Feasibility of Knowledge transfer

The transfer of knowledge is a complex process and difficult to understand. Various elements affect the knowledge transfer success. As the world is fast becoming a village, transitional transfer of knowledge takes place not only in big companies, but also among individuals. A significant and increasing amount of efforts and activities are devoted to knowledge transfer at a transnational level.

Various scholars have given different definitions of knowledge transfer. For instance, a scholar defines knowledge transfer as a process through which one unit is affected by the expertise of another. It has also been defined as the process systematically arranged exchange and sharing of knowledge and skills between entities. Some scholars however have considered knowledge transfer as knowledge sharing while other state that knowledge transfer cannot be defined as it is related to learning. Although various definitions have been used by different scholars in defining and illustrating what knowledge transfer means and entails, majority of the explanations refer to knowledge management and its transfer among organizations or within such organizations.

The number of multinational and transnational companies and hotels are on the rise. Due to changes in business dynamics and an increase in pressure on businesses to diversify their operations and make the most out of opportunities in far away nations, there has been increasing importance of rating companies. However, despite these changes, businesses and hotels still feel immense pressure to ensure that they redesign their operations and rating systems so as to make the most out of the available opportunities. The level of competition faced by transnational and international companies is high which had led to increased emphasis on the strategies that international firms can use to improve their positioning in various market segments. Among the ways of improvements is through a properly defined hotel rating system. It is through the rating that the organizations are able to define and identify their market position in the regional and international markets. In some case, various companies and hotels have adopted knowledge transfer strategy to improve their services and remain at the top of the market for example Group–Renaissance Shanghai Yuyuan Hotel in Shanghai. It is therefore imperative on individual businesses and researchers to come up with strategies through which local and international businesses can strategize their operations such that they aid improvement of global economic conditions and their profitability.

The main reason for transfer of knowledge is to transfer knowledge source to the recipient. Additionally, Feher 2006 states that knowledge transfer is manifested through the changes in recipient’s performance. According to this author, the successfulness in transfer of knowledge is dependent on the perceived advantage and the satisfaction with knowledge management. He further defines effectiveness in knowledge transfer as the extent of institutionalization of the practice of the receiver.

Transnational knowledge transfer

The globalization trend witnessed in the recent past has pushed various hotels in China and globally to search for new opportunities, expand their present business boundaries, or collaborate with global partners. As a consequence, organization knowledge needs to be transferred across the global boundaries. The knowledge transfer can entail activities from one individual to the other, across organization or across countries.

Knowledge transfer among countries can take place in various forms from an organizational perspective for instance intra-organizational transfer in international company, international transfer within a society or partnership. The increase in the number of transnational transfer of knowledge have been helpful in assisting developing countries to advantage from the skills, best practices, technology and innovations presented in the developed countries. Knowledge transfer has also facilitated creation of knowledge at the local and international levels.

An individual or organization can acquire the knowledge to carry out his tasks through knowledge sharing and through knowledge transfer. Mostly, the term knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer are used interchangeably. However, the difference between knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer is the direction of the knowledge exchange. In knowledge sharing, knowledge is exchanged in both directions, whereas in knowledge transfer, knowledge is shared in one direction and this is common with many organizations.

Knowledge transfer and entrepreneurial opportunities

Taking into consideration international knowledge and business ideas transfers among countries in the global village; one way of dealing with the unequal status of the market in less advanced market environments is to fulfill the empty market by copying a business concept that has already been successfully implemented in a more advanced marketplace and thus entrepreneurship. Knowledge transfer is a franchise or other business transaction that allows the transfer of existing best business practice and related knowledge. In a rapidly changing and globalization business environment, networking is a way to broaden the resource base for entrepreneurship. Participation in a formal and informal entrepreneurial networks has been becomes even more topical during recent years. Knowledge transfer has become an especially essential business model in overcoming distance as a barrier in business co-operation.

From the knowledge co-operation point of view, participation in knowledge transfer have different meanings when applied by entrepreneurs that are oriented towards imitating the best business practices, creating a new business concept on the bias of individual innovation or co-operating a new business direction within broad network of entrepreneurs, clients and other stakeholders. Entrepreneurship theory has progressed tremendously in the rule assigned to knowledge in the process of opportunity recognition and exploitation. It has evolved- form a strict economic approach, whereby knowledge was implicitly conceived as being modifiable, to a cognitive conceptualization of the entrepreneurial activity based on the working of tacit knowledge.

It is known that knowledge retention and transfer results to business creation. Entrepreneurial firms may provide important opportunities for examining how knowledge is created in organizations. Most entrepreneurial firms are small enough that researchers can more readily observe learning processes in them than in large established organizations. In addition, entrepreneurship firms are new enough that one can study organizational learning from the beginning of a firm’s operation. Thus, researchers could observe the building of connections and establishment of relationships that are central to organizational learning models. Thus, entrepreneurial firms seem to be especially promising sites for studying knowledge creation.

Feher, P., 2006. Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Knowledge Management. Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary. Publisher Academic Conferences Limited.

Group–Renaissance Shanghai Yuyuan Hotel in Shanghai