EVALUATION OF INTER-GENERATIONAL KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER BY USING THE ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS (AHP)

The purpose of this paper is to present some results of our research in the field of inter-generational learning dynamics and knowledge transfer, with applications in universities. This topic is important because a university is by its own nature a nested knowledge organization, due to a continuous flow of students and the bottom-up regeneration of the faculty staff. Knowledge creation and knowledge loss are intertwined processes, and both of them are strongly influenced by the age scale. A university is a multilayered knowledge organization, where the inner most layers are represented by older professors who concentrate the fundamental structures of knowledge, and the outer layers are represented by students in their different learning cycles. In this paper we are interested in assessing the choices done by the academic staff, in the context of the determinant criteria and trade-offs in inter-generational knowledge transfer. This has been done in the framework of Analytic Hierarchic Processes (AHP). We thought that this is a proper tool since it mainly belongs to the field of decision-making with the possibility to determine vectors of priorities for the individuals participating in the decisions under study. We considered three main criteria: attitude toward cooperation (C1), attitude toward competition (C2), and attitude toward innovation (C3). Also, we considered as being significant activities: working together in research grants (A1), writing papers for scientific journals (A2), and writing books (A3). These criteria and activities have been structured into a common framework.