Inter-organizational knowledge transfer in the buyer-supplier relationship: A buyer's perspective

We delineate an integrative view of inter-organizational knowledge transfer (IOKT) in the upstream supply chain relationship from a buyer's perspective. For this purpose, we suggest that the concept of IOKT can be classified into the source and the recipient type of knowledge transfer according to the direction of knowledge flow. A three-stage model (motivation-behaviors-performance) is adopted to examine the relationships between IOKT and its antecedent factors, and, in turn, between IOKT and organizational performance. By analyzing 140 buyer-supplier relationships using the partial least squares (PLS) method, we verify our research hypotheses. The results show that each of these two sub-concepts of knowledge transfer has different motivational and resultant mechanism. In addition, we also consider information sharing as another key construct of IOKT-related behavior, examining its relationship with motivational and resultant factors. Contributions of this research and future research opportunities are also discussed.