More or Less Than Give or Take: Manifested Attitudes to Inter-Partner Learning in Collaboration

This paper seeks to explain why some subsidiaries are isolated from the knowledge transfer activities within multinational corporations. Applying a new theoretical and empirical approach to intra-firm knowledge transfers, we argue that differences in learning capabilities and in-group-out-group dynamics result in some subsidiaries never or very rarely exchanging any knowledge with other units within the firm. We also propose that sending and receiving knowledge become self-reinforcing cycles, positive for those units that engage but downward spirals for those that are isolated from the knowledge transfers...