Team cohesiveness and leadership in the development of a knowledge sharing atmosphere

Abstract

In the last decade, trust (Wang et al., 2006; Koskinen et al., 2003., Politis, 2003), social networks (Borgatti and Cross, 2003; Cross et al., 2001; Hansen, 1999; Inkpen and Tsang, 2005;), social context (Fernie et al., 2003) and team climate (Z’arraga and Bonache, 2003; Wu et al., 2007; Muthusamy et al., 2005 ) have been intensively discussed within knowledge sharing studies. However, there are some fundamental issues being neglect in relation to how knowledge sharing becomes a routine activity. Research presented in this paper discovered that team atmosphere is an important element to sustain continuous knowledge sharing within a team. Two significant elements emerged as drivers - team cohesiveness and leadership. Whilst these two seem to be interdependent, this paper will focus primarily on team cohesiveness.The research was conducted in four R&D teams in Taiwan. Semi-structured interviews and team observation were adopted to collect qualitative data. Subsequently, free flow content analysis was employed to develop themes and make sense of the data.The findings suggest that a supportive team atmosphere underpins team cohesiveness, which in turn fosters a culture of mutual support. However, team leadership and team context seems to impact the way a supportive team atmosphere is developed. On closer inspection, team cohesiveness and mutual support appear to emerge as distinct aspects that comprise the notion of team atmosphere. Relating team atmosphere to knowledge sharing behaviour, our data shows a relationship between team members’ engagement and commitment of sharing knowledge and general team atmosphere. The paper suggests that in a supportive atmosphere knowledge sharing is embedded into team routine