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Internal knowledge transfer is crucial for firms to improve their employees’ abilities and improve their work performance. However, there is still a gap in the knowledge management field regarding whether internal knowledge transfer can leverage employee personality traits and service performance in service-oriented organizations. To address this gap, this study aims to validate a multilevel model of the mediating (i.e. internal knowledge transfer as a mediator) and moderating (i.e. task interdependence as a moderator) mechanisms underlying personality traits and employee service performance.

Multilevel structural equation modeling was applied for model validation using an original data set from 45 team leaders and 333 employees working in Chinese hotels.

Internal knowledge transfer mediated the link between extraversion and employee service performance and the link between openness to experience and employee service performance. Task interdependence played a moderating role that strengthened both the impacts of extraversion and openness to experience on internal knowledge transfer.

Through the use of an original data set, this study advances the knowledge management discipline by investigating the mediating impact of internal knowledge transfer between personality traits and employee service performance and revealing the moderating impact of task interdependence that underlies the links between personality traits and internal knowledge transfer.

After identifying two kinds of internal knowledge transfer strategies, the purpose of this paper is to examine their effectiveness and whether they induce knowledge spillovers among firms.

This study collected data in China and 219 questionnaires were achieved. Then, structure equation model by LISREL was used for hypotheses testing.

The empirical results suggest that both codification and rich‐media strategies have positive effects on internal knowledge transfer. Moreover, codification strategy has a negative effect on knowledge spillovers while rich‐media strategy does not influence knowledge spillovers significantly. Thus, codification and rich‐media strategies are not double‐edged swords.

This study provides firms with two strategies, codification and rich‐media, to promote internal knowledge transfer. Moreover, these strategies do not accelerate knowledge spillovers, and codification strategy even reduces knowledge spillovers. Firms can use these strategies to construct and sustain competitive advantages.

While many knowledge creation, storage and protection strategies are studied, little is known about internal knowledge transfer strategies. This study suggests two internal knowledge transfer strategies and confirms their effectiveness. Moreover, because the relationship between internal knowledge transfer strategies and knowledge spillovers has been puzzling for a long time, this study clarifies the relationship and finds that these strategies do not accelerate knowledge spillovers and some even restrain knowledge spillovers.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The knowledge of inhibitors of internal customer knowledge transfer in b‐to‐b professional service organizations is still in its infancy. Previous literature on professional service organizations has focused on knowledge processes on a general level without paying closer attention to inhibitors of internal knowledge transfer. This study aims to contribute by increasing the knowledge of various inhibitors of customer‐related knowledge transfer and their influence on customer‐related knowledge utilization in collaborative customer relationships.

The present empirical article is based on a case study of two professional service organizations in the field of business‐to‐business education and consultancy services. An in‐depth analysis of organizations developing collaborative relationships was conducted.

This paper shows that internal fragmentation seems to be inherent in this type of organization, and may cause many problems in customer‐related knowledge transfer among individuals, collegial groups and hierarchical levels in a professional service organization. All these problems in collective knowledge utilization influence both the service offering creation and general relationship coordination in the collaborative relationship.

This paper provides managerial suggestions for how to deal with the inhibitors of customer knowledge transfer. This includes developing unified goals, strengthening cultural cohesion and cooperation in the organization, building forums of dialogue between individuals and subgroups, and structuring relationship coordination systems (i.e. key account management systems), keeping customer‐related knowledge transfer in mind.

The aim of this paper is to adopt a study framework of network embeddedness and social capital perspective, and to explore the relationship among relationship strength, knowledge integration capability and the efficiency of knowledge transfer among technology alliance.

Empirical data were acquired through a recent survey of electrical and mechanical, biopharmaceutical and chemical industries. LISREL analysis was employed to examine the impact of relationship strength and integration capability on the efficiency of knowledge transfer.

The results verify that relationship strength has a significant positive impact on cooperative knowledge transfer and external integration capability, but it cannot influence innovative knowledge and internal integration capability. The internal knowledge integration capacity has a positive influence on the external integration capacity, but the external knowledge integration does not have significant impact on the internal integration capacity. Combined with the external integration capability, relationship strength's indirect influence on cooperative knowledge transfer is greater than the direct one.

Strengthening knowledge integration capacity is the key to improve the efficiency of knowledge transfer by taking advantage of partnerships. The enterprise should adjust the relationship strength according to the function matching of the knowledge.

This paper is one of very few that provide empirical evidence of the impact of relationship strength and integration capability on the performance of knowledge transfer. It provides necessary basis for the enterprise to lay out and establish the technology alliance, which the enterprise should adjust the type of union according to the characteristic of the knowledge during the process of planning the technology alliance. This paper also suggests that the enterprises should make full use of technology alliance to enhance the external integration ability.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the implications for competitive advantage deriving from strategic knowledge and knowledge transfer process.

One major issue in a knowledge‐based (KBV) view consists of delimiting the source of competitive advantage, that is, knowledge versus knowledge management processes (acquisition, transfer, generation). Based on the KBV and knowledge management literature, the current paper considers the importance of both elements. Specifically, the paper focuses on strategic knowledge and knowledge transfer process.

The contributions of this paper are the proposal of strategic knowledge characteristics and the suggestion of a theoretical framework to study the internal transfer of strategic knowledge. The main conclusion is that the characteristics of knowledge that generate competitive advantage also create barriers for internal transfer. The research question addressed here is what firms must do to transfer strategic knowledge within the firm while limiting involuntary transfer.

In order to answer this question, this paper suggests a theoretical framework that focuses not only on the implications of knowledge of a strategic asset, but rather takes a much broader perspective, considering the transfer process as a whole and highlighting the role of the different elements of this process (source, receiver and context) in order to facilitate the efficient transfer of strategic knowledge.

The purpose of this study is to deal with the performance consequences of business units that adopt varying knowledge roles within the internal multi-business network. Multi-business firms are distributed knowledge systems in which business units are extensively involved in internal knowledge transfer processes. Business units play different roles within their respective corporate knowledge networks as knowledge providers, knowledge receivers, both or neither.

Survey data from a sample of 225 business divisions were analyzed using a multivariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

Results indicate that divisions which occupy knowledge roles that reveal the possession of unique knowledge (knowledge signaling) or guarantee the accumulation of new knowledge (knowledge learning) outperform those divisions that have access to spilled knowledge (knowledge depreciation) or have no access to any kind of knowledge (knowledge insulation).

Four knowledge roles are distinguished according to the extent to which a business division provides the rest of the corporation with knowledge or receives knowledge from the rest of the corporation, thus exploring the issue of internal knowledge transfer from an integrated perspective that takes the directionality of knowledge flows and the position within the knowledge network into account.

This study contributes to existent research on knowledge transfer and performance outcomes by demonstrating the usefulness of the knowledge role as an integrating concept within this literature. It also extends the four-role framework to the prescriptive domain and tests its normative implications in an intensive internal knowledge transfer setting which has to date gone relatively unnoticed, as is that of multi-business firms.

This paper aims to understand how organizational and interpersonal relationships influence selling centers, and how to form an effective selling center to establish cooperation among the functional departments to satisfy customer needs.

The selling center and social capital literatures are reviewed. A social network perspective is employed to explore the internal and external relationships of corporate selling centers.

Building upon social capital literature and team literature, the authors propose that selling center performance is influenced by its internal and external social capital. Social capital influences selling center performance through facilitating knowledge transfer and absorption within and across the selling center.

The findings help sales managers diagnose the problems of the social networks among their selling center members, to improve their selling center performance in the future.

The paper investigates the relationships among social capital, knowledge transfer and absorption and team performance in the selling center context. By considering both intra‐firm relationships and inter‐firm relationships, this study provides a relatively complete picture of selling center performance and adds knowledge to the field.

This study aims to focus on dual embeddedness as an important channel through which foreign subsidiaries access and share valuable and idiosyncratic knowledge within the multinational corporation (MNC). The authors examine the dual embeddedness challenges of foreign subsidiaries based in the context of Iran as a transitional market.

The final sample includes 144 active foreign subsidiaries in Iran from across a broad range of industries. A structured questionnaire was distributed to firms and structural equation modeling was adopted to analyze the results.

The findings reveal how building external embeddedness in an environment with potentially poor access to valuable knowledge, and risk of knowledge leakage impacts the subsidiary’s ability to subsequently transfer this knowledge within the MNC. The authors identify the significance of absorptive capacity as a way for the subsidiary to access knowledge from and share knowledge with firms in the local market.

Departing from existing work on subsidiary embeddedness in developed markets, the authors reveal how competence creating subsidiaries manage dual embeddedness and knowledge transfer in transition economies that are low in knowledge stocks. The authors unpack how subsidiary absorptive capacity enables access to local knowledge in a transitional market and increases reverse knowledge transfer in the MNC. In doing so, the authors answer calls for work on the dynamic and complementary relationships that exists between subsidiary dual embeddedness, absorptive capacity and knowledge sourcing in less open markets. Focusing on Iran as a transitional economy, this study provides greater contextual nuance to the extant literature on subsidiary dual embeddedness.

Purpose – This research aims to understand inter-subsidiary innovation transfers from a subsidiary business network perspective. We examine transfer performance with particular interest in the influence of subsidiary business networks in innovation development stage. The moderating effect of knowledge inputs, that is, external and internal business partners, on transfer efficiency and effectiveness are hypothesized.

Methodology/approach – This study utilizes the data of 129 inter-subsidiary transfer projects from 19 multinational corporations. The empirical analysis specifically examines how and to what extent the development partnership – source of knowledge inputs – affects the efficiency and effectiveness of innovation transfer between subsidiaries.

Findings – The results indicate that the source of knowledge inputs influence transfer performance indirectly, but not directly. The impact is made through the dyadic relationship to the transfer performance. The findings complement the literature on innovation/knowledge transfer by incorporating innovation development into scrutiny and gauging transfer efficiency and effectiveness explicitly.

Value of paper – The empirical evidence highlights the significance of dyadic willingness to both transfer efficiency and effectiveness. Its influence to transfer performance exceeds that of dyadic similarity or previous collaboration experience. The result provides useful managerial implications to MNCs headquarters and subsidiaries. The lack of previous collaboration experience or technical similarity may pose the down side for innovation transfer between subsidiaries. But that should not put off the initiatives to conduct innovation transfers. Such problem could be effectively remedied by strong willingness between the dyad. The resources and support that subsidiaries receive could counteract the hurdle of dissimilarity and unfamiliarity.