The Exploratory Study Of Determinant Of Cross-border Transfer Of Retail Know-how

Presently, in the context of the knowledge economy, competitive advantage of company increasingly depends on its unique business knowledge accumulated, particularly for retail businesses, the competitive advantage they have mainly comes from the retail know-how which is accumulated in the process of long-term business. With the globalization of world economy and the liberalization of international trade gradually increasing, the retail business expands to overseas markets inevitably to take the path of international development. All of today's large multinational retail companies in the overseas market with a large number of overseas subsidiaries want to survive in the international market and continue to grow and develop, and they must have competitive advantage. Currently, the subsidiary of transnational retail enterprise's competitive advantage relies more on the effectiveness transfer of its retail know-how from the head. Retail know-how is formed over the process of long-term business by transnational corporation on the home market in the context of the specific environment. However differences exist between the overseas and home market, international retailers corporation will be bound to various factors when transferring its know-how to overseas markets, which will affect the subsidiaries'validity of transferring, endurance of the competitive advantage and success of overseas expansion in overseas markets.This paper used literature studies, comparative studies and theory of inductive methods and built the cross-border transfer process model of retail based on literature about internal knowledge transfer in multinational corporations and retail cross-border transfer; established determinant model in the following facts:retail know-how, ability to cross-border transfer of the retail business corporation, subsidiary absorptive capacity of the overseas market, transfer situation and richness of the channels. Comparing to the existing models on determinant of cross-border transfer of the retail know-how, the model studied more comprehensively, covering all aspects in the international transfer of retail know-how. On the basis of the determinant model, this paper analyzed impact that determinant of cross-border transfers had on performance and proposed a series of theoretical propositions, including:(1) Social, Implicit and complexity of retail know-how transfer showed a negative correlation with performance of retail know-how cross-border transfer;(2)Transfer ability to retail enterprises and absorptive capacity of the overseas market of a subsidiary showed a positive correlation with cross-border transfer performance; (3)The geographical distance, institutional distance and cultural distance in the transfer paradox showed a negative correlation with cross-border transfer performance;(4) Channel richness level showed a positive correlation with cross-border transfer performance; (5)Transfer channel can play an intermediary role between know-how characteristics and transfer performance.The purpose of this study aims to enhance cross-border transfer effectiveness of the retail, so that subsidiaries of transnational retail enterprises have a competitive advantage and be able to continue to grow and develop and achieve the success of overseas expansion. At last, this article put forward response mechanisms to promote effective cross-border transfer of the retail know-how, mainly including: multinational retailers establish a rational incentive mechanism, establish a learning organization inside subsidiaries, build multi-level know-how cross-border transfer channels between parent and subsidiary companies, reinforce the partnerships between parent company and subsidiaries of transnational retail business, promote integration between the two scenarios to reduce the influence situational differences in cross-border transfer of retail know-how and enhance intellectual property protection and so on.