1. ¹Department of Business Administration, Lund University School of Economics and Management, Lund, Sweden
2. ²Institute of Economic Research, Lund University School of Economics and Management, Lund, Sweden

Correspondence: Anna Jonsson, Department of Business Administration, Lund University School of Economics and Management, P.O. Box 7080, Lund SE-220 07, Sweden. Tel: +46 46 222 36 48; E-mail: anna.jonsson@fek.lu.se

Received 3 November 2006; Accepted 8 May 2007.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to increase the understanding of how institutional forces and organizational context, in parallel with cognitive issues, impact knowledge sharing within multinational corporations (MNCs). Furthermore, the aim is to elaborate on differences between industries by comparing and contrasting a retail firm with a manufacturing firm. The focus is on IKEA and SCA Packaging and their efforts to share knowledge across national and intra-organizational boundaries. Despite differences between these two MNCs, the case studies illustrate that the will to share and absorb knowledge is very much influenced by institutional forces, as well as by the ways in which organizations are structured and controlled.