In the ultra-competitive context, if companies try to survive and prosper, they must perform quickly to establish their own competitive advantage and continue to undermine the advantages of competitors.It is a continuous job.Using knowledge and technology resources becomes the key to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage.As one of the most popular and fastest ways for international expansion, international joint ventures (IJVs) have become an important channel for multinational companies to invest overseas.One important reason is that parent companies and joint venture subsidiaries shall effectively transfer, develop and make use of knowledge and technology than the external market.Knowledge transfer and acquisition approach could improve efficiency and performance of the joint ventures, which will become the key for IJV to win in the increasingly fierce competition.In addition, the process of economic globalization and the rapid development of modern information technology, network technology have provided favorable conditions for knowledge metastasis between the parent company and joint ventures subsidiary.Therefore, in recent years, researches on how to transfer knowledge and the antecedents of knowledge transfer have become a hot issue among relevant scholars and practitioners of common concern.This research is dedicated to discover the technology transfer in Sino-Saudi joint ventures (SSJVs) in oil and petrochemical industries located in both China and Saudi Arabia.The research shall focus on the quality and quantity of technology transfer, especially tacit knowledge transfer between two sides, including between partners of SSJVs, as well as between employees within the SSJVs from two sides.Interviews and questionnaires shall be used to collect data from employees and management from both partners as well as SSJVs.Discussion on Sino-Saudi joint ventures is to be made with two major implications.The first is a special Sino-Saudi partnership, which carries strategic, geopolitical and even military considerations,which is far beyond the pure economic concern.The second is the culture differences between partners, which may create gap to the technology transfer, or enhance the transfer, on different occasions.The culture difference also impacts partners' behavior and their perception to each other, and hence generates different effects on mutual trust, which is an essential element of corporate relationship quality, and in turn the transfer of technology.
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