Knowledge sharing and team trustworthiness: it's all about social ties!

This paper empirically examines knowledge sharing within innovation teams and explores the relationship between knowledge sharing and trust. This relationship has generally been identified in the literature as an important aspect of knowledge management. However, its pertinence to knowledge transfer within and between teams is less obvious. The case study based on four information technology R&D teams in Taiwan suggests that trust between a knowledge holder and a receiver may not exist. In fact, it can be connected by a mediator, through the use of social relationship in which trust is rooted in both host and visitor's trust of the mediator. Thus, trust may be substituted by the social relationship in certain specific contexts.