Knowing in mobile organisations – trust and knowledge sharing in virtual teams

Abstract

We investigate how trust and knowledge sharing affect collaboration in virtual teams as knowing across boundaries in a mobile organisation. It is important for collaborative work that personnel have sufficient understanding and awareness in situations, and that resources are coordinated between participants to enable them to adjust to situations as they arise. This collaboration is dependent upon shared common goals, workers knowing their colleagues' competence and thereby being able to share knowledge in cross-disciplinary collaboration, and finally a shared language facilitated by technological visualisation artefacts. The consequences are that, through shared language, the ability to create collaborating relationships and to share knowledge based on trust increases.