Dealing with knowledge sharing hostility Insights from six case studies

This paper examines knowledge sharing in business environments and cultures that are hostile to knowledge sharing. We focus on knowledge sharing as it relates to individual behavior and management as guiding basically willing individuals. We elaborate the dimensions related to knowledge hoarding, apprehension about failures, and the Not-Invented-Here syndrome by investigating their features in knowledge-sharing hostile environments. Empirically, we explore a context not widely covered by the Western management literature on knowledge sharing: we draw on the examples of six Russian companies, three with and three without Western ownership. In terms of action orientation, we suggest that in knowledge-sharing hostile environments management needs initially to force knowledge sharing in order to transform the hostility into a knowledge embracing culture. We outline concrete guidelines of how to overcome the specific barriers to knowledge sharing.