Communicating Knowledge in Globally Dispersed Teams : A Study of Autoliv

Sammanfattning: Background: As companies are operating more and more globally, the need for increasingly coordinating and cooperating activities are becoming important. One solution to problems associated with work in globally dispersed teams can be to organize business activites, such as product development, virtually. A virtual setting for knowledge transfer is becoming a part of day-to-day activities for globally dispersed organizations such as Autoliv, the company in focus for this study. Purpose: To explore to what extent and in what respect companies can, using virtual teams in the product development process, by codifying knowledge, improve communication and transfer of knowledge between business units within and between projects in order to improve and increase cooperation and coordination. Method: The approach taken, has been an hermeneutic case study where we have carried out 16 in-depth interviews with a total of 17 respondents. The interviews have been carried out in face-to-face or videoconference settings with Autoliv employees from all over the world. Results: Codification should be used as a complementary tool to the personalization strategy within knowledge intensive companies. The fact that Autoliv’s product development teams often are globally dispersed creates an even larger need for codification in order to reach efficiency in the knowledge sharing process. Positive effects from this can occur, such as help creating a common understanding, which will facilitate coordination and cooperation activities.