Kloppenborg &Opfer, 2002)

Project teams have three distinguishing features (Drouin & Sankaran, 2017) Thefirst feature is that project team members work together from a known start date to ananticipated end date of the project Team members engage in for the whole duration ofthe project are responsible for executing and completing the project stages includeinitiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing (PMIStandards

Committee, 2004) The second feature is that the core project teams make contribution

to the project for specialized tasks at specific times (Chiocchio et al., 2015) Besides,more specialized individuals can be added at various stages of the project for fillingknowledge gaps (Hoegl et al., 2004) The third feature is that teams are embedded incomplex and dynamic organizational systems Teams operate both autonomously and

in coordination with others in an organizational setting to perform their tasks (Zaccaro

et al., 2012)

As project teams are considered as building blocks of modern-day organizationaldesigns, a vast amount of effort has been put in studying what contribute to effectiveteam management (Carter et al., 2019; de Poel et al., 2014; Mathieu et al., 2019).Toward the key question of why some teams operate more effectively than others, onecritical answer lies in team processes (Kozlowski, 2015) Knowledge sharing is a vitalteam process that allows task-relevant ideas, information, and suggestions to be sharedamong team members (Ambos et al., 2016; Gong et al., 2013; Hargadon & Bechky,2006) In project teams, knowledge sharing is a crucial team process as it provides alink between the members with complementary skills and the project teams by sharingknowledge to generate synergy through a coordinated effort to achieve better results(Mueller, 2014)

1.2 Overview of knowledge, knowledge sharing, team knowledge sharing

1.2.1 Definitions and Types of knowledge

While the role of knowledge has been emphasized in the resource-based(Spender & Grant, 1996) and knowledge-based views of the firm (Bock et al., 2005),and widely recognized by scholars in management field, there has still debate on howknowledge is defined Historically, in epistemology, knowledge is defined as “justifiedtrue belief” (Russell, 1949) Even though this definition had widely accepted inWestern philosophy, it was argued that knowledge was just explained with its absolute,static, and nonhuman dimensions Extending the phrase of “justified true belief”,Nonaka (1994) termed knowledge as “a dynamic human process of justifying personalbeliefs as part of an aspiration for the truth” In term of its elements, knowledgeconsists of information, ideas, and expertise that individuals, teams, work units, andorganization need to perform their tasks (Bartol & Srivastava, 2002) In term of itsconsequence, knowledge is defined as “outcome of people working together,sharing experiences, and

constructing meaning out of what they do” (Choo, 2000) More comprehensively,according to Davenport and Prusak (2000), “knowledge is a fluid mix of framedexperience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides aframework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information” and

“knowledge often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories, but also

in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms”

Researchers have provided various typologies of knowledge over the years(Anderson, 2005; Nonaka, 1994) The taxonomy could be based on theepistemological or ontological dimensions of knowledge The epistemologicaldimension of knowledge is concerned with the kind or the nature of knowledge(Richards, 2003) or how it is possible to find out about the world (Snape & Spencer,2003) The ontological dimension concerns with what actually exists in the worldabout which humans can acquire knowledge In general, the literature on knowledgehas laid much more emphasis on the epistemological dimension than on theontological one (Akehurst et al., 2011) Table 1.1 summarizes the classifications ofknowledge in the extant literature

Table 1.1: Summary of representative studies on taxonomy of knowledge

(Cook & Brown, 1999; Kimmerle et al., 2010; Kogut & Zander, 1992; Løwendahl et al., 2001;Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Spender & Grant,1996)

De Jong and Ferguson-Hessler, 1996; Sanchez andHeene, 1997; Schraw,2006)

EmbrainedEmbodied Encoded EmbeddedEncultured

Ki (knowledge embedded in theindividual)

Ko (knowledge embedded in theorganizational structure)

Kp (knowledgeembedded inphysical assets)

(Gorga & Halberstam,2007)

Descriptive

Prescriptive

(Rubenstein-Montano

et al., 2001; Vincenti,1984)

Generic

Domain specific

(Alexander & Judy, 1988; Patel & Groen,1991)

Formal

Informal

(Agrawal, 1995;

Kloppenburg, 1991)Technical

“learning-by-doing” (Arrow, 1962) Tacit knowledge is embodied in the habitualpractices and mental models of individuals (Kimmerle et al., 2010; Lakoff & Johnson,1999; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Polanyi, 1966) As such, tacit knowledge is noteasily articulated because it is subconsciously understood and applied, and it resides inpeople’s minds as intuitions, insights, beliefs, or values (Ambrosini & Bowman, 2001;Ancori et al., 2000) Explicit knowledge, in contrast, is capable of being codified,categorized, stored, articulated, and easily communicated in a written language (Bartol

& Srivastava, 2002; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Stenmark, 2000)

In professional service contexts, scholars have categorized knowledge intotechnical knowledge and client-specific knowledge that are based on the substancerather than the form or the focus of knowledge (Empson, 2001; Løwendahl et al.,2001) Technical knowledge refers to that of performing specific tasks in a certainfield, embedded in a specific sector, an organization, or individuals Sector-specificknowledge is generic, widely available and shared with other firms in the industry,formally coded in the syllabuses of professional exams Organizational knowledge isspecific to the firm, related to distinct processes, procedures or products, formalized or

tacit Individual knowledge is resulted from the individual’s past experiences, hiseducation and his unique combination of client engagements (Morris & Empson,1998) Client knowledge includes general knowledge of client’s particular industry,detailed knowledge of a specific client firm, and personal knowledge of key personnel

in the client firms (Empson, 2001) Client knowledge is crucial for appropriatelyapplying technical knowledge to solve clients’ problems (Løwendahl, 2005) Thisstudy uses these types of knowledge as a starting point in exploring the dynamics ofteam knowledge sharing because this classification is central to the distinctive identity

of professional service firms (Morris & Empson, 1998)

Specifically, in financial statement auditing service, technical knowledgecomprises general accounting and auditing knowledge, subspecialty knowledge, andgeneral business knowledge (Tan & Libby, 1997) All professional audit staff of anaudit firm must have technical knowledge of general accounting and auditing Most ofthis basic information will be obtained by auditors formally as a part of their collegeprogram More detailed technical knowledge is contemplated by knowledge offunctional areas (e.g., tax, computer auditing) and accounting issues (e.g., leases,pensions), some of which will be learned during a college program The depth oftechnical understanding in these categories is customarily obtained on the job and incontinuing professional education programs Rarely, however, does one individualpossess all of the specialized accounting and auditing knowledge required for aspecific major audit engagement Thus, in such areas, knowledge sharing acrossindividual auditors usually is required Besides, industry-specific knowledge interactswith the higher forms of accounting knowledge when accounting rules and/orapplications are unique to a given client industry But even beyond such industry-specific accounting knowledge, an audit project requires more general industry-specificbusiness knowledge to identify efficiently potential problems and communicate withclient personnel

1.2.2 Definitions of knowledge sharing, team knowledge sharing, and dynamics

of team knowledge sharing

1.2.2.1 Knowledge sharing

Knowledge sharing is defined differently based on the two views of scholars thatare single-way and dual-way perspectives In the single-way perspective, knowledge

flows from the only source of knowledge provider to knowledge recipient Within thisview, knowledge sharing is argued to be an individualized process or more than anindividualized process First, as an individualized process, knowledge sharing is set ofindividual behaviors in making his/her work-related knowledge and expertise available

to others (Huang et al., 2010; Ipe, 2003; Wang & Noe, 2010) Second, it is argued thatknowledge sharing is more than individualized process Knowledge sharing is amovement of work-related knowledge and expertise from knowledge provider torecipient, and from an individual to the firm level (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2005; Lam &Lambermont Ford, 2010) In the dual-way perspective, knowledge is contributed from‐both sides of knowledge provider and knowledge recipient (Van Den Hooff & DeRidder, 2004) In this sense, knowledge sharing is defined as a process in whichindividuals mutually exchange knowledge to jointly create new knowledge in the twosub-processes of knowledge donating and collecting (Bosua & Scheepers, 2007; DeVries et al., 2006; Van Den Hooff & De Ridder, 2004; Yang & Chen, 2007).Knowledge donating is the action of communicating to others what one’s personalintellectual capital is Knowledge collecting is the action of consulting colleagues inorder to get them to share their intellectual capital (Van Den Hooff & De Ridder,2004) In this study, knowledge sharing is understood as a process where individualsexchange knowledge to jointly create new knowledge and solve practical problems(Carmeli et al., 2013; Cockrell & Stone, 2010; Gagné, 2009)

The two similar concepts which are often used interchangeably with knowledgesharing are knowledge exchange and knowledge transfer However, the processes aredifferent even rather blurrily (Kumar & Ganesh, 2009; Paulin & Suneson, 2015;Tangaraja et al., 2016) The scholars suggest that knowledge exchange includes bothindividuals providing knowledge to others and individuals seeking for knowledge fromothers (Wang & Noe, 2010) Knowledge transfer is more extensive, involving thecontribution of knowledge by the knowledge source that is acquired and applied by theknowledge recipient Knowledge transfer typically has been used predominantly todepict knowledge moving between larger entities, such as between different units,departments, sections, or divisions in organizations or between different organizations

themselves rather than between individuals (Chakravarthy et al., 1999; Lam, 1997;Szulanski et al., 2004).

While most empirical studies of knowledge sharing have treated knowledge as asingle dimensional construct (Ipe, 2003), in a portion of prior studies, knowledgesharing has been categorized based on different knowledge dimensions and/orknowledge types Most of the studies have applied the classification of knowledgesharing into sharing explicit knowledge and sharing tacit knowledge (e.g, Gomes et al.,2018; Hu & Randel, 2014) Sharing tacit knowledge which refers to context specific,semiconscious and unconscious knowledge possessed by individuals (Leonard &Sensiper, 1998; Polanyi, 1966) is more challenging than sharing explicit knowledgewhich can be expressed and codified using written language (Biggam, 2001; Nonaka,1994; Polanyi, 1966) Sharing tacit knowledge takes more time and efforts,undermines the power and authority of knowledge providers (Hu & Randel, 2014),and requires high level of personal interactions and trust (Brockmann & Anthony,2002) Besides, previous knowledge sharing studies have used some other knowledgedimensions, such as those were proposed by Machlup (2014) including propositionalknowledge, descriptive knowledge, historical knowledge, theoretical knowledge,procedural knowledge, by Hew and Hara (2007) including book knowledge, practicalknowledge, and cultural knowledge, by Child and Faulkner (1998) including technicalknowledge, systemic knowledge, and strategic knowledge (Marshall et al., 2005) Theprior studies also proposed that different types of knowledge need to be shared andintegrated in different phases of project duration (Gomes et al., 2018; Marshall et al.,2005) and face different challenges over the lifecycle of projects (Pan et al., 2007)

1.2.2.2 Team knowledge sharing

Knowledge sharing is a multilevel phenomenon that is nested within differentlayers of the organization (Ahmad & Karim, 2019; Ipe, 2003) Knowledge sharingcould be between individuals, from individuals to a group, within a group, betweengroups, sections or departments (Noor & Salim, 2011; Weinberg et al., 2014), andbetween organizations (Barão et al., 2017; Gupta et al., 2021) Among these levels,this research focuses on knowledge sharing within teams which are formed to developstrategy, design new products, deliver services, or execute other key tasks(Edmondson et al.,

2007) The first reason is firms increasingly rely on teams for carrying out businessactivities and increasing the competitive advantages, project teams are considered asthe building blocks of modern-day organizational designs (Batistič & Kenda, 2018;Carter et al., 2019; Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006; Mathieu et al., 2017, 2018) Knowledgesharing is a critical team process contributing for the team effectiveness (Kozlowski,2015; Powell et al., 2004) because team knowledge sharing allows task-relevant ideas,information, and suggestions to be shared among members to improve teamperformance (Ahmad & Karim, 2019; Gong et al., 2013) Sharing knowledge withinteams enable the cognitive resources within teams to be utilized, exploited, andcapitalized by the organizations so as to advance the organizational goals (Argote etal., 2000; Cabrera & Cabrera, 2005; Nonaka, 1994; Prusak & Davenport, 1998) Thesecond reason is that team knowledge sharing is considered as a linchpin betweenindividual and organizational learning as knowledge exchange needed for product andservice development mainly occurs at team level (Bogenrieder & Nooteboom, 2004).Both heterogenous and complementary knowledge and experience of individualswithin teams are shared and form a synergy (Zárraga & Bonache, 2003) Throughcooperation in teams, the integration of individual members’ different andcomplementary skills and perspectives will transcend the aggregation of eachmember’s results (Liu & Phillips, 2011) Therefore, knowledge sharing within teams isthe main focus of this research Team knowledge sharing refers to activities throughwhich team members share task- relevant ideas, information, and suggestions witheach other to achieve the goals (Lin & Lee, 2006; Zhang et al., 2011).

1.2.2.3 Dynamics of team knowledge sharing

While knowledge sharing is a dynamic process with complex nature (Alajmi,2008; Heizmann, 2011; Kwok & Gao, 2005; Szulanski, 1996), the extant literature hasbeen silent on its dynamics In another words, the prior studies have assessedknowledge sharing at a single time-point or with static models Some studies havementioned “knowledge sharing dynamics,” but they focused on factors affectingknowledge sharing (Cyr & Choo, 2010; Lodhi & Coakes, 2012) rather than analyzinghow the nature of knowledge sharing changes over time There is a call forinvestigation on different frequency and types of knowledge shared in variousstages of team

development (Marks et al., 2001) and the relationship between team characteristicsand knowledge sharing as the time goes by (Sawng et al., 2006).

The dynamics of knowledge sharing could be inferred from studies of knowledgesharing in project-based organizations which manage production functions within atemporary project organization setting (e.g., professional service firms) (DeFillippi &Arthur, 1998) through different stages (Gomes et al., 2018) In particular, regarding theprofessional service teams where knowledge is shared among different team membersalong with standard stages that last a certain period of time, the issue of knowledgesharing’s evolution over different stages has not been studied Hence, in this study, thedynamics of knowledge sharing is understood as the changes of its multi-dimensions

in successive stages of a project in professional service firms

1.2.3 Roles of team knowledge sharing

In team literature, knowledge sharing within teams has been found to associatewith positive outcomes in individual-level and team-level

From the angle of individual employees, team knowledge sharing outcomes areindividual performance, employees’ creativity, employee innovative behaviors, andemployees’ psychological aspect First, Van Woerkom and Sanders (2010) found thatteam knowledge sharing through advice exchanging among team members haspositive effect on the individual performance of team members Because throughinteractions within teams, knowledge accumulated by one member can be passed on tothe other members by consulting, giving advice, feedback, explanation, and helpingeach other Second, team knowledge sharing also impacts on the creativity ofemployees as the generation of novel and useful ideas Dong et al (2017) found thatwhen a team member involves in open communication for exchanging knowledge andcan be exposed to various points of view and diverse ideas, his or her individual skilldevelopment and creativity will be enhanced In line with this result, Zeb et al.(2019)’s study affirmed that knowledge sharing is positively associated withemployees’ creativity Besides, previous studies have examined and agreed on thepositive relationship between team knowledge sharing and employee innovativebehaviors In the sample of hospitality teams in Taiwan, Monica Hu et al (2009) foundthat sharing knowledge among team members could not only facilitate the serviceinnovation performance but also the

employee service innovation behavior Wang et al (2021)’s study found that whenteam members share knowledge with others, new ideas, processes or products can begenerated, in turn, individual employees are encouraged and empowered to exhibitpositive innovative behaviors.

The importance of knowledge sharing in the team literature can be categorizedinto three groups of team performance, team creativity, and team climate

First, prior studies have reached a high consensus that knowledge sharing inteams leads to superior team performance Because teams are salient components ofmodern organizational working design, the studies examining the effect of teamknowledge sharing on team performance have attracted many scholars (Henttonen etal., 2013; Srivastava et al., 2006) Knowledge sharing within teams has been shown tohave positively impact on the team performance in many different contexts (Argote etal., 2000; Cummings, 2001; Hansen, 2002) Surveying management teams in hotelproperties in the United States of America, Srivastava et al (2006) found thatknowledge sharing results in better team performance because of improved decisionmaking and team coordination When knowledge is shared among team members, amore thorough consideration of options, a superior use of existing knowledge isfacilitated and shared mental models and transactive memory are developed for betterdecision making and team coordination Using the same arguments for effectivedecision making and collaboration among team members in Korean IT service projectteams, Lee et al (2014) also stated that knowledge sharing is a strong predictor ofproject team performance Observing 34 project teams in the engineering department

of a large Australian automotive company, the findings of Lee et al (2010) indicatethat team knowledge sharing rated by team members significantly predict teamperformance rated by team leaders and project managers The study of Liu and Phillips(2011) in 52 research and development project teams in technology-driven companies

in Taiwan showed that the teams regularly engaged in knowledge sharing can performbetter because they are better prepared for dealing with project-related difficulties andobstacles Specifically in project team context of software industry of Pakistan,knowledge sharing leads project success as sharing specialized knowledge within teamcan increase knowledge diversity for the whole team and the shared understanding ofproject objectives (Hussain

et al., 2021) However, in the study of 139 on-going teams in two oil and steelcompanies in South Korea, Choi et al (2010) found that knowledge sharing does notenhance team performance unless the shared knowledge is effectively applied.Besides, in the study on 182 project teams in a management consulting firm in theUnited States, Haas and Hansen (2007) noted that when the effort for adjusting theknowledge complexity is insufficient, the positive effect of knowledge sharing on teamperformance can be reduced.

Second, as teams carry out various heuristic tasks without clearly delineatedmethods for to task accomplishment (Kessel et al., 2012), team knowledge sharing hasbeen identified as a crucial element of team creativity and innovation With datacollected from 73 healthcare teams treating and caring for patients with rare diseases,the study by Kessel et al (2012), knowledge sharing in team is vital for knowledgecreation and becomes the foundation of team creativity According to Ma et al (2017)based on data collected 80 work teams in various industries operated in Mideast China,when team members continuously share knowledge with each other, knowledge flowsare facilitated, and team resources are integrated that novel idea production anddivergent thinking are stimulated In a similar context which is research anddevelopment teams in technology companies located in north-western China, Dong et

al (2017) noted that team knowledge sharing has positive impact on team creativitybecause when relevant individual knowledge is communicated and valued withinteams, the high levels of generating new ideas are achieved In a survey study from 60cross- national research teams in Chinese universities, Bodla et al (2018) showed thatnovelty and usefulness of ideas emanate from knowledge provisions and exchangesamong team members as team diversity facilitates new integrations of insights Usingmulti-source data collected from 128 work groups in South Korean diverse industries,Sung and Choi (2019) found that knowledge sharing allows knowledge resources to beaccessed by team members, thus fosters collective learning and creative problemsolving Besides team creativity as an outcome, knowledge sharing has also beenfound to have positive effect on team innovation According to Hu and Randel (2014),sharing knowledge among team members plays a critical role in achieving teaminnovation which expressed in the quantity and quality of innovative products,technical performance and responsive ability to changes of the team In this study of

219 work teams in various industries in

China, the authors have made clear distinction between the impacts of sharing tacitknowledge explicit knowledge on innovation within teams While explicit knowledgesharing does not significantly associate with team innovation directly, it is effectivethrough its impacts on tacit knowledge sharing Hu et al (2009) focused particularly

on the team service innovation and collected data from international tourist hotels inTaiwan Team service innovation is measured by the extent to which the teams developnew service processes and methods, new technologies or service technology forcustomer satisfaction or work objectives The study found that the more knowledge isshared among team members, the more improved the team service innovation can be.The third impact knowledge sharing brings into the teams is related to socialclimate within teams As Radaelli et al (2014) noted, knowledge sharing brings aboutinteraction and reciprocation which creates a foundation for team socialization.Besides, Alsharo et al (2017) found that through knowledge sharing, trust is graduallyinfused among team members These conditions spur social climate within teams.Using multi- level modelling with a sample of 25 service work teams in the UnitedStates, Flinchbaugh et al (2016) confirmed that when team members share knowledgeintensively, team service climate is enhanced through knowledgeable and skilledemployees who can effectively address the customers’ needs and deliver excellentcustomer service Furthermore, the social team climate is also expressed in theattitudes towards diversity in heterogeneous teams Examining in the multiculturalDanish university departments, Lauring and Selmer (2011) found that when academicteam members engage in sharing informal knowledge and applying knowledge insolving task relevant issues, the teams are more open to diversity in languages,observable traits, voicing opinions; and professional backgrounds

Table 1.2 summarizes the roles of knowledge sharing in the current team literature

Table 1.2: A summary of the empirical studies on the roles of team knowledge

sharing

Team-level outcomes

Team effectiveness (Alsharo et al., 2017) IT virtual teams

Team performance (Henttonen et al., 2013); (Choi et al., 2010); (Srivastava et al., 2006);

(Jamshed & Majeed, 2019); (Hendriani, 2020); (Park & Lee, 2014);

(Liu et al., 2020); (Staples & Webster, 2008); (Lee et al., 2014); (Lee

et al., 2010); (Argote et al., 2000); (Cummings, 2001); (Hansen, 2002); (Liu and Phillips, 2011); (Haas and Hansen, 2007)

Korean oil and steel teams; US Hotel management teams; Pakistan private health- care teams; Indonesia hospital teams; Korea ITproject teams; Taiwan high-tech teams;

Australian automotive project teams; USconsulting project teams

Team creativity (Ma et al., 2017); (Bodla et al., 2018); (Sung & Choi, 2019); (Dong

et al., 2017); (Hu et al., 2009); (Kessel et al., 2012); (Hu and Randel,2014)

Chinese research teams in universities; Koreanteams; Chinese IT R&D teams; Taiwan

hospitality teamsTeam climate Radaelli et al (2014); (Alsharo et al., 2017); (Flinchbaugh et al.,

2016); (Lauring and Selmer, 2011)

US service teams; Danish universitymulticultural departments

Individual-level outcomes

Individual performance (Van Woerkom and Sanders, 2010)

Employee’s innovative

behavior

(Wang et al., 2021); (Hu et al., 2009) Chinese teams

Employee’s creativity (Dong et al., 2017); (Zeb et al., 2019) Chinese IT R&D teams; Pakistan Overseas

Employment Promoters Agencies27

1.2.4 Factors influencing team knowledge sharing

In this research, knowledge sharing is conceptualized as a process in teams whichare complex, dynamic, and adaptive systems as suggested by Arrow et al (2000) Theteams interact with the smaller systems embedded within them and the larger systems

in which they are embedded (Arrow et al., 2000) The smaller systems are theinteractions and activities of three team elements of members, tasks, and tools Thelarger systems infer to contextual factors from the nation, the industry, or theorganization Team knowledge sharing is emerged and shaped from the interactionsand collaborations among three elements of members, tasks, tools and affected by thecontextual factors Therefore, this section presents the review of the current literature

on knowledge sharing among individuals within organizations in general and onknowledge sharing among members within teams in particular Furthermore, both thefactors at team level and the factors related to individual characteristics andorganizational contexts are put into consideration Compared to the studies onantecedents of knowledge sharing among employees within organizations, only a smallnumber of team characteristics and processes associated with knowledge sharing havebeen investigated (Wang et al., 2021) Different types of teams have chosen as theresearch contexts of previous studies, such as new product development teams,research and development teams, management teams, virtual teams in differentindustries of information technology, hospitality, healthcare, constructions, highereducation The most widely used theories to explain team knowledge are socialexchange theory, social identity theory, social capital theory Based on these reviews,the contributions and development of the field as well as the existing limitationsspecifically pertaining to the team knowledge sharing literature are acknowledged

1.2.4.1 Individual-level factors

First, individual factors influencing knowledge sharing among individuals inorganizations and in teams include personal demographic characteristics and

individual personalities or dispositions

The personal demographic characteristics have been examined are the level ofeducation, experience, and expertise Constant et al (1994) found that individuals withmore working experience and business schooling have higher likelihood and havemore

positive attitudes for sharing technical work and expertise in the organizations Theability to use computers also has positive association with the use of collaborativeelectronic systems for sharing information (Jarvenpaa & Staples, 2000) While Constant

et al (1996) showed that high expertise individuals have higher tendency to shareknowledge by responding to questions on knowledge management system, Wasko andFaraj (2005) found the nonsignificant relationship between expertise and knowledgesharing

Besides, the individual personalities have been found to influence knowledgesharing among individuals According to Cabrera et al (2006), self-efficacy andopenness to experience are significantly predicted sharing knowledge becauseemployees have higher inclination to engage in organization goal-oriented activitiesand also have higher curiosity and originality for seeking others’ insights Lin (2007)confirmed that knowledge workers who have enjoyment in helping others andknowledge self-efficacy contribute more for organizational performance by sharingknowledge However, evaluation apprehension or the fear of being critiqued was found

to inhibit knowledge sharing in both interpersonal database contexts (Bordia et al.,2006)

In team literature, only a few studies have investigated a small number ofindividual factors in relation to team knowledge sharing For instance, applying amultilevel approach to examine the impacts social capital on knowledge sharing in 65teams engaged in knowledge-intensive work, Yu et al (2013) found that a teammember’s affective commitment to the team facilitates his or her knowledge sharingwith other team members because emotional attachment fosters collective actions andinteraction readiness Hendriani (2020) conducted explanatory research found that highemotional intelligence team members are more likely to share knowledge with others.Individuals who have higher ability to manage emotions in tense situations can focus

on tasks to achieve desired goals through collaborating and sharing knowledge withothers in the teams

1.2.4.2 Team-level factors

Second, team-level factors influencing knowledge sharing among individuals inorganizations and in teams include team leadership, team culture, team processes, andother team characteristics

Several researchers have found the positive effects of different leadership styles

on team knowledge sharing Empowering leadership which provides role modelling,fair

recognition, participative decision-making, and coaching behaviors, stimulates teammembers to share their unique knowledge with one another (Srivastava et al., 2006;Xue et al., 2011) Besides, the team-focused transformational leaders bycommunicating collective vision, providing appropriate role models, and promotingteam acceptance of collective objectives will facilitate team members to engage insharing knowledge to contribute to the team goal achievement (Dong et al., 2017) Onthe aspect of psychological capabilities and standard moral values of leaders, asauthentic leadership which is characterized by transparent communication, self-awareness and balance in decision-making, prioritize collective interests (Zeb et al.,2019) and ethical leadership which focuses on ethical standards, business ethics, fairand balanced decisions, the team members will be more likely to share theirknowledge (Hussain et al., 2021).

Besides, few studies have investigated how team culture relates to knowledgesharing within teams Knowledge sharing practices are successful if they are inaccordance with cultural values (Jamshed & Majeed, 2019) In general terms, previousscholars have found that team knowledge sharing is encouraged in the team culturewhich includes the aspects of vision, support for innovativeness, participative safety,task orientation (Jamshed & Majeed, 2019) or team climate which consists of threedimensions of affiliation, trust, and innovation (Xue et al., 2011) In the specificdimension, the extent to which trust exists among different individuals in a teamaffects the level of knowledge that is shared throughout that team (Rosendaal &Bijlsma- Frankema, 2015; Staples & Webster, 2008; Zeb et al., 2019) However, trust

in team member is found to contributes more strongly to knowledge sharing than trust

in the team leader (Rosendaal & Bijlsma-Frankema, 2015) Additionally, psychologicalsafety which is also an attributable to team culture stimulates team members to sharetheir knowledge (Kakar, 2018b; Kessel et al., 2012; Zeb et al., 2019) In apsychologically safe environment, team members less worry about interpersonalthreats and take the imitative risk inside the organization and take the plan to help andsupport other members of the team, which is related to facilitation and generation ofknowledge sharing behaviors among employees (Zeb et al., 2019)

Additionally, some team-level processes have been found as important factorsaffecting team knowledge sharing As one of the social cognitive processes, a well-

developed transactive memory system which entails the specialization of knowledge,cognitive trust in others' knowledge, and an ability to coordinate knowledge according

to the task structure and members' unevenly distributed knowledge will lead toeffective knowledge sharing in teams (Choi et al., 2010) Besides, drawing from socialexchange theory, Wang et al (2021) found that team reflexivity referred to the extent

to which members in a team overtly review and communicate with each other aboutthe group’s objectives, strategies and operation procedures, and make necessaryadjustments motivates team members to share knowledge The team processes whichare affective and relational in nature like team commitment (Buvik & Tvedt, 2017)and team identification (Rosendaal & Bijlsma-Frankema, 2015) have been found to bepositively associated with knowledge sharing

However, mixed results were found with regards to the influences of teamcharacteristics on team knowledge sharing For instance, the relationship between teamdiversity and knowledge sharing was found to be positive (Ghobadi, 2015; Phillips etal., 2004) or negative (Bodla et al., 2018) or insignificant (Sawng et al., 2006; Sung &Choi, 2019) While Sawng et al (2006) found the positive relationship between teamcohesiveness and knowledge sharing among group members, Kakar (2018a) found thecurvilinear one Cohen et al (1996) and Dunphy and Bryant (1996) stated that teaminterdependence promotes knowledge sharing However, Sawng et al (2006) foundthat interdependence does not correlate with team knowledge sharing

Table 1.3 summarizes the factors influencing knowledge sharing in the currentteam literature