The impact of global leadership development programs on social networks and knowledge sharing in multinational enterprises.

Abstract

Taking as its starting point the significance of social networks for knowledge sharing in multinational enterprises, this paper has a particular focus on the role global leadership development programs may have on both social networks and knowledg e sharing in multinational enterprise s. The concept of social networks is developed using social capital theory. Our data is derived from Norfert, a Scandinavian multinational enterprise , which in 2007 introduced its first such program, “LEAD”. In order to examine the impact of LEAD we deploy a mixed - methods approach. Contrary to our theoretically driven assumption the longitudinal quantitative data suggest that participation in LEAD had a no positive effect on knowledge sharing. We therefore employed quali tative data in order to explain this finding which we did in terms of the particular cultural and organizational context in which LEAD was created.