Abstract

This article explores what executives do when they create knowledge in the course of cross-cultural intellectual dialogue. In recent cross-cultural management literature two research streams have emerged: «cultural-differences-as-barrier» and «cultural-differences-as-asset». The study presented here relates to the literature of knowledge management perspective of cross-cultural management. This study is a grounded theory research that portrays how executives create knowledge. Briefly, the theory identifies major process of cross-cultural learning and its two stages: ‘symmetrisation of knowledge’ and ‘mental hologram of reality’. Shared code of communication, basic knowledge of doing business, value of intellectual collaboration, valuable experience and personal appeal allow executives to equal the knowledge and facilitate the creation of “mental hologram” of reality, i.e. extensional picture of the problem. This shared intellectual insight leads to new knowledge creation.