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Knowledge transfer in international acquisitions

  • 2009 Decade Award Winning Article
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Abstract

This paper reports on a multimethod study of knowledge transfer in international acquisitions. Using questionnaire data we show that the transfer of technological know-how is facilitated by communication, visits & meetings, and by time elapsed since acquisition, while the transfer of patents is associated with the articulability of the knowledge, the size of the acquired unit, and the recency of the acquisition. Using case study data, we show that the immediate post-acquisition period is characterized by imposed one-way transfers of knowledge from the acquirer to the acquired, but over time this gives way to high-quality reciprocal knowledge transfer.

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Notes

  1. Note that we also looked into the acquiring firm and host country as possible control variables (dummies), but none was significant.

  2. The questionnaire was designed to test the emerging ideas in this study, and also to follow up on a separate study on the patterns of communication between foreign operations of Swedish MNCs (see Håkanson and Nobel (1993) and Nobel and Birkinshaw (1998)).

  3. Although we did obtain a response rate in excess of 50 percent, non-respondent bias could still be a problem. We compared the respondents and nonrespondents on two dimensions, host country and parent company. The only significant difference was in terms of the parent company, in that some companies were over-represented (Alfa Laval and ABB) and others were under-represented (Sandvik and SKF).

  4. This sample included five cases of acquisitions by Swedish MNCs of Swedish companies. It could be argued that a study of international acquisition should eliminate these, but because they actually served to increase the variance in our measure of cultural distance, they were retained.

  5. We polled head office managers on the same issues, but it became apparent that they could not answer the detailed questions about the specific units, so their responses were not used.

  6. Taylor was part of the acquisition of its parent, Combustion Engineering.

  7. This figure was pro-rated upwards for those acquisitions that had occurred within the last five years.

  8. To be specific, we asked for the number of granted patents generated by the R&D units over the most recent five year period.

  9. It is interesting that the attitudes of individuals in the acquiring firms were not so positive; in fact, a few felt that their situation had become worse, and most felt less respect for the acquired firm. This suggests to us that these individuals had overly-high initial expectations that were not met.

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Acknowledgements

Professor Lars Håkanson is gratefully acknowledged for his essential contributions to the data collection for this study. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1997 Academy of International Business Conference, Monterey, Mexico. Thanks to Aya Chacar, Andrew Delios and Charles Dhanaraj for their comments. Research assistance from Pernille Hanson and Anne Selander is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden

    Henrik Bresman & Robert Nobel

  2. London Business School, London, UK

    Julian Birkinshaw

Authors
  1. Henrik Bresman
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  2. Julian Birkinshaw
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Correspondence to Julian Birkinshaw.

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This paper was previously published in Journal of International Business Studies (1999) 29: 439–462. CLARIFICATION: Although the author affiliations shown in this reprint reflect the original publication, readers should note that Henrik Bresman's affiliation at the time should have been listed as “Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA”.

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Bresman, H., Birkinshaw, J. & Nobel, R. Knowledge transfer in international acquisitions. J Int Bus Stud 41, 5–20 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2009.56

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