Knowledge Sharing within Business Process Integration. What are the barriers for knowledge sharing? - The case of Statkraft’s e-invoice project.

Abstract

As Multinational Corporations (MNCs) expand their footholds over the world along with the development of digitalisation, a natural strategic requirement in process standardisation and simplification has been introduced for a future integrated platform. Knowledge is always a critical factor during the transformation. This research aims to explore further what are the main barriers for intra-organisational knowledge sharing across national borders within business process integration in an accounting project. A case study approach has been adopted for this research based on 11 semi-structured interviews conducted with the HQ in Norway and subsidiaries in Germany, Turkey and Brazil. The results demonstrate that knowledge sharing in the journey of business process integration can face several barriers related to contextual, technological, organisational and individual factors. The findings also show that the contextual factors have significant impacts over the other barriers that is essential to address for future strategy of an MNC.