Developing a Knowledge Transfer Process for a Technology Business R&D

The case company is a multinational telecommunication equipment company which has gone through a recent re-organization. This change has caused a competency gap between different global R&D sites within the company. This thesis focuses on developing a knowledge transfer process for the R&D to close the competency gap and increase the R&D productivity. This thesis utilizes the qualitative research method through three rounds of data collection with the help of interviews, group discussions, and internal company documents. The thesis is started by first conducting the current state analysis of the knowledge transfer practices between specific R&D sites, and then looking for relevant ideas and knowledge from literature. Subsequently the study continues to the co-creation of a proposal for the knowledge transfer process relying on the collected data and suggestions from the key company stakeholders. Lastly the co-created proposal is validated by presenting the initial proposal and receiving feedback from the company management. The result of this study indicates that to close the competency gap between the R&D sites a knowledge transfer process can be embedded into project management activities. The components of the knowledge transfer process are “identifying knowledge and participants”, “capture and convert knowledge”, “share or transfer”, “apply and create new knowledge”, and “assess or audit”. Each step needs to be followed with the help of clear definition of roles and responsibilities in addition to relevant use of ICT tools enabling communication and transferring the knowledge among globally distributed R&D sites. In today’s competitive business environment knowledge intensive organizations need a systematic way to retain and transfer knowledge between different sites, units, and people to increase the overall level of knowledge in the organization. The proposed knowledge transfer process created in this study was approved by the management of the case company and will be implemented in the future projects in the R&D of the case company