International Transfer of Knowledge in Multinational Enterprises. The Role of International Human Resource Management in Transferring Tacit Knowledge Across Borders

Agnieszka Osiecka

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2003
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9783638178174
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Diploma Thesis from the year 2001 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1.0 (A), European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) (FB BWL), language: English, abstract: In the world of today, business is no longer limited by national boundaries. The majority of theworld's large corporations perform a significant portion of their activities outside their homecountries. The rapidly emerging global economy creates numerous opportunities for businesses toexpand their revenues, drive down their costs and boost their profits. At the same time, marketshave become fierce battlegrounds where firms have to fight aggressively for market share withdomestic and foreign competitors. It is commonly accepted that one of the primary sources forcompetitive advantage of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in this globalized business environmentis their ability to transfer superior knowledge at the international level1 and to create a "learningorganization"2. To succeed, or at least survive, in the global market-place, organizations need toadapt quickly to the changing environment and must commit themselves to permanent learning.This paper presents a general overview of the process of international knowledge transfer withinmultinational enterprises. It deals with the problems of organizational knowledge creation andsharing. A particular emphasis is placed on the implications for international human resourcemanagement practices in managing the international transfer of employees, since globalassignments are recognized hierin as the most important mechanism of transferring tacit knowledge3across borders. As the sharing of easily codifiable knowledge is relatively easy to manage, themeans of transferring it are not focused on in this study. [...]1 See, for instance, Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1992): "Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and theReplication of Technology", Organizational Science, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 383-397; Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1993): "Knowledge of the Firm and the Evolutionary Theory of the Multinational Corporation", Journal of InternationalBusiness Studies, Vol. 24, pp. 625-645; Björkman, I. and Forsgren, M. (1997): "The Nature of the International Firm.Nordic Contributions to International Business Research", Handelshojskolens Forlag, p. 71.2 See, for instance, Garvin, D.A. (1993): "Building a Learning Organization", Harvard Business Review, July/August, pp. 78-91. For definition of the learning organization see p. 23.3 For definition of the tacit knowledge see p. 22.