Cultural Conflicts and Knowledge Sharing: an Exploratory Analysis of Sino-Austrian Projects

This paper provides an exploratory analysis of cultural conflicts that potentially hinder knowledge sharing in the context of cross-national and knowledge-intensive projects including Austrian and Chinese project members. We firstly give an overview of central cultural concepts from a national viewpoint, highlight typical conflicts in projects, and discuss key factors that stimulate knowledge sharing. Next, we provide results gained from a series of interviews with practitioners and academics, and an exploratory workshop on global knowledge sharing held in Hong Kong. From the qualitative analysis, we posit six central cultural conflicts that emerged over task responsibilities, attitudes, work execution, power, communication, and time-orientation. We consequently classify these conflicts, discuss their causal placements within Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and suggest implications for knowledge sharing. Our research findings provide more groundwork for better understanding cultural conflicts and implications for knowledge sharing in the context of Sino-Austrian projects.