Cahier de recherche N°14 - ESC Pau

IntroductionAlthough the importance of knowledge transfer (KT) is widely recognized, the process of transferringknowledge from one individual to another still remains a challenge for the majority of organizations(Szulanski, 1996; Burgess, 2005; Hurt and Hurt, 2005; Teigland and Wasko 2009). Research into intra-organizationalknowledge transfer has identified four contingencies that affect the knowledge transferprocess: the nature of knowledge to be transferred, the features of the senders, those of the recipientsand the nature of the relation between senders and receivers. The characteristics of knowledge impactthe transfer outcome such that tacit (Polanyi 1967), sticky knowledge (Szulanski 1996) is more difficultto transfer (Reed and DeFilippi 1990; Zander and Kogut 1995; Simonin 1999; Ipe 2003; Teigland andWasco 2009). With regard to the characteristics of the senders, researchers contend that motivation toshare knowledge is a facilitator (Szulanski 1996; Argote and Ingram 2000; Teigland and Wasko 2009).The receiver’s absorptive capacity (Zahra and George 2002) as well their retentive capacity also play animportant role in the KT process. Finally, the social and contextual relationships between the knowledgeentities the KT process (Szulanski 1996; Eisenhardt and Santos 2002; Husted and Michailova 2002).Relations of trust (Levin and Cross, 2004) and the strength of ties (Hansen, 1999) between knowledgeentities, organizational forms (Osterloh and Frey, 2000), and individuals’ status (Thomas-Hunt et al.2003) impact the KT outcome.Although these four contingencies are significant for our understanding of the transfer process, researchersseem to overlook the importance of the relationship between tacit knowledge and the kind of motivationthat seems to be best suited to facilitate its transfer. Whereas tacitness of knowledge is usuallyregarded as ”a natural impediment to the successful sharing of knowledge between individuals in organizations”(Ipe 2003: 344), as inherently difficult to transfer (Tissen, Andriessen, & Deprez 1998) we wishto suggest that tacit knowledge is usually linked to intrinsic motivation and that this relationship affectsthe outcome of the transfer process. Motivation is not only a psychological state of an individual; nor istacit knowledge solely a feature of knowledge. Motivation and tacit knowledge co-configure each otherand the strength of this relationship impacts the KT outcome. To illustrate our argument, we have studieda group of departing experts within a large oil company focusing on their efforts to transfer their hard-wonexpertise knowledge to newly-recruited engineers.Our suggestion complements the four-fold model of knowledge transfer by emphasizing the relationshipbetween intrinsic motivation, tacit knowledge and its transfer. Whereas most previous research posits thattacit knowledge (as a feature of knowledge) is a barrier to its transfer, we contend that sharing and transferringtacit knowledge are supported intrinsic motivation which facilitates the transfer process. Becausetacit knowledge, such as expertise, requires long-term commitment to one’s area of expertise and years ofexperience in that specific area, it is more likely that experts are intrinsically-driven to acquire and refineit, and because it is socially constructed, transferring and sharing it with others is the very process ofits production. Accordingly, the relation between knowledge and its possessor constitutes a social bondthat is strengthened through social interactions. These considerations will have implications for HRMpractices, such as training and reward systems. Finally, the paper questions the economic view that tacit,expert knowledge can be treated as an ‘intellectual good’ which can be possessed by individuals and‘traded’ (Osterloh et al., 2002). Tacit knowledge involves a practice, a set of know-how, which belongsto a community of practitioners (Lave and Wenger 1991) because it pre-exists individuals. Individualsare only carriers of that practice (Schatzki 2003). This social dimension of tacit knowledge questionsthe economic view of knowledge as abankable and tradable good. This question is significant as it drawsattention to a more complex logic that defines the organizational behaviour. Ultimately, we want to lendsupport to the theory that tangible rewards alone are not sufficient to motivate knowledge sharing amongcertain groups, such as professionals who participate in knowledge-sharing activities because of the intrinsicreward that comes from the work itself (Tissen et al 1998).The remainder of the paper unfolds as follows : the next section review the relevant theories in the literature,focusing on the intersection between knowledge, intrinsic motivation and KT. Section 2 developsCAHIERdeRECHERCHE N°1423