دانلود رایگان مقاله انتقال دانش و عملکرد فراگیر فرامرز

ABSTRACT

The current understanding of when and how knowledge transfer leads to cross-border acquisition (CBA) success is still limited. The aims of the paper are to provide new insights into the factors that facilitate or impede knowledge transfer, and to examine the impact of knowledge transfer on CBA performance. The data were gathered via a cross-sectional survey using a questionnaire on a sample of UK firms that had acquired North American and European firms. The findings indicate that knowledge transfer and employee retention have positive influence on CBA performance. In addition, organizational culture differences have a negative influence on CBA performance, but also mediate the relationship between knowledge transfer and CBA performance. No direct or mediating effect of national cultural distance has been found on knowledge transfer and CBA performance. One of the important contributions of the present paper is the development of a conceptual framework incorporating the mediating effect of national cultural distance, organizational culture differences, and employee retention on knowledge transfer and acquisition performance. Moreover, we have tested the two distinct types of knowledge transfer namely knowledge transfer in the functional area and knowledge transfer in the general management area, thus making a contribution to the existing literature on knowledge transfer in CBAs.

5. Discussion

The findings indicate that the ability of merging firms to transfer knowledge can explain a substantial portion of CBA success. Knowledge transfer remains a strong indicator of CBA success even after controlling for alternate factors affecting acquisition performance. The findings confirm the assumption made by several M&A researchers (for example, Ranft, 1997; Bresman et al., 1999) and offer strong support for the knowledgebased view of business performance. We also shed light on the effect of national cultural distance and organizational culture differences on knowledge transfer and CBA success. As argued by Teerikangas and Very (2006), prior research on M&As, with the exception of a few studies (Olie, 1994; Very, Lubatkin, Calori, & Veiga, 1997), has generally considered only one level of culture: either national or corporate, in contradiction with the current trend toward a multi-level view of culture in organizational and sociological research (Teerikangas & Very, 2006). Teerikangas and Very (2006) contended that the findings of earlier research studies differ depending on whether the object of examination was the effect of corporate (organizational) culture or of national cultural distance. The divergent findings indicate the importance of clearly differentiating the concepts of national cultural distance and organizational culture differences. In this paper we have examined national cultural distance and organizational culture differences separately. Our findings indicate that national cultural distance and organizational culture differences are dissimilar constructs because they are not significantly correlated (r = 0.054). Moreover, the relationship between knowledge transfer and national cultural distance and organizational cultural differences, and the effect of organizational culture differences and national cultural distance on CBA success varied considerably. National cultural distance showed no significant effect on knowledge transfer or CBA success, but organizational culture differences showed a significant impact on knowledge transfer and a strong effect on CBA success. The findings associated with organizational culture differences are consistent with prior findings by Larsson and Finkelstein (1999). Moreover, our results support the view of Weber et al. (1996, 2009) and Weber, Tarba, and Reichel (2011) that national cultural distance and organizational culture differences are dissimilar constructs that affect M&A success differently.