| The study purpose of this paper is put forth in the Prelude. Since 1980s, the western economy began to fully transfer from the industrial economy into the knowledge-based economy and the contemporary "Made in China" was an important part of international division of labor system, and the "Made in China" provided solid foundation for the great leap of economy of China. However, we must be soberly aware that our country is only a big manufacturing country but not a powerful manufacturing country, and there are still great disparities between our country and the developed countries in the aspects of industrial and economic structures, production technology level, R&D investment level and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, etc. In company with the factors such as RMB exchange rate rising and continuously rising of factor prices, the cost advantages on which our country formerly relied is weakened, so the competitiveness is significantly reduced. The development direction of China should realize transferring from "Made in China" into "Created in China".In order to achieve this strategic objective, we should make great efforts to develop hi-tech industries. The experience of developed countries shows that the development of hi-tech industries has significant driving action on the macro-economy, so all the countries regard giving the highest priority to the development of hi-tech industries as an important part of their development strategy. To a large extent, the development of hi-tech industries depends on whether there are a great deal of hi-tech enterprises healthily developed or not, especially medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises.Hi-tech enterprises are new enterprise cluster emerging in the last decades; they have many characteristics different from traditional enterprises. The scale of the enterprises is generally on the small side, so their R&D capacity, especially the R&D capacity for core technologies, is relatively poor, and the existence and development of such enterprises need to depend on the external knowledge sources, and the knowledge alliance is one of the effective means to gain the external knowledge sources. Therefore, further study on how the medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises of our country to take advantage of the knowledge alliance to carry out knowledge transfer, and study on the mechanism of knowledge transfer, and putting forth corresponding suggestions, will be helpful for pushing the existing hi-tech enterprise to grow healthily. The study will help establish a great deal of hi-tech enterprise clusters with high technology level, good economic benefit, large scale, and scientific management, and to make them become the mainstay of our economy in the future.Chapterâ…¡is an overview of the reference literatures, and has a comprehensive review on the definition of knowledge, the knowledge management, the knowledge transfer, the knowledge alliance and A Resource-Based View of Firm. Based on this, this chapter puts forth the insufficiencies in the existing studies, and thus puts forth the author's own study conception and overall framework. Based on knowledge management theory, strategic alliance theory, game theory and statistics methodology, etc, this paper carries out theoretical study and empirical investigation on the knowledge transfer mechanism occurring in the non-ownership knowledge alliance (excluding joint ventures) of the medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises, trying hard to find the inherent laws and critical influencing factors in such transfer actions.Chapterâ…¢analyzes the medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises of China from the view of point of knowledge management. Firstly, this chapter concludes seven features of such enterprises, and thinks that the most valuable assets are the owners of the knowledge and expertise, and the enterprises should have more powerful dynamic capacity, and should continue learning. And this chapter expounds the knowledge resources and knowledge structure of hi-tech enterprises and thinks that the knowledge structure of an enterprise is a kind of process, in which the knowledge is continuously transformed, melted and combined. And the enterprises need to establish knowledge flow channels both internally and externally, and the sources and evolution of enterprise knowledge have network characteristics.Essentially, medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises need to absorb knowledge sources from the outside, and the knowledge alliance is a method to absorb knowledge, which can not only keep the enterprise in an independent position but also is very effective. The knowledge alliance means that the enterprises form an alliance via knowledge media and exchange complementary resources to realize respective strategic objectives and to gain permanent competitive advantages. According to the strategic importance of knowledge resources and their own capacities, the enterprises should properly choose whether to form an alliance each other, therefore, a knowledge alliance selection matrix is established based on this. This chapter discusses the causes of the knowledge alliance, and thinks that the knowledge alliance of hi-tech enterprises has comparative advantage effect, resource complementary effect, knowledge cost reduction effect and synergy innovation effect, etc. The knowledge alliance matches the characteristics of medium-and small-sized hi-tech enterprises and the knowledge alliance has inherent consistency with the growth of the enterprises.Based on the practice actions of the medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises of China, this paper enumerates five most common alliance actions: joint R&D, technical license, knowledge type outsourcing, strategic supply chain and consulting, and this paper expounds all these kinds of alliance actions in detail.There are three main modes for the hi-tech enterprises to gain outside knowledge and expertise: direct purchasing, knowledge alliance and founding joint venture. This paper carries out comparisons for these three modes from the view of point of knowledge transfer cost, and takes into comprehensive consideration the factors such as knowledge transfer cost, knowledge protection cost, cooperative operation cost and future earnings, etc, and outlines the cooperative cost curve, reflecting the respective valid interval of each mode. The final part of this chapter carries out analysis on the motive of whether the enterprise takes cooperative actions in the alliance or not, based on the game theory.Chapterâ…£carries out further study on the concept of knowledge transfer in the knowledge alliance, and puts forth the concept of knowledge transfer, and puts forward four knowledge transfer types of medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises: near transfer, far transfer, strategic transfer and expert transfer, and according to the characteristics of all types of knowledge transfers, one decision-making tree is established, and puts forth the author's own opinions on all types of knowledge transfers.After discussing the concept and types of knowledge transfers, the knowledge transfer process of the alliance is divided into the phases of communication, expression, combination and absorption, among others, the communication phase is mainly the socialization process of the hidden knowledge of alliance, but the expression phase is the externalization process of the hidden knowledge of alliance, and the combination phase is the combination process of the explicit knowledge of alliance, and the absorption phase is the internalization process of the explicit knowledge of alliance.Based on two dimensions, one is the horizontal or vertical complementary relationship of the knowledge resources and the other is enterprise relationship orientation or task orientation, the knowledge transfer in the alliance is divided into four modes: horizontal complementarity - relationship orientation mode, horizontal complementarity - task orientation mode, vertical complementarity - relationship orientation mode and vertical complementarity -task orientation mode, and the five alliance actions such as joint R&D, etc concluded above are respectively discussed based on these four modes.Chapterâ…¤studies on the knowledge transfer mechanism in the alliance. Firstly, on the basis of the former studies, the knowledge transfer model in the knowledge alliance of medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises of China is established, and this paper thinks that there are nine factors which impact on the results of knowledge transfer: knowledge property, knowledge distance, confidence distance, culture distance, organization distance, strategic motive of knowledge exporting party, knowledge exporting capacity of exporting party, strategic motive of knowledge receiving party, the absorption capacity of receiving party.The influencing factor firstly discussed is the property of the knowledge to be transferred, and the paper puts forth that there are three characteristics of the knowledge to be transferred in the alliance: implicity, complexity and exclusiveness. The influencing factors also include the factors of the knowledge exporting party and the knowledge receiving party. In addition to the strategic motives of both parties participating in the strategic alliance, the knowledge exporting party should have knowledge exporting capacity, being good at expressing clearly the knowledge to be transferred, and this is related to three factors: the knowledge stock of the exporting party, the extent to which the exporting party masters the knowledge to be transferred and the alliance experience of the exporting party. The knowledge receiving party should have stronger knowledge absorption capacity, being good at assimilating and copying new knowledge from the outside, and being good at coding the hidden knowledge.The factors impacting on the knowledge transfer also include knowledge distance, culture distance, organization distance and confidence distance. The knowledge distance means the disparity between both parties of the alliance in the knowledge and expertise, including three specific aspects: the complementarity of knowledge resources, the similarity of knowledge and expertise and the matchability of knowledge disparity. Culture distance means the cultural disparity between alliance partnership enterprises, which has impact on their differences in thinking and behavior modes; organization distance means the geographic disparity, organizational disparity and industrial disparity between alliance partnership enterprises; confidence distance means the confidence degree between partners, which is the extent to which one party believes that the other party will not use fraudulent means to gain profits.Chapterâ…¥of this paper introduces the empirical study. Firstly, this chapter puts forth questionnaire design, sample selection and actual survey. And the main objects to be surveyed are the medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprises in Shanghai, and the main sources include Shanghai New High Technology Service Center and the investment targets of many venture investment companies in Shanghai. After carrying out statistic analysis on the questionnaire answers, all the original hypothesis models are affirmed, only the hypothesis that the geographic distance between enterprises in the organization distance can influence on the knowledge transfer is not in the confidence interval of 95%, that is, the influence form the geographic distance on the knowledge transfer is not significant.Chapterâ…¦includes conclusion and the discussion section. Based on the feedback of the questionnaires, at present, in the five types of alliances, the most common alliance type for the medium- and small-sized hi-tech enterprise is joint R&D, and the most unfrequent type is the technical license; among the five alliance types, technical license is not helpful for knowledge absorption and management, and the knowledge type outsourcing has no influence on the knowledge absorption; when the enterprises decide whether to take advantage of the knowledge alliance, give highest priority to considering whether to enhance the product competitiveness and improve overall competitiveness, and whether to absorb and manage knowledge is not covered in the important consideration scope. In the questionnaire, the surveyed objects are required to enumerate three main obstacles for the knowledge transfer of alliance, the number one is the purpose to form an alliance of both parties, especially economic interests and interest distribution, the second is enterprise culture, employees' conception and learning enthusiasm, and the third is the confidence degree between both parties.After carrying factor analysis on the nine factors in the knowledge transfer model by SPSS, and after carrying out comprehensive comparison for 3-factor to 6-factor models, we determine to use 5-factor model, and the five factors are confidence factor, culture factor, knowledge factor, factor of strategic motive of knowledge exporting party and the factor of strategic motive of knowledge receiving party. We combine the factor of strategic motive of knowledge exporting party and the factor of strategic motive of knowledge receiving party into one strategic motive factor, then 4-factor model is formed.This chapter discusses these four factors one by one in detail, and puts forth corresponding suggestions for hi-tech enterprises. This paper puts forth that confidence is one of the most critical influencing factors in the knowledge transfer, especially in the society of our country in which people pay more attention to "rule by men" and interpersonal relations, and there are not a complete legal system at present, so the confidence has uncommon sense. In the actual cooperation, this paper recommends that the enterprises should pay more attention to the performance of the agreements and contracts, and should carry out effective communications at all levels, ensuring that both parties establish an excellent confidence relationship. Culture factor is also one important factor influencing on knowledge transfer. To be sure, homogeneous culture type can facilitate cooperation, but cultural difference is not a bad thing. Both parties should recognize that the cultural difference can facilitate innovation based on mutual confidence, and should use transcultural management methods such as compromising, melting, etc. especially, both parties should establish a transcultural team to be in charge of pushing the alliance cooperation.In the aspect of knowledge factor, we think that the explicit of knowledge is very important for knowledge transfer, but in the practice, the information technology is very helpful for this, so we recommend various information technologies or softwares at the four phases of knowledge transfer, with the aid of such tools, the knowledge to be transferred will be implicit, combined and absorbed on a better basis. In the aspect of strategic motive factor, this paper concludes the types of strategic motives of hi-tech enterprises. At the strategic level, the strategic motives can be divided into four categories, but in the specific operation level, there are 6 purposes, but after all, the economic interests are placed in the number one position, and this is closely relative to the scale of the enterprise, because the existence crisis consciousness of medium- and small-sized enterprises is very strong, they will focus on the short-term profits. This paper recommends that in addition to pay more attention to the economic interests, the management level of enterprises should be soberly aware of the knowledge and expertise needed by the enterprise in the future and to make the knowledge alliance to serve this. In the last part of this paper, the insufficiencies of this paper and the further study direction in the future are concluded.
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