| Global manufacturing network provides an important strategic opportunity for China’s multinationals who could integrate into the international division of labor system, learning and accumulation of knowledge, and to form their advantage of knowledge in the ear of knowledge economy. Currently, based on the two direction of international expansion, namely, exploitative leaning to cross-border operation in the low-end market and explorative learning to seek knowledge in the high-end market by the China’s manufacturing multinationals in the international environment. How to take advantage of knowledge transfer among the different countries to improve the innovation capability and achieve a competitive position in the global network, become a reality problem to the China’s manufacturing industry in the internationalization. In the process of innovation paradigm develop to the knowledge platform, the performance of innovation affected by the extent of cross-border knowledge transfer has been widely recognized by the academia. Besides, update existing knowledge, absorb capacity and application of knowledge, has also be a critical path for the industrial transformation and upgrading by the China’s enterprises in the global knowledge network. Throughout the previous studies, theoretical or empirical inquiry has outlined the impact of the knowledge transfer by its characteristics, however, there are the limits and differences of distinguish the natural characteristics of knowledge and knowledge embedded multinationals context in the emerging economies.In the study, China’s multinationals in the manufacturing industry as the research sample, based on the topic " the knowledge distance between the parent company and subsidiaries in multinationals how to effect on knowledge transfer extent and their innovation performance", construct the analysis framework of "knowledge distance-knowledge transfer-performance" to study the mechanism of knowledge transfer in multinational enterprise, follow the "structure-behavior performance" to logic analysis theoretical structure, progressively to research the following three problems:(1) How the embedded knowledge in the relationship between parent and subsidiary companies influence the depth and wide of bidirectional knowledge transfer?(2) The different knowledge characteristics how to effect on the above mechanism?(3) Based on the knowledge transferability and knowledge innovation capability, the strategic role of multinational parent-subsidiary company how to dynamical improvement? In order to explain the research question, the research through the following steps to discussion.First, exploratory case studies to clarifying the knowledge attributes of parent-subsidiary relationship in the multinationals, namely the compatibility and adaptation degree in the knowledge distance, how to influence the breadth and depth of knowledge transfer, and the extent of knowledge transfer how to influence their innovation performance. Second, based on the case study and the analysis of the literature, we introduce a general character of knowledge, namely knowledge tacit, complexity and specificity as a moderating variable, to improve the research model and propose the research hypothesis. Through a questionnaire survey of188of China’s manufacturing industry multinational corporation, using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, multiple linear regression equation for the empirical study, and formed a transnational enterprise internal bidirectional knowledge transfer mechanism model. Third, based on the model, by comparing the parent company to subsidiaries positive knowledge transfer and subsidiary to the parent company of reverse knowledge transfer to find out the similarities and differences, according to the knowledge transferability and innovation capability under the above framework, we point the strategic role of China’s multinationals in the knowledge learning and application for the competitive advantage position.After the above research and demonstration, following conclusions could be reached:(1)The knowledge distance influence the forward and reverse knowledge transfer between parent and subsidiary companies in MNCs, and the extent of knowledge transfer affects on their innovation performance.The result of model points out the compatibility of knowledge between the parent and subsidiary company has significant effect the scope of their knowledge transfer, and the knowledge of adaptation on the frequency and speed of knowledge transfer have significant effects. The frequency of forward knowledge transfer to influence the subsidiary’s innovation performance is not significant, otherwise, the process of depth and breadth of reverse knowledge transfer significantly. The subsidiary innovation performance only reflects the new product market performance; however, the parent company’s innovation performance reflects the new product development R&D and market sale.(2)The characteristics of knowledge play a regulatory role between knowledge distance and knowledge transfer in MNCs.This study introduces three kinds of characteristics of knowledge as regulatory variables. The empirical results show that:the tacit knowledge has a regulation on the knowledge adaptation and compatible to the frequency and scope of reverse knowledge process; complexity of knowledge has a regulation on knowledge compatibility to the scope of forward knowledge transfer; knowledge specification has a regulation on the knowledge adaptation to the forward knowledge transfer speed regulation. Especially, knowledge specification for the parent-subsidiary company knowledge compatibility and forward knowledge transfer plays a negative moderating effect and the positive impact on reverse knowledge transfer.(3) Based on the difference of knowledge transferability and knowledge innovation ability in the knowledge management, there is duality in MNCs.China’s multinational manufacturing company’s parent company play a role with stronger innovation ability and weaker transferability, that is embedded in the home market of dominant knowledge is still difficult to be transferred to overseas branches, so the dualistic phenomenon in knowledge management is reflected in the inclusion and exclusive in the parent company, knowledge learning and unlearning. China’s MNC subsidiaries play a role with stronger transferability and weaker innovation capability, where the transferred knowledge mainly comes from the embedded host countries’knowledge, so there is still another dualistic phenomenon in knowledge management is reflected in the knowledge localization and globalization, exploratory learning and exploitative learning.Throughout the study, the paper mainly expands and deepens the several aspects as follows:(1)The knowledge characteristics according to its natural attribute and embedding context attributes on a MNCs within the distinction, to play a detailed interpretation of knowledge characteristics as regulating role in the relationship between knowledge distance and the extent of knowledge transfer, which offer an evidence for how to improvement of efficiency in knowledge sharing.(2)The study analyzes the similarities and differences between the forward and reverse knowledge transfer process in MNCs, and its influence on innocation performance, what could provides some suggestions and actions to solve the duality in emerging MNCs’ knowledge management.(3)The research reveals the knowledge transferability and innovative ability of collaborative evolution in MNCs, and it’s significant on the knowledge management strategy in MNCs, which could afford an angle of view for emerging MNCs achieve industry upgrade. |
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