An Investigation on the Factors Affecting the Success of Knowledge Transfer Process in Inter-Firm Collaborations (Case: Pharmaceutical Firm Collaborations)

Abstract

Today, competitive advantage of organizations depends mostly on their access to knowledge resources. Rapid development of knowledge and expansion of knowledge resources among different organizations make it difficult for organizations to access knowledge on their own. This obliges organizations to cooperate with each other in order to acquire their knowledge needs. Statistics indicate an increase in strategic collaboration with the aim of acquiring knowledge, especially in knowledge-based industries such as the pharmaceutical industry. There is an extensive literature on factors affecting the processes of knowledge transfer and learning in collaborations; however, so far no comprehensive study has been done in this regard. This study aimed to identify and investigate factors affecting the success of knowledge transfer and learning in strategic collaborations between Iranian pharmaceutical companies. Following the detailed review of previous studies, ten factors affecting the knowledge transfer process were extracted and categorized into two categories: factors at the level of organization, and factors at the level of cooperation. Finally, the importance of them was explained using the opinions of managers of some pharmaceutical companies engaged in strategic cooperation. Results indicate that "Organizational strategy" is the most influential factor and "social capital" is the most important factor.

Keywords

• knowledge transfer
• technology transfer
• inter-firm collaborations
• knowledge acquisition
• organizational learning