Developing a Conceptual Framework of Contextual Factors Affecting Knowledge Transfer in Transnational Projects

Nowadays, with significant growth in the number of organizations, they seek to increase their competitive advantages as much as possible. One of the effective approaches is knowledge management, through which organizations try to re-exploit the experiences and knowledge created in their previous projects. Today, many projects are carried out by forces from other nationalities, in which each participating organization operates within complex national, organizational, and informal contexts. So, knowledge is transferred between geographically dispersed individuals and organizations, and across cultural and national boundaries. Given these conditions, knowledge management processes, especially the transfer and acquisition of knowledge, are critical. The purpose of the present study is to design a conceptual framework of the contextual factors affecting the knowledge transfer in transnational projects using a meta-synthesis Firstly, this study would combine previous researches in the field of knowledge transfer. These factors are determined using the open coding method to propose a conceptual framework. Secondly, hypotheses are defined based on obtained factors, and then we would examine the hypotheses and identify the relationship between independent variables and the dependent variable. The statistical population of the present study includes companies involved in the upstream industry in the realm of petroleum. The data are gathered using a questionnaire. This paper focuses on those types of factors which affect knowledge transfer, from both theoretical and empirical viewpoints. We provided an integrative conceptual framework to evaluate and organize the literature on effective contextual factors on knowledge transfer. The obtained results revealed that cultural distance, knowledge distance and language had the most significant influence on the knowledge transfer. Besides, we provided effective solutions for the organizations to improve their knowledge transfer process