Abstract
Grand challenges are urging multinational corporations to engage in multisectoral cooperation, which involves sharing knowledge between different actors. The partnership, the different partners, and the individuals involved have different motivations to knowledge sharing. This contextualized single-case study analyzes what factors affect individuals’ motivation to participate in knowledge sharing, and how potential misalignments in motivations between different individuals and the overall partnership affect it. The analyzed case is that of a partnership aimed at innovating the antibiotics market in a Nordic country. With a microfoundations approach, the study finds that some elements of the partnership, such as transparent communication and leadership, can facilitate the motivations to knowledge sharing of the participants, while others, such as fear and budgeting conflicts, may hinder it. The study offers theoretical contributions on the role of complexity in individual motivations to knowledge sharing, and suggests some practical implications for partnerships’ management.