Abstract
This thesis investigates the processes and influencing factors of international knowledge transfer (KT), and how the transfer contributes to the construction of sustainable competitive advantage in a dynamic and competitive environment. Based at the microfoundational level, this study examines how international assignees help multinational enterprises (MNEs) transfer knowledge between one unit in a developed economy and another in a developing economy.
Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, the knowledge-based view of the firm, the theory of dynamic capabilities, experiential and workplace learning theories, and social capital theory, this study employs a qualitative, multiple case study approach based on the critical realism paradigm. Data was collected from two emerging multinational enterprises (EMNEs) with headquarters in China, three MNEs with headquarters in New Zealand (NZ), and one NZ research institute. Selected from the food and beverage industry, these firms have all seconded international assignees back and forth between China and NZ, and all are currently competing in China. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifty-two interviewees, including international assignees, their supervisors, and their colleagues in both home and host units. Documents and observation complemented the interviews.
The results confirm that KT processes are a key source of sustainable competitive advantage. Organisational capabilities, including dynamic, operational, and knowledge management capabilities, are key to realising and adjusting strategy in a volatile and hyper-competitive business environment. These three capabilities can only be achieved if KT processes are efficiently and effectively managed in their interaction with business processes.
The findings indicate that KT processes are multi-level, including inter-personal knowledge sharing (micro), and team collaboration and intra- or inter-organisational KT (macro). Different levels feature unique influencing factors. Eight sets of factors that facilitate or inhibit KT success were identified, including knowledge characteristics, knowledge source and recipient characteristics, social capital, cross-national distances, international assignees’ task-related and intercultural competence, international assignees’ motivation and opportunity, organizational support, and institutional environment. All of the influencing factors are interrelated, rather than each having its own discrete effect. Moreover, influencing factors for MNEs and EMNEs differ as a consequence of cultural differences and the ‘liability of emergingness.’
Different types of knowledge require different transfer processes. This study challenges existing theories of KT that view knowledge as a transferrable individual possession. KT missions are a set of expectations and goals that only have actual meaning when assignees carry them out through participating in host work activities. Rather than being passive ‘carriers’ of knowledge, through actively participating, assignees frequently undergo a transformation that encompasses changing interpretations of what knowledge is valuable. This in turn gives MNEs the false impression that international assignments have a high failure rate.
This study moves away from the functionalist paradigm based on epistemology of possession to the participative transformational paradigm, where multiple types of knowledge coexist, complement each other, and are constantly changing. Knowledge and knowing cannot be separated. KT is not a tacit-explicit conversion, as the SECI model proposes. Knowledge is transferred via co-creation among assignees, the host environment, and host locals.