The Impact of Knowledge Transfer on Investments in Knowledge Creation in Firms.

• In Event: Behavioral Managerial Research

Abstract

Firms invest tremendous resources in knowledge management systems to facilitate knowledge transfer among units within the firm based on the premise that knowledge transfer is highly beneficial. Prior research has looked at knowledge transfer independent of knowledge creation. This paper uses an experiment to investigate the effect of knowledge transfer on managers’ willingness to invest in the creation of transferable knowledge in firms. Specifically, we investigate how knowledge transfer affects managers’ willingness to invest in the creation of transferable knowledge when the linkages between the firm-level goal and unit-level goals are communicated compared to when the linkages between the firm-level goal and unit-level goals are not communicated. Drawing on psychology theory, we predict and find that knowledge transfer decreases managers’ investment in the creation of transferable knowledge when the linkages between the firm-level goal and the unit-level goals are not communicated and increases managers’ investment in the creation of transferable knowledge when the linkages between the firm-level goal and the unit-level goals are communicated. Contrary to prior beliefs that knowledge transfer is beneficial for the firm, our study shows that knowledge transfer may hurt knowledge creation in the absence of the communication of the goal linkages. We also show that a simple mechanism, communicating the linkages between the firm-level goal and the unit-level goals, promotes knowledge creation in the presence of knowledge transfer.

Author

• Flora Hailan Zhou, Georgia State University