thesis_Daniela Noethen_print final - Jacobs University

employing the distinctions recommended in paper one), similar to the one that has been
conducted by van Wijk and colleagues (2008) for the business unit and organizational level.
5.3.2. Intergenerational knowledge transfer
What led me to investigate intergenerational knowledge transfer was rather a fuzzy interest
than a clear research question. The issue of age effects at different levels arose from the
results of the first study, but it would have been equally interesting to investigate if predictors
of intergenerational knowledge transfer differ from those of “general” knowledge transfer,
how knowledge transfer from older to younger employees differs from transfer in the opposite
direction etc. As there is, so far, very few theoretical and basically no empirical literature on
this topic, there of course remain many questions to be answered with respect to the construct
of intergenerational knowledge transfer. One of the many possible questions that can be
posed, I did answer, namely, “is more knowledge shared when the age difference between
source and recipient is larger.” But I would like to answer many more in future research.
5.3.3. Day-to-day knowledge transfer as a pathway to prevention of knowledge loss
For this question to be answered, a sound measurement of knowledge loss would be
necessary. Although first attempts have been made (Massingham, 2008), a lot of work still
needs to be done to obtain such a measurement. Thus, I opted to indirectly address the threat
of knowledge loss by looking at a situation in which such a threat would be present: when
employees expect or intend to leave their organization. Thus, instead of looking at the
influence of knowledge transfer on knowledge loss, I investigated the question of what
happens to knowledge transfer with colleagues in situations that might bear the risk of
knowledge being lost for the organization. Of course, by applying this twist, the original
research question cannot be fully answered.
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