Over the past decade, a number of well-known corporations, such as Alcoa Inc., Northrop-Grumman Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Sabre, Chevron Texaco and many others have invested substantially in the creation of knowledge management systems. The goal of these systems is to organize the corporation's collective knowledge, expertise, and experience so that employees may easily access this information as needed. Electronic information databases, communities of practice, and "expert" directories are some of the components of such corporate knowledge management systems. To work efficiently and effectively, virtual teams must develop similar mechanisms within their teams for sharing knowledge and building transactive memory systems. In the fast-paced business environment of the 21st century, virtual teams that waste time and resources searching for information that could be easily accessed will likely lose their competitive advantage. Similarly, virtual teams that make costly mistakes or experience costly delays, such as those described in our opening scenario, can seriously damage their organization's reputation. Based on our survey and interview data with virtual team leaders and virtual team members, we identified six common barriers to knowledge sharing in virtual teams. We also shared the strategies and "best practices" our respondents had used to overcome these knowledge sharing barriers. Our goal was to provide guidance to those organizations and their members who are or will be relying on global virtual teams to accomplish important work. To this end, we provide a visual summary of our recommendations for creating the conditions that facilitate knowledge sharing in virtual teams in Fig. 1. Organizations that best maximize the potential of their virtual teams to share knowledge should reap the benefits of making better, faster, and more innovative decisions. Moreover, effective knowledge sharing will also contribute to the quality of the virtual experience, the development and growth of team participants, and the organizational commitment from virtual team leaders and members. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
