At the Origins of Learning: Absorbing Knowledge Flows from Within or Outside the Team?

Charles Ayoubi, Michele Pezzoni and Fabiana Visentin
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Fabiana Visentin: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

No 2016-08, GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France

Abstract: Empirical studies document a positive effect of collaboration on team productivity. The most common explanation to the teamwork productivity gain is that teamwork stimulates knowledge sharing among team members. However, little has been done to assess how knowledge flows among team members. Our study addresses this issue by exploring uniquely rich data on a Swiss funding program promoting team collaboration. We find that team characteristics play a key role in favoring knowledge flows among team members. Specifically, we find a significant effect of the social distance and an inverted U-shape effect of the cognitive distance of the team members on the probability of learning from within the team.

Keywords: team; learning process; knowledge flows; cognitive distance; social distance; geographical distance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-knm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gre:wpaper:2016-08

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