Research On The Informal Organizations Of R & D Teams And The Influence On Tacit Knowledge Transfer

Tacit knowledge which is embassed in employees'heads is hard to simulated or copied, but it is valueable. Improving the effects of tacit knowledge transfer will help enterprises save cost and obtain the competitive advantage. Out of working relationship,the employees with common factors may agragate to some informal organizations which could offer a plat for the communication of tacit knowledge transfer based on trust, reciprocity. Studying how the informal organizations influence tacit knowledge transfer is important to improve tacit knowledge transfer effert in enterprises. Structure and relationship are the two important features of informal organizations, both of which could affect the tacit knowledge transfer. So this paper carries out the research from the two perspectives.Research from structure perspective is based on social network analysis, including chapter 3 and 4. Firstly, the informal network of a R&D team is constructed by using social network analysis method. After computing its character indexes, we analyze its influence on tacit knowledge transfer, and validate the"small netword effect"of informal network. Then, through modeling the small network,and simulating the different selection mechanisms of exchange objects in informal network, we found the best selection mechanism for tacit knowledge transfer effect finally.Research from relationship perspective composed of chapter 5 and 6. Firstly, according to social capital theory,we distill four factors of informal organization from three dimensions. Based on the process of tacit knowledge transfer, we put forward the theorical model and hypotheses of informal organization influencing tacit knowledge transfer. And discuss it respectively within two different situations: in informal organization and in the whole formal organization. Then we use SEM method to validate this model and hypotheses according to the questionnaire rusults.