Based on a study of knowledge transfer within more than 15 industries, across three forms of governance, and between both domestic and international R&D partners, knowledge transfer success was found to be associated with several key variables, and to hinge upon (a) both R&D units’ understanding where the desired knowledge resides within the source, (b) the extent to which the parties share similar knowledge bases, and the extent of interactions between the source and the recipient to (c) transfer the knowledge and (d) participate in an articulation process through which the source’s knowledge is made accessible to the recipient.

The capitalist and socialist societies of the 20 th century assigned firms different roles within their economic systems. Enterprises transforming from socialist to market economies thus face fundamental organizational restructuring. Many former state-owned firms in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe have failed at this task. These firms have pursued primarily defensive downsizing, rather than strategic restructuring, as a result of both internal and external constraints on restructuring strategies. Building on the organizational learning and resource-based theories, we analyze strategies available to management in privatized, former state-owned enterprises in transition economies to restructure their organization. Both internal forces promoting or inhibiting the restructuring process, and external constraints arising in the transition context are examined. A model and testable propositions are developed that explain post-privatization performance. Implications of our research point to the ways in which firms should manage and develop their resource base to transform to competitive enterprises.

Knowledge transfer has been proclaimed as one of the most critical knowledge management activities in the current information age where organizations have to continually learn and continually innovate to remain competitive. Research in the area of knowledge transfer has been conducted in many settings and for various objectives. However, limited attention has been directed towards examining the role of knowledge transfer in information systems development projects (ISD). In this study we empirically examine the impact of source context, knowledge context, and relation context on the process of knowledge transfer among ISD face-to-face team members. Specifically, we test the impact of ISD team member’s capability, credibility, and extent of communication on the process of knowledge transfer. Our findings suggest that in face-to-face ISD teams, an individual is perceived to transfer a significant amount of knowledge to his/her team members if an individual extensively interacts with other team members and is perceived as reasonably credible. Interestingly, an individual’s task related capability did not affect knowledge transfer.

Knowledge transfer among geographically separated members is recognized as a critical ingredient for collaborative accomplishment of knowledge work in virtual teams. However, due to the "localness" of knowledge, such transfer of knowledge is believed to be inherently problematic, and thus, it is important to develop a solid understanding of the factors that enable knowledge transfer in such contexts. Drawing on existing literature on knowledge management and virtual teamwork, we identify 4 Cs (communication, capability, credibility, and culture) associated with individuals who are found to transfer significant amounts of knowledge to remote members, and test the 4 Cs in the context of USNorwegian virtual teams engaged in systems development. A number of implications and directions for future research are also suggested.

In the era of globalization, sharing of knowledge, information, and practices across cultural and national boundaries has been recognized as a key for handling the most critical problems. Consequently, the number of Transnational Knowledge Networks (TKNs) that aim to address critical global issues and problems continue to increase. As exchanging knowledge and information represent core components of these networks, this paper provides the foundations to study knowledge and information sharing in these emerging organizations. The paper starts by describing the structures, goals, and objectives of TKNs and presents a simplified conceptual model to demonstrate the main characteristics of these networks. Then, we review the pertinent e-government literature and argue the need to include findings from two additional research areas, cross-boundary information sharing and knowledge transfer. The paper discusses the ways in which contributions from these areas can enhance our understanding of the complexity surrounding the exchange process in these networks. The paper concludes with a summary of the elements of complexity and an overview of future research to empirically test these concepts.

As deals are becoming more complex, and as technology, and the people supporting it, are becoming key drivers of merger and acquisition processes, planning of information and communication technologies in early stages of the integration process is vital to the realization of benefits of an Merger & Acquisition process. This statement is substantiated through review of literature from academics as well as practitioners, and case exemplifications of the financial service organization, the Nordea Group. Keywords: ICT Integration, Mergers & Acquisitions, Nordea Group. 1.

managing the pragmatic boundary

The paper addresses reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) from foreign subsidiary to parent company. Specifically, it aims at investigating to what extent the effectiveness of such a transfer is influenced by: (i) the organizational mechanisms employed for transferring knowledge; (ii) the subsidiary’s role, its autonomy, and its relationships with the local context. The empirical analysis considers 162 transfers of best practices possessed by foreign subsidiaries and transferred back to their Italian parent companies. Results confirm that the impact of RKT on the parent company’s innovativeness is greater when: (i) person-based mechanisms are employed for transferring knowledge; (ii) subsidiaries are competence-creating; and (iii) knowledge developed by subsidiaries benefits from local external linkages. Key words: External linkages, organizational mechanisms, parent company’s innovativeness, reverse knowledge transfer, subsidiary’s characteristics.

this paper we investigate the incidence of high technology acquisitions using a large international sample of acquisitions by public high technology firms. Controlling for firms ’ financial characteristics, we examine the impact of the following innovation-related factors on the propensity to acquire: R&D-intensity as a proxy for R&D inputs; the citation-weighted patent-intensity as a proxy for R&D output; the stock of citation-weighted patents as a proxy for the accumulated stock of knowledge generated by past R&D efforts. The following conclusions can be drawn with respect to the characteristics of acquirers of nonpublic targets – mainly private firms and former subsidiaries. First, we find support for the view that the propensity to acquire new knowledge-related assets through acquisitions is driven by declining returns from the exploitation of a firm’s existing knowledge base. Second, we find evidence in favour of the make-or-buy theory that acquisitions are a substitute for in-house R&D activity. Third, our results are in accordance with the theoretical argument that a large stock of accumulated knowledge enhances a firm’s ability to absorb external knowledge through acquisitions. These results suggest that smaller acquisitions can be seen as part of an innovation strategy by acquiring firms with relatively low levels of internal R&D which seek to offset low R&D productivity by exploring a range of potential innovation trajectories in new and smaller business units. Interestingly, we find that these interpretations cannot be made for acquirers of the larger public companies.

In this paper we investigate the motives of high-tech acquirers by analysing their revealed preferences in terms of the high-tech companies they acquire. Using a large sample of acquisitions involving publicly traded firms from various countries we ask whether high technology acquisitions are best understood in terms of acquirers seeking to source externally special innovation-related assets by acquiring firms with “superior ” innovative performance; or acquirers seeking to acquire firms with “inferior ” innovative performance in order to turn them around. We find evidence that acquisition is a very noisy phenomenon and that economic and innovation related variables explain only a modest part of the probability of becoming a target. We do however find that, compared to nonacquired firms, high-tech targets tend to be somewhat larger, to have poorer profitability, lower Tobin’s q and liquidity. In relation to their innovative profile, targets, in general, seem to have a relatively larger stock of accumulated knowledge (stock of citation-weighted patents), relatively higher R&D inputs (R&D-intensity), but they are more likely to generate no R&D output (citationweighted patent-intensity) before they are acquired. We conclude that high technology acquisitions reflect a process which is primarily driven by acquirers wishing to exploit the potential for turning around firms which, despite a good past record, appear to be innovatively and economically inefficient before they are acquired.