Factors of stickiness in transfers of know-how between MNC units
Ali Reza Montazemi
a,
⇑
, Jeffrey James Pittaway
a
, Hamed Qahri Saremi
a
, Yongbin Wei
b
a
DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street, Hamilton, ON, Canada L8S 4M4
b
Administrative Committee of Development Zone, Checheng Ave., Xiangfan City, Hubei Province 441021, China
article info
Article history:
Received 16 September 2010
Received in revised form 11 November 2011
Accepted 2 January 2012
Available online 3 February 2012
Keywords:
Knowledge flow
Know-how
Innovation
Stickiness
Social capital
Absorptive capacity
Multinational corporations
abstract
The effective sharing of organizational knowledge is particularly relevant for multinational
corporations, where firm-specific tacit knowledge (know-how) is considered a source of
competitive advantage for subsidiaries participating in a global strategy. To that end,
multinational corporations (MNCs) are asking their IT departments to support both the
exploitation of existing knowledge and the unit-to-unit transfer of new know-how derived
in units from exploration. Nonetheless, new know-how derived from exploratory research,
development and experience in one unit can be difficult to transfer to units that can exploit
that know-how to commercial ends. The factors that impede the transfer of new know-
how have been conceptualized as ‘‘factors of stickiness’’. In this paper, we present a theo-
retical model of organizational factors that can cause (or conversely mitigate) stickiness in
the flow of new know-how between MNC units. To test the six hypotheses of the model, we
used meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) of 31 empirical studies, repre-
senting 10,432 cases of new know-how transfer between units. The result of MASEM
shows that the factors of receiving units’ potential absorptive capacity and transmission
channel in form of social capital that is enacted through its three dimensions (i.e., embed-
ded social ties between units, institutional shared vision of units, and interorganizational
trust of units) affect recipient subsidiaries’ capability to exploit new know-how in practice
(i.e., realized absorptive capacity), thus effectuating its transfer. Based on our findings, we
propose research directions within the context of agile information systems development,
distributed software projects, and management of information systems functions in MNCs.
Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Organizations use codification and/or personalization knowledge management strategies to compete (Hansen et al., 1999).
A codification strategy enables companies to store organizational explicit knowledge in databases for transfer to anyone in the
organization. A codified body of knowledge typically has multiple indexes that allow users to efficiently localize and retrieve
existing knowledge (e.g., via database queries). In contrast, a personalization strategy is based on person-to-person interac-
tion embedded within a social context (i.e., social capital) to enable the transfer of tacit knowledge. It is tacit knowledge that
enables companies to coordinate and combine their resources and capabilities in innovative ways (i.e., new know-how) (Earl,
2001). It develops from experience and is embedded in complex organizational routines (Earl, 2001; Hansen, 1999; Teece
et al., 1997; Zack, 1999). Consequently, unlike many explicit knowledge resources such as databases, tacit knowledge is
specific to the organizational context and cannot be simply purchased from the marketplace in a ready-to-use form. Because
tacit knowledge is a firm-specific knowledge resource, it is an important source of competitive advantage for organizations
(Teece et al., 1997). Management of tacit knowledge enables companies to coordinate and combine their traditional resources
0963-8687/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2012.01.001
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Corresponding author.
E-mail address: montazem@mcmaster.ca (A.R. Montazemi).
Journal of Strategic Information Systems 21 (2012) 31–57
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Strategic Information Systems
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jsis