Subsidiary Knowledge Transfer: The Case of United Kingdom Knowledge-Intensive Services

This research focuses on hierarchical knowledge transfer from subsidiary to its parent company. Borrowing concepts from the kno wledge -based and network views, this research seeks to examine how subsidiary characteristics including subsidiary willingness, subsidiary external embeddedness and relationship characteristics such as internal embeddedness, transmission channels, and shared value facilitate the process of RKT. We tested a series of hypotheses using the result of a mail survey, which was administrated amongst subsidiaries operating in knowledge -intensive services industries that are located in the United Kingdom. The findings indicate that subsidiary characteristics and internal embeddedness are the most important factors explaining RKT in the service industry.

Keywords:

Multinational Corporations (MNCs) , Knowledge , Reverse Knowledge Transfer (RKT) , Internal Embeddedness , and External Embeddedness