It's a matter of give and take: Exploring the role of knowledge transfer within supply chain collaboration.

摘要

Firm interdependence within supply chains continues to grow. This is driven by the need to leverage tangible and intangible resources within the supply chain for innovation, process management, customer satisfaction and meeting diverse stakeholder expectations. This research expands our understanding of supply chain collaboration by introducing new knowledge-based constructs that operationalize the abilities of a firm to transfer knowledge. These abilities are referred to as distributive capabilities. The distributive capabilities of an organization represent its ability to transfer commercially relevant knowledge through collaboration to a known recipient firm. Earlier research in this domain has focused on the abilities of a recipient to absorb knowledge and has blurred the roles of the source and recipient. This research disentangles these roles by providing evidence that source capabilities to transfer knowledge are separate and distinct from the absorptive capacity of the recipient. Additionally, it is shown that distributive capabilities have direct and significant affects on levels of collaborative engagement between supply chain partners and indirect and significant affects on collaborative performance outcomes. Research in this area can increase our understanding of the knowledge transfer process and how that process can be proactively managed in order to reduce complexity and uncertainty in the supply chain.