Performance effects of international knowledge transfer: A panel analysis of human mobility between knowledge environments

Abstract

In this paper, we build on the argument that knowledge transfer is a source for competitive advantage. We test the proposition whether knowledge transfer from knowledge-rich to knowledge-indigent environments leads to better performance. Empirically, we test the performance effects of the flow of knowledge carriers between European and African countries in an industry in which human capital is the main input. Using panel data, we find mixed support for our hypotheses. We find that performance increases with the proportion of members having experience in knowledge-rich environments. We also find evidence that with increasing quality of such experience, performance decreases. In the last sections of the paper, we discuss these results and their implications for theories of organizational learning and knowledge transfer in general as well as for management research and practice in the African context.

Keywords:

• knowledge transfer
• organizational learning
• performance
• teams
• Africa
• Europe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank participants for their helpful comments and feedback at the following conferences and workshops where earlier versions of this paper were presented: 75th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, 1 to 5 August 2014, Philadelphia, USA; 2nd International Conference on HRM and the management of organizations in Africa, 6 to 7 September 2012, Nottingham University Business School, Nottingham, UK; 11th World Congress of the International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management (IFSAM), 26 to 29 June 2012, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland; Campus Thüringen-Workshop, 28 to 30 October 2011, Kloster Plankstetten, Germany.

We thank Frank Schilling and Toni Wolter for their research assistance and initiative. We, in particular the corresponding author, also thank Jost Sieweke and Stella Nkomo, and especially Moses Kiggundu and Bruce Lamont (the editors of AJOM) for their very helpful guidance and feedback.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Sebastian G.M. Händschke is a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair of Organization, Leadership and Human Resource Management at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, where he completed his PhD with a thesis on management knowledge and its transfer, after having studied social sciences, management and philosophy at Erfurt (Germany), Berkeley and LSE. His research interests include new-institutional theory, pluralist approaches to management theories, research-practice bridges and the Computational Social Sciences.

Raluca Kerekes was a researcher at the Chair of Organization, Leadership and Human Resource Management at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena. She studied Business and Economics in Rumania and Governance & Public Policy in Erfurt (Germany). She has several years’ business experience at IBM and other companies.

Peter Walgenbach is a professor at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena and currently holds the Chair of Organization, Leadership and Human Resource Management. His research focuses on organizational theories, especially new-institutional theory and interdisciplinary behavioral approaches. Presently, he is a senior editor of Organization Studies.

ORCID

Sebastian G.M. Händschke http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4888-7125

Notes

1 For a critical view on the construal of the developing and the developed world – especially in the African context – see Jackson, 2015 and Papadopoulos & Hamzaoui-Essoussi, 2015.

2 So, 1 would represent the ‘Bundesliga’ in Germany or the ‘Premier League’ in England.

3 In our sample, this percentage varies between 0% and 88,6%, with a mean of 38,5% and a standard deviation of 17,8% (cf. Table 1).