TY - JOUR

T1 - Cross-Border Knowledge Transfer in the Digital Age

T2 - The Final Curtain Call for Long-Term International Assignments?

AU - Bucher, Jana

AU - Bader, Benjamin

AU - Deller, Jürgen

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies published by Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2023/7/19

Y1 - 2023/7/19

N2 - Digital technology has altered how multinational companies (MNCs) transfer knowledge across borders. With digital communication media (DCM), knowledge exchange can become more cost-effective, thereby reducing the need for face-to-face exchange. DCM's influence on long-term international assignment management for cross-border knowledge transfer remains unclear. Based on 71 interviews with German human resource (HR) managers and subsidiary HR counterparts, we investigated the use of DCM to exchange knowledge across country borders. Exploring these conditions alongside HR managers’ unique perspective on global mobility management prior to and during the global COVID-19 pandemic, we present two major findings. First, 12 facilitating conditions are necessary for digital knowledge transfer across borders to be accepted as a valuable alternative to long-term international assignments. Second, we identified individual connections between facilitating conditions and found that five conditions decreased in relevance, while the remaining seven became core aspects of successful digital knowledge transfer during COVID-19 and possibly beyond.

AB - Digital technology has altered how multinational companies (MNCs) transfer knowledge across borders. With digital communication media (DCM), knowledge exchange can become more cost-effective, thereby reducing the need for face-to-face exchange. DCM's influence on long-term international assignment management for cross-border knowledge transfer remains unclear. Based on 71 interviews with German human resource (HR) managers and subsidiary HR counterparts, we investigated the use of DCM to exchange knowledge across country borders. Exploring these conditions alongside HR managers’ unique perspective on global mobility management prior to and during the global COVID-19 pandemic, we present two major findings. First, 12 facilitating conditions are necessary for digital knowledge transfer across borders to be accepted as a valuable alternative to long-term international assignments. Second, we identified individual connections between facilitating conditions and found that five conditions decreased in relevance, while the remaining seven became core aspects of successful digital knowledge transfer during COVID-19 and possibly beyond.

KW - Management studies

KW - cross-border knowledge transfer

KW - digital communication media

KW - human resource practice

KW - International assignments

KW - international human ressource management

KW - expatriation

KW - knowledge transfer

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85165324043&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/8d66a47f-adab-32f3-84f3-5ef94165f34f/

U2 - 10.1111/joms.12971

DO - 10.1111/joms.12971

M3 - Journal articles

JO - Journal of Management Studies

JF - Journal of Management Studies

SN - 0022-2380

ER -