Knowledge development and sharing in multinational corporations: The case of a centre of excellence and a transnational team

In this paper, we link the discussion on the differentiated multinational corporation (MNC) with organisational mechanisms for knowledge development and sharing. The aim is to explore the impact of different organisational mechanisms on knowledge development and sharing. Using case-study data—drawn from the same MNC—to explore two different organisational mechanisms, a Centre of Excellence and a transnational team, the findings illustrate how multifaceted knowledge development and sharing are. The organisational structure of the two organisational mechanisms partly determines whether knowledge development occurs locally or globally. This, in turn, has consequences for how knowledge sharing evolves. The sharing process is like a double-edged sword: how to share globally while allowing for local adaptations or how to share locally while developing global knowledge.