Research On The Influencing Factors Of Knowledge Transfer In SMEs

Today is an era of economic globalization. Technologies change rapidly, themarket is changing constantly, and the competition is becoming more and more fierceand cruel. Also, today is an era of knowledge economy, knowledge is graduallyreplacing the traditional capital such as land, labor and other factors. It is becomingimportant sources and determinants for enterprises to create and maintain acompetitive advantage. And therefore, knowledge workers and their productivity arethe most valuable assets of the organization in the21st century.According to the knowledge-based theory, in order to create a competitiveadvantage, enterprises should depend on acquiring new knowledge through absorptionand polymerization based on the existing knowledge. Therefore, enterprises shouldcontinue to acquire, integrate and utilize new knowledge to promote continuousinnovation, for it is of great significance for the survival and development ofenterprises. Under the current economic background both at home and abroad, manySMEs are at a critical juncture of the survival and development. In order either to seektransformation and upgrading but encountering bottlenecks in the development or tobecome larger and stronger proactively, it is urgent but difficult for them to enhanceinnovation, build and maintain a competitive advantage with a virtuous cycle ofaccessing to knowledge, applicating knowledge, creating knowledge and sharingknowledge. Therefore, to explore factors that affect the knowledge transfer in SMEsand take measures to promote the transfer and sharing of knowledge have importantpractical significance.With the review of the literature of a large number of previous studies,predecessors’ research and deficiencies in respects of the concept and classification ofknowledge, the model and the influencing factors of knowledge transfer are summrized.On this basis, two main elements, which are most concerned in this article,of knowledge transfer in SMEs: people and contexts, namely the transfer main body andtransfer contexts, including five factors: the transfer willingness, learning willingness,the corporate culture, incentives and interpersonal trust, are extracted. And then theconceptual model of influencing factors of knowledge transfer in SMEs is establishedand hypothesis are proposed. On the basis of questionnaires and data collection andtaking the structural equation modeling (SEM) as the core of empirical researchmethods, survey results are analyzed by integrated use of statistical analysis softwareSPSS and AMOS to validate theoretical models and assumptions and relationshipbetween the various influencing factors and knowledge transfer performance.According to the empirical results, three pairs of relationships: the knowledgereceiver’s learning willingness and knowledge transfer performance, corporate cultureand the knowledge receiver’s learning willingness, interpersonal trust and theknowledge receiver’s learning willingness, are significantly positive. Meanwhile,another three pairs of relationships: corporate culture and knowledge sender’swillingness, incentives and knowledge transfer performance, interpersonal trust andknowledge sender’s willingness, have a certain but not significant correlation. Besides,the impact of corporate culture, knowledge sender’s willingness and interpersonal truston knowledge transfer performance, as well as the impact of incentives on theknowledge Transfer willingness of transfer main body are not confirmed. On the basisof analyzing and discussing the findings, and combining the actual situation of SMEs,relevant recommendations are put forward, which have some guiding significance forSMEs in our country to facilitate knowledge transfer.