The Impact of Knowledge Sourcing and Status Motives on Managers’ Knowledge Transfer Decisions

Knowledge sharing among business units is essential for organizational learning. This study investigates whether knowledge sourcing affects managers’ willingness to transfer knowledge from their unit to another unit in the firm. Using psychological ownership theory, I predict that absent status recognition from the corporate headquarters, managers will have a lower willingness to transfer internally sourced knowledge than externally sourced knowledge. I argue that status recognition attenuates the effect of knowledge sourcing on managers’ willingness to transfer knowledge. Using an experiment, I find that, contrary to my prediction, managers’ willing to transfer internally sourced knowledge is higher than externally sourced knowledge, in the absence status recognition. But, as predicted, I indeed find that the effect of knowledge sourcing on managers’ willingness to transfer knowledge reduces when status recognition is present than when it is absent. My findings contribute to our understanding of the design of control systems for reducing internal information frictions in multiunit firms