ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONAL SIZE AND FORMALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER PROCESSES

Abstract

Abstract: In spite of the fact that the ability to transfer knowledge is critical for securing a firm's competitive advantage through leveraging scarce internal resources, few investigations have been conducted to date to systematically explore intra-firm knowledge transfer processes put in place by small firms operating in turbulent environments. Drawing upon an exhaustive cross-case analysis of a set of knowledge transfer processes within five small software firms, we found that these processes exhibit striking differences in their degree of formalization in two firms of equal size. Contrary to the conventional belief held by many scholars in the literature that assumes that the degree of process formalization increases in direct proportion with firm size, our results demonstrate that the major factors explaining the variance in the degree of formalization of intra-firm knowledge transfer processes are the CEO personality, firm age, and availability of venture capital