Sharing is Caring - When done Properly : A study on customer knowledge transfer between dealers and distributors and the impact of GDPR

Sammanfattning: Background: The globalization has made organizations knowledge based and knowledge as a key resource in order to keep up with the changing market. Therefore, knowledge management became increasingly important which also was customer-centric throughout the whole supply chain in order to create customer value. With knowledge management being important, transfer barriers arose and as the increased collection of customer data was also evident as a result of organizations becoming tmore customer-centric and the rapid changes in technology. As a result of this, privacy issues about the data of the customer arose which lead to the implementation of GDPR. Research Questions: What are the challenges and possibilities of the processes of customer knowledge transfer between organizations in a distributor-dealer relationship? In what way has the implementation of GDPR affected the transfer of customer knowledge between a distributor and a dealer? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how customer knowledge is maintained and transferred between organizations within a distributor-dealer relationship. In addition, the paper aim to investigate what forces affects the processes of transferring customer knowledge within these types of relationships. Furthermore, the study investigates what effects transfer barriers and the implementation of GDPR has on customer knowledge transfer within a distributor-dealer relationship. Method: The paper investigated two cases. One case entailed one distributor and one dealer which had a relationship through a common supply chain. The qualitative data was obtained through 13 semi-structured interviews. Conclusion: This study proves that customer knowledge transfer has both challenges and possibilities in a supply chain with a distributor and dealer relationship. Furthermore, there are several factors that affect this transfer such as communication, customer relationship management and transfer barriers. In addition, GDPR has barely any impact on the customer knowledge transfer. However, it does have an impact on the processes of organizations and can be seen as an opportunity for organizations even if organizations sometimes choose to see the negative aspects.