A specific knowledge culture: Cultural antecedents for knowledge sharing between project teams

• Cultural antecedents may vary according to the specific knowledge process.
• Knowledge sharing between project teams needs different cultural antecedents.
• Time, structure, output orientation, and openness have positive impacts.

SummaryCompanies focus on knowledge management initiatives to fully derive business value from their employees’ knowledge and foster organizational learning. Many companies organize their processes around projects; therefore, knowledge sharing between project teams becomes vital to organization-wide learning. The aim of this article is to investigate the cultural antecedents of knowledge sharing between project teams. In contrast to previous research that focused on cultural values for knowledge sharing between individuals, this study specifically examines new cultural elements that are important for knowledge sharing between project teams. The results of a quantitative survey indicate that time, structure, output orientation, and openness have positive effects on this specific knowledge process. These outcomes differ from existing studies that mostly focus on a general knowledge culture, leaving the potential for discovering differences for specific knowledge processes.