مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد انتقال دانش برای توسعه محصول جدید در شرکت چند ملیتی – اسپرینگر 2017

Cross-border knowledge transfer (i.e. movement of knowledge from one country to another) is the key to competitive advantage for multinational corporations (MNCs) (Kasperet al. 2013; Kotabeet al. 2007; Monteiroet al. 2008; Schlegelmilch and Chini 2003). However, lack of trust and cultural differences are believed to be key barriers to effective knowledge transfer across borders (Ghoshal and Bartlett 1988; Subramaniam 2006; Tavcaret al. 2005). Trust and understanding of cultural traits affect the motivational disposition to share knowledge (Sarala and Vaara 2010), which is the key to effective knowledge transfer (Gupta and Govindarajan 2000). MNCs have the subsidiaries dispersed globally (Bartlett and Ghoshal 2000). Research has shown that geographical distance between organizational units could negatively affect trust between members (Castellanoet al. 2017; Ghemawat 2001; Haas and Cummings 2015). Cultural differences have a similar effect as barriers of mutual understanding. This study explores knowledge transfer in the new product development (NPD) context. The NPD context is quite relevant to knowledge transfer due to its nature of crossfunctional collaboration involving, for example, R&D, marketing, and production (Ulrich and Eppinger 2012). For MNCs, there are bigger challenges in NPD projects. They need to leverage globally dispersed knowledge, such as technical knowledge and market knowledge, produced by different functions to develop products with better quality and lower costs while appealing to local customers in different countries (Monplaisiret al. 2009; Subramaniamet al. 1998). Therefore, managing cross-border knowledge transfer effectively is critical for high NPD performance in MNCs. Prior studies on knowledge transfer have been predominantly static identifying and testing the factors affecting knowledge transfer (Cavaliereet al. 2015; Gupta and Govindarajan 2000; Li 2005). Research in this area has called for more studies adopting a process view (Michailova and Bernhard Nielsen 2006). A process view can offer insights on how certain mechanisms for promoting knowledge transfer unfold. In the NPD context, knowledge transfer is constantly needed throughout NPD projects (Ulrich and Eppinger 2012), which forms a knowledge transfer process. As the activities differ across NPD phases, the mechanism for promoting knowledge transfer may need to be altered. Exploring cross-border knowledge transfer as a process in NPD in MNCs could be especially rewarding due to the global dispersion of different functions. However, it has not been well addressed in prior studies. Hence, I propose the research questions as below.