Practical Constructs
Here are the constructs we found irrelevant to our thesis. It is a brief summary of what the interviewees said about the different constructs. There are some interesting observations and comments from the interviewees, however, these constructs goes beyond the scope of this thesis.
Cooperation
In terms of cooperation, the participant from the interviews had experience from different areas. In general, participants from both Toyota and KM had the experience that cooperation was very important in terms of a company’s performance (K1 and T1). K1 explained that in KM, collaboration is one out of four core values. However, collaboration is considered to be the most important one. He follows up by saying “Vi er veldig åpent for åpne samarbeid der vi deler erfaring og kunnskap og lærevane. Så det ligger helt i bunn av verdiene til
Kongsberg-gruppen. Og det ser vi jo.. eh.. veldig stor forskjell i de miljøene og samarbeidene der vi får det til og der vi ikke får det til. Også ser vi vel og at det er ganske krevende å få det til. Det er ikke noe som kommer gratis, det er noe som må jobbes for.” (K1)
Motivation
Some of the interviewees mentioned motivation as a variable affecting knowledge sharing, but little discussion around the variable. Considering our thesis, motivation is not interesting for us. On the other hand, it is an interesting construct for further research.
Culture (Company Culture)
According to the majority of the interviewed participants, company culture is a contributing factor to knowledge sharing (K2, T1, T2). K2 argues that “Rundt omkring i verden for eksempel da så har vi forskjellige kult.., sånne forskjellige bedriftskulturer. Ehm.., den norske
e-e, hva som er riktig. Eh, så har du for eksempel amerikansk bedriftskultur som er meg, meg, opp, fram, makt. eeh, hvis jeg vet noe..Så kan jeg bruke det til å få meg selv i en ny posisjon for eksempel. eh ,som da nødvendigvis vil gjøre at du kanskje vil dele anderledes, litt
avhengig av hvilke kultur du møter da.” K2, implying that the culture one operates in, colours your perspectives. Further, T2, underpin this observation with the following “Jeg vil tro at kunnskapsdelingen foregår annerledes i USA enn den gjør i Norge, enn den gjør i Japan, men summa summarum, så er det jo det samme ønsket og kravet til en kunnskapsdeling.” (T2).
These perceptions of corporate culture imply that companies must take into consideration the differences between the companies they collaborate with. Different corporate cultures can possibly become an uncertainty and create possible barriers to knowledge sharing. Although the goal of cooperation may be the same to the companies involved, they possibly will have different approaches towards accomplishing this goal (T2).
One important indicator of a company’s culture is its core values. Depending on what values the company focuses on, corporate culture can possibly affect the company’s ability to share knowledge (T1). T1 has also experienced that the values within a company can be transferred from one company to another. T1 explains that “ Men det er klart det har smitta også over på forhandlerne, så har den kulturen også etablert seg i forhandlerne, så man ser atte det er en kultur som fungerer.” (T1). Implying that Toyota’s good collaborative climate has been transferred to the retailers they collaborate with.
Considering the discussion above, corporate culture most certainly affects knowledge sharing between, and within companies. However, based on the information collected in the
interviews, corporate culture is probably not one of the most contributing factors to knowledge sharing.
Power
“For det kanskje aller viktigste samarbeidsmodellen, det er jo øøhm, importøren sammen med forhandlerne. Det nytter ikke å komme som stor sterk importør og fortelle hele verden rundt
hvordan de skal gjøre det. DET FUNKER IKKE.” (T1)
As T1 argue, it is important to be careful when using power. If a party uses its power it could result in less trust, less transparency and more tension between the companies. In other word, if power is managed the wrong way, it can destroy the relationship (T1).
Based on the information gather in the interviews, our evaluation of power as a possible construct is that it is less important compared to other constructs. However, the information collected in the interviews would not be satisfactory to determine its contribution properly.
Value Creation
K2 (2015), argues that value creation is in most situations the only reason why companies collaborate with each other. The essential idea of a collaboration, is that all parties receive an added value by cooperating, or as K2 states, “okay, vi tar med oss våre ting, de tar med seg sine ting, sammen er vi krutt” (K2).
Our evaluation of value creation as a possible construct to our model is that it in our case would have been a dependent variable. Also, the information from the interviews are not sufficient enough in order to evaluate its contribution to our model.
Personal characteristics and relationships
Knowledge sharing is among others, dependent on the relationship with the other party, and your own personal characteristics. T1 argues that depending on the persons involved in the collaboration, knowledge sharing may vary to some degree. T1 claims that it is important to not judge other members, or blame them for your mistakes; negative attitudes towards other members reduce the knowledge sharing within the group. TH adds to this argument and argues that different persons may have some similarities. To a certain degree, it is easier build a good relationship or cooperation, if you as a person have the ability to see these similarities among people (T1). Also, T1 emphasize the importance of being humble. By having a humble attitude, a person can possibly prevent a problem of argument from evolving (T1).
Furthermore, K2 claims that it is important with personal relationships with face-to-face contact. This type of personal interaction is essential in order to establish basic elements such as trust, honesty and probity in cooperation. Also, without some sort of personal interaction, it is quite difficult to make the collaboration work.
In terms of personal characteristics and knowledge sharing, almost all of the participants mentioned how important it is to not act selfishly. It is important to think “team” and how each individual participant may promote everyone in the collaboration by sharing information contribute (T1, T2, T1).
In total, the participants argued that personal characteristics and relationship are very important in order to build up and maintaining a good cooperation. However, personal characteristics are a quite abstract and extensive term. Also, it is quite difficult to measure without separating into more specific entities. Personal relationships is probably measurable, however, it is more similar to cooperation as a prerequisite to knowledge sharing in this case, rather than an influencing construct.
Communication
According to K1, communication is an important contributor to the relationship, since it makes everyone aware of their role in the relationship. The interviewee came with a good example of the importance of communication. He said that after a business trip to one of the business partners where they communicated values, products, and what the collaboration was all about. After this trip the productivity of the partner, the production increased significantly because the employees understood their contribution. ”Eh, for en 3-4 år siden, så var jeg i ..., også tok jeg hele teamet som jobbet for oss, det var en 15-20 stykker, også gikk jeg gjennom hva Kongsberg Maritime er, hva vi står for, gikk gjennom produktene våres, viste filmer om båtene som seiler rundt med produktene om bord, for å få dem til å skjønne hva vi egentlig driver på med. Eh, 2-3 måneder etterpå så snakket vi med utviklingssjefen i dette selskapet.
Og da sier han at produktiviteten i dette selskapet har økt etter at vi har vært der. Åså lurer jeg på hvorfor, hva er det som har skjedd?”