Transfer of Retail Management Know-how to China

The primary objectives of the research are five-fold: (1) to investigate the elements of retail management know-how that are effectively transferred from international retailers to their subsidiaries in China; (2) to examine two key factors, absorptive capacity of the subsidiaries and commitment of the foreign parent, that affect knowledge transfer effectiveness; (3) to develop measures of the associated constructs; (4) to examine the effect of knowledge transfer on business performance; (5) to examine possible moderating effects of ownership type and retail format on the relationships proposed in the model.;Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to identify the factor structure of the scale for the constructs in the proposed model. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was then carried out to validate all the measurement models of concern here and acceptable model fit indices were achieved. Causal studies were followed to examine the proposed structural model and related hypotheses. The statistical results support the conceptualization of absorptive capacity as a second-order measurement model since it has a better model fit than the first-order one. This is perhaps the most important finding since it indicates that both management staff's ability to learn and organizational adaptability are necessary components of a firm's absorptive capacity to optimally facilitate the transfer of retail management know-how from international retailers to their subsidiaries in China. The predicted second-order structure of commitment was also validated by the findings of this research, with management involvement and communication as its components. Positive impacts of absorptive capacity and commitment on knowledge transfer effectiveness were also confirmed. Moreover, the results show that subsidiaries that have effectively acquired strategic management know-how from their foreign parent performed better in terms of several marketing metrics such as market share, sales volume and profit. However, the influence of tactical program management know-how on business performance was found to be statistically insignificant. Finally, analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicates that there are no significant differences in knowledge transfer effectiveness across either ownership types of retail establishment, while business performance does not vary by retail format either.