Kunskapsöverföring mellan avdelningar - En branschöverskridande studie

Sammanfattning: Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how factors related to knowledge in itself, the environment, the sender, the receiver, and the sender and receiver affect knowledge transfer between departments in different business sectors. We also intend to clarify differences between sectors and to map these differences. Methodology: As we have aimed to clarify what factors affect knowledge transfer we have conducted this study with an explorative approach. As companies act in a complex reality we conducted an empirical study in order to capture each specific knowledge transfer context. Furthermore, we have taken a middle-position between absolute objectivism and absolute constructionism as both individuals’ own beliefs and the surroundings affect individuals’ knowledge transfer actions On this basis we have firstly constructed a complex theoretical framework of factors affecting knowledge transfer with five pillars based on Szulanski’s seminal work “Exploring Internal Stickiness: Impediments to the Transfer of Best Practice Within the Firm”. Secondly, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with employees of private sector companies. Individual testimonies have then been analyzed with the help of the framework. Conclusion: We found that the factors affecting knowledge transfer varied according to the individual circumstances each company faced. The effects of the factors were also found to vary between interviewees of the same company. However, the differences in the effect of said factors were smaller between employees of the same company than between employees of different companies. The difference between the interviewee’s opinions of the impact the said factors was lessened even more when the compared interviewees worked in the same department. We also found that the interviewees did not assign the same importance to different factors affecting knowledge transfer. Furthermore, we found that channels were not mentioned as more important to knowledge transfer than any other factor.