Research On The Strategies Of Knowledge Transfer: A Social Relationship Perspective

In the modern Knowledge-Economics era, knowledge has already become one of the key factors of success in the competitive environment. The access, transfer and innovation of knowledge are the main activities of knowledge management, of which knowledge transfer is the precondition and basis of knowledge innovation. As a social activity, knowledge transfer occurs in the whole relationship system of society. Many cases prove that the effects of knowledge transfer are not worthy of optimism. This should be mainly because of the strategies of knowledge transfer, so the research on the strategies of social knowledge transfer with a social relationship perspective seems important and eager in the modern area of knowledge management. With a social relationship perspective, the paper emphasizes the knowledge transfer within social network relationship. According to the following research clue"the basic conception—the theory analysis—the cases evaluation and analysis—the comprehensive strategies—the research prospect", the paper carries through a more deep research on such problems as knowledge transfer's motivation and causality, affecting factors & obstacles and prompting strategies.The whole dissertation consists of seven chapters and the specific contents are as followings:The first part is preface, which is composed of five parts. They are the questions asking and research meaning; a synthesis of abroad and domestic research; this paper's research clue and research contents; the main research methods and innovation points.Chapter one is mainly about the summary of knowledge transfer, which is composed of two parts. They are the meaning of knowledge transfer and the process & social network model of knowledge transfer. Though knowledge transfer has become the hot research topic of knowledge management area at present, people don't fully understand the knowledge transfer's meaning during the course of using because of cognition and habit etc. The faintness of theory recognition brings about the feeble effect of knowledge transfer research, and also affects the research prospect of knowledge management practice. So firstly, the paper analyzes the knowledge transfer's meaning and its process etc. so as to give a mat for later research. Based on the understanding of knowledge's attribute and classification, summarizing the current research literature, the paper gives a boundary of knowledge transfer's meaning starting from social relationship perspective; then analyzes the process & social net work model of knowledge transfer.Chapter two is mainly about the motivation and causality of knowledge transfer within the social relationship, which is to research the motivation and causality of people's knowledge transfer activity. The chapter is composed of three parts. Knowledge especially tacit knowledge, as a kind of valuable labor product, its gain needs the owner's cost such as time, brainwork, physical strength and wealth etc. As the knowledge owner, his behavior of transferring knowledge to others must exit the corresponding motivation and causality. The paper discusses the motivation and causality of knowledge transfer within the social relationship, which is to research the motivation and causality of people's knowledge transfer activity, thinks that they are made up of inner driving force and external prompting force. The inner driving force is the ultimate force of spurring people to transfer knowledge, and the external prompting force is the catalyst of people's knowledge transfer behavior. Only via the external prompting force impelling the inner driving force factors'producing and strengthening, the efficient knowledge transfer within the whole society may be realized. Using Maslow's theory of level demand for reference, the paper gives sociological explanation of knowledge transfer's inner driving force, points out that knowledge transfer is firstly to satisfy the demand of people's self-realization and sums up the people knowledge transfer's inner driving force to five aspects such as organization sensibility and responsibility, individual achievements, reputation, interests & tastes and benefits each other. Then analyzes and thinks that knowledge transfer is also the demand of saving the cost of people's knowledge access such as time cost, material devotion cost, attention cost, knowledge service payment cost. To reduce the cost of knowledge acceptance may adopt the means of establishing knowledge resource public warehouse. Finally discusses the knowledge transfer's external prompting force from the level of whole society, thinks that knowledge transfer is also the demand of social knowledge innovation and sharing. In the modern Knowledge-Economics era, sharing knowledge has become the inevitable development tendency. But knowledge sharing occurs in the whole social relationship, its realization exits some main obstacle factors such as the will of individual knowledge sharing and social organizational systems.Chapter three is mainly about the effecting factors and obstacles of knowledge transfer. This chapter is composed of two parts. The occurrence of knowledge transfer doesn't mean plain sailing, instead it is affected and restricted by many factors, and also exits some obstacle factors. The affecting factors of knowledge transfer have always being one of the important contents for knowledge transfer researchers. Though each one's discussion perspective isn't wholly the same, but they come to some agreements, which means they unanimously think that the affecting factors of knowledge transfer aren't outside of three aspects: knowledge senders, the inward attribute of knowledge and knowledge recipients. The paper analyzes from the positive and negative two aspects. Firstly, the paper gives a comprehension of the original research achievements and summarizes the six affecting factors of knowledge transfer from social relationship perspective. They are the quality of social relationship, the strength of social ties, the stickiness of knowledge, the motivation and expressing ability of knowledge senders, the absorption ability of knowledge recipients and the network media of knowledge transfer. Then researches the main obstacles of knowledge transfer from the negative aspect. They are mainly social psychological obstacle, the organization structure obstacle, the social environment obstacle and the deep inter-exchange obstacle. The research method of this problem is mainly field survey. To take the teachers and students of Economics Management School and Information Management Department in Nanhua University as review objects, the author spread survey aiming at the problem of knowledge transfer's affecting factors, obtain some data source by the means of on-the-spot visiting and talking.Chapter four is mainly about the evaluation and analysis of knowledge transfer cases. To give a more system and practical explanation of problems, stick out the principle of theory combining practice, the paper specially adds some relevant contents of cases evaluation and analysis based on the theory explanation of the previous three chapters. By the evaluation and analysis of education institute and enterprise's typical knowledge transfer cases, the paper is to construct the basis for working out the scientific and reasonable strategies of knowledge transfer. Firstly the paper points out that the case analysis method is a kind of effective research method, then choose six (group) practical and typical cases to put up the evaluation and analysis.Chapter five is mainly about the strategies of increasing the efficiency of knowledge transfer and prompting the social knowledge transfer, which is the most important content of the whole paper. By the discussion and analysis of theories and cases in the several previous chapters, the paper summarizes the comprehensive strategies of prompting the social knowledge transfer from different aspects. They are mainly as followings: to build the harmonious and kind social environmental atmosphere; to prompt the knowledge transfer activity by making full use of modern information technologies; to choose the adaptive methods and increase the ability of knowledge transfer; to construct the steady trust relationship between social members and the motivation mechanism of knowledge transfer. Some of the specific strategies respectively represents as following: to build the harmonious and kind social environmental atmosphere mainly includes: to construct the placatory network environment of knowledge communion so as to increase the knowledge transfer efficiency; purify the network culture environment so as to prompt social knowledge transfer. To prompt the knowledge transfer activity by making full use of modern information technologies mainly includes: to build knowledge transfer flat roof by making use of information technologies; to rationally choose the information technologies of knowledge transfer; to realize the knowledge resource integration using knowledge grid technology so as to accelerate knowledge transfer. To choose the adaptive methods and increase the ability of knowledge transfer mainly includes: to choose the adaptive methods, for example, understanding the knowledge's process thoroughly; digging the advance condition of knowledge complexion; accessing the tacit knowledge and transforming into ability actively. To increase the ability of knowledge transfer, for example, strengthening study atmosphere and forming the favorable study mechanism so as to enhance the knowledge ability of knowledge transfer both sides; attaching importance to education and cultivation so as to increase the recipient's absorption knowledge ability. To construct the steady trust relationship between social members mainly includes: understanding the acceleration function of trust vs. knowledge transfer; to construct the inter-personal trust system of prompting knowledge transfer, for example, taking honesty and trust as the root principle so as to increase the knowledge transfer participant's credit standing; advocating building up the vogue of trusting each other etc. To build the motivation mechanism of knowledge transfer mainly includes: understanding the advantageous function of spiritual motivation vs. knowledge transfer; comprehending the stimulant mess of traditional motivation model; constructing the motivation mechanism of knowledge transfer, for example, comprehensively exerting material motivation and spiritual motivation as well as environmental motivation; constructing the checking system of knowledge transfer motivation; constructing the study motivation mechanism which is in favor of knowledge transfer. To demonstrate this problem, the author takes the teachers'motivation of knowledge transfer in university as example.Chapter six is mainly about the summarization and prospect of research. The author summarizes and rethinks the whole paper's research contents, points out some shortcomings and gives a prospect of future research.