IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bap/journl/110406.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Knowledge Transfer to the Subsidiaries: A Case Study of Multinational Enterprise Operating in Overseas

Author

Listed:
  • Jos¨¦ Moleiro Martins

    (Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administra??o de Lisboa, PORTUGAL)

Abstract

The business opportunities in Southern Africa have justified any effort to learn more about the phenomenon of the transfer of knowledge to the local subsidiaries. We studied four cases with activities in the industrial sector. The results obtained indicate that an efficient transfer of knowledge from the source to the recipient depends on the source¡¯s ability to transfer this knowledge; the climate of cooperation between the source and the recipient; and the absorptive capacity of the recipient, where the intervention of the expatriates with a profound knowledge of the African reality is fundamental to the creation of a climate of trust.

Suggested Citation

  • Jos¨¦ Moleiro Martins, 2011. "Knowledge Transfer to the Subsidiaries: A Case Study of Multinational Enterprise Operating in Overseas," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 1, pages 74-84, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bap:journl:110406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bapress.ca/Journal-4/Knowledge%20Transfer%20to%20the%20Subsidiaries-A%20Case%20Study%20of%20Multinational%20Enterprise%20Operating%20in%20Overseas.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Veugelers, Reinhilde & Cassiman, Bruno, 1999. "Make and buy in innovation strategies: evidence from Belgian manufacturing firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 63-80, January.
    2. Margit Osterloh & Bruno S. Frey, 2000. "Motivation, Knowledge Transfer, and Organizational Forms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(5), pages 538-550, October.
    3. Robert G. Fichman & Chris F. Kemerer, 1999. "The Illusory Diffusion of Innovation: An Examination of Assimilation Gaps," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 255-275, September.
    4. Argote, Linda & Ingram, Paul, 2000. "Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 150-169, May.
    5. Anil K. Gupta & Vijay Govindarajan, 2000. "Knowledge flows within multinational corporations," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 473-496, April.
    6. Eric D. Darr & Linda Argote & Dennis Epple, 1995. "The Acquisition, Transfer, and Depreciation of Knowledge in Service Organizations: Productivity in Franchises," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(11), pages 1750-1762, November.
    7. Keller, Wolfgang, 1996. "Absorptive capacity: On the creation and acquisition of technology in development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 199-227, April.
    8. Jansen, J.J.P. & van den Bosch, F.A.J. & Volberda, H.W., 2005. "Managing Potential and Realized Absorptive Capacity: How do Organizational Antecedents matter?," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2005-025-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    9. Ingemar Dierickx & Karel Cool, 1989. "Asset Stock Accumulation and Sustainability of Competitive Advantage," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(12), pages 1504-1511, December.
    10. David J. Teece & Gary Pisano & Amy Shuen, 1997. "Dynamic capabilities and strategic management," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(7), pages 509-533, August.
    11. Dennis Epple & Linda Argote & Kenneth Murphy, 1996. "An Empirical Investigation of the Microstructure of Knowledge Acquisition and Transfer Through Learning by Doing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 44(1), pages 77-86, February.
    12. Sumantra Ghoshal & Christopher A Bartlett, 1988. "Creation, Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations by Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 19(3), pages 365-388, September.
    13. Linsu Kim, 1998. "Crisis Construction and Organizational Learning: Capability Building in Catching-up at Hyundai Motor," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 9(4), pages 506-521, August.
    14. Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, 1988. "Implementation as mutual adaptation of technology and organization," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 251-267, October.
    15. Frans A. J. Van den Bosch & Henk W. Volberda & Michiel de Boer, 1999. "Coevolution of Firm Absorptive Capacity and Knowledge Environment: Organizational Forms and Combinative Capabilities," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(5), pages 551-568, October.
    16. Ingemar Dierickx & Karel Cool, 1989. "Asset Stock Accumulation and the Sustainability of Competitive Advantage: Reply," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(12), pages 1514-1514, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Panagiotis E. Petrakis & Pantelis C. Kostis, 2013. "The Effects of Cultural Background and Knowledge Creation on Self-Employment and Entry Density Rates," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 3, pages 18-32, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicolai J. Foss & Keld Laursen & Torben Pedersen, 2011. "Linking Customer Interaction and Innovation: The Mediating Role of New Organizational Practices," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 980-999, August.
    2. Dinur, Adva & Hamilton III, Robert D. & Inkpen, Andrew C., 2009. "Critical context and international intrafirm best-practice transfers," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 432-446, December.
    3. Sánchez-Sellero, Pedro & Rosell-Martínez, Jorge & García-Vázquez, José Manuel, 2014. "Absorptive capacity from foreign direct investment in Spanish manufacturing firms," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 429-439.
    4. Lívia Lopes Barakat & Torben Pedersen & Marcio Amaral-Baptista & Sherban Leornardo Cretoiu & Paulo Bento, 2022. "Too Much of Two Good Things: Explicating the Limited Complementarity Between Drivers of MNC Headquarters’ Absorptive Capacity," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 393-426, June.
    5. Villasalero, Manuel, 2017. "A resource-based analysis of realized knowledge relatedness in diversified firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 114-124.
    6. Koen H. Heimeriks & Geert Duysters, 2007. "Alliance Capability as a Mediator Between Experience and Alliance Performance: An Empirical Investigation into the Alliance Capability Development Process," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 25-49, January.
    7. Luo, Yadong & Bu, Juan, 2018. "Contextualizing international strategy by emerging market firms: A composition-based approach," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 337-355.
    8. Dan Li & Manuel Portugal Ferreira & Fernando Serra, 2007. "Technology transfer within MNEs: An investigation of inter-subsidiary competition and cooperation," Working Papers 1, globADVANTAGE, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria.
    9. Djerdj Horvat & Carsten Dreher & Oliver Som, 2019. "How Firms Absorb External Knowledge — Modelling And Managing The Absorptive Capacity Process," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(01), pages 1-35, January.
    10. Marcus Matthias Keupp & Maximilian Palmié & Oliver Gassmann, 2011. "Achieving Subsidiary Integration in International Innovation by Managerial “Tools”," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 213-239, April.
    11. Encarnación García-Sánchez & Víctor Jesús García-Morales & María Teresa Bolívar-Ramos, 2017. "The influence of top management support for ICTs on organisational performance through knowledge acquisition, transfer, and utilisation," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 19-51, January.
    12. Aalbers, Rick & Dolfsma, Wilfred & Koppius, Otto, 2013. "Individual connectedness in innovation networks: On the role of individual motivation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 624-634.
    13. Peeters, T.J.G., 2013. "External knowledge search and use in new product development," Other publications TiSEM 300ebb34-b090-4210-b95e-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Crane, Bret & Hartwell, Christopher J., 2019. "Global talent management: A life cycle view of the interaction between human and social capital," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 82-92.
    15. Der-Fang Hung, 2015. "Sustained Competitive Advantage and Organizational Inertia: The Cost Perspective of Knowledge Management," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 6(4), pages 769-789, December.
    16. Kyle J. Mayer & Deepak Somaya & Ian O. Williamson, 2012. "Firm-Specific, Industry-Specific, and Occupational Human Capital and the Sourcing of Knowledge Work," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(5), pages 1311-1329, October.
    17. Ciabuschi, Francesco & Dellestrand, Henrik & Kappen, Philip, 2012. "The good, the bad, and the ugly: Technology transfer competence, rent-seeking, and bargaining power," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 664-674.
    18. Linda Argote & Sunkee Lee & Jisoo Park, 2021. "Organizational Learning Processes and Outcomes: Major Findings and Future Research Directions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5399-5429, September.
    19. Lin, Hsing-Er & Hsu, I-Chieh & Hsu, Audrey Wenhsin & Chung, Hsi-Mei, 2020. "Creating competitive advantages: Interactions between ambidextrous diversification strategy and contextual factors from a dynamic capability perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    20. Kotabe, Masaaki & Jiang, Crystal Xiangwen & Murray, Janet Y., 2011. "Managerial ties, knowledge acquisition, realized absorptive capacity and new product market performance of emerging multinational companies: A case of China," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 166-176, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Knowledge transfer; Multinational enterprise; Subsidiary; Mozambique; Absorptive capacity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • M16 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - International Business Administration
    • N67 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - Africa; Oceania
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bap:journl:110406. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Carlson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.bapress.ca .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.