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Dispersed multinational teams include people from multiple nations, some of whom are not collocated. In a knowledge economy, such teams must locate, store, allocate, and retrieve knowledge. Three central questions are: (a) How can dispersed multinational teams manage knowledge resource flows? (b) What factors influence knowledge resource distribution in these teams? and (c) How do dispersed multinational teams evolve over time? This chapter examines knowledge resource sharing in multinational teams through three theoretical lenses: transactive memory theory, collective action theory, and evolutionary theory, and concludes with practical suggestions for managing dispersed multinational teams that are derived from these three theoretical lenses.

Bindu Aryais currently a doctoral student in International Business and Strategy at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her dissertation will empirically investigate how collaborative efforts between for-profit, not-for-profit and governmental agencies facilitate outcomes and can function to enhance sustainable development. Her research on how social networks facilitate organizational and group decision-making processes and outcomes has appeared in Journal of Management (forthcoming).

The study of the diffusion of innovations into libraries has become a cottage industry of sorts, as libraries have always provided a fascinating test-bed of nonprofit institutions attempting improvement through the use of new policies, practices, and assorted apparatus (Malinconico, 1997). For example, Paul Sturges (1996) has focused on the evolution of public library services over the course of 70 years across England, while Verna Pungitore (1995) presented the development of standardization of library planning policies in contemporary America. For the past several decades, however, the study of diffusion in libraries has tended to focus on the implementation of information technologies (e.g., Clayton, 1997; Tran, 2005; White, 2001) and their associated competencies (e.g., Marshall, 1990; Wildemuth, 1992), the improvements in performance associated with their use (e.g., Damanpour, 1985, 1988; Damanpour & Evan, 1984), and ways to manage resistance to technological changes within the library environment (e.g., Weiner, 2003).

Global virtual teams include members from multiple nations and cultures who must work together while being separated by time and space. We discuss leadership in global virtual teams and how distance influences the full range of leadership required at multiple levels of the organization. We use research literature devoted to virtual teams as well as our own data collected from interviews with leaders and members of global virtual teams to highlight factors related to global team effectiveness, satisfaction and commitment. We provide a model of leadership in global virtual teams that integrates previous research findings and may be used to guide future research and practice.