The transfer of knowledge within Taiwanese electrical and electronic organizations from Taiwan to Mainland China.

摘要

The purpose of this study is to explore how knowledge has been transferred from Taiwan to Mainland China by Taiwanese electrical and electronic (EE) manufacturing organizations. Data were obtained based on 230 participants from 46 organizations in Taiwan during a three month period in 2004. The survey questionnaire was developed by the researcher and contained four major sections. Questions regarding types of knowledge, transfer mechanisms, and factors influencing successful knowledge transfer from Taiwan to Mainland China were asked in the first three sections. The forth section asked for demographic information from individual participants and their organizations. A total of 103 participants answered questionnaires from 31 organizations for a response rate of 44.78%.; Results of this study showed that the 66 types of specific knowledge were transferred to some degree to Mainland China by Taiwanese EE manufacturing organizations. The most frequent type of knowledge transferred to Mainland China was knowledge about product manufacturing. The 20 mechanisms of knowledge transfer in the organizations were all used at least at a "moderate" level. Transfer mechanisms related to hands-on and experiential learning were frequently adopted in transferring knowledge by the Taiwanese EE manufacturers. All 30 factors were rated as "important" or above by the respondents on the 5-point scale. Factors that involve people i.e., expatriate's willingness to teach, expatriate's competencies, recipient's learning motivation, recipient's competencies etc. were reported the most important factors affecting a successful knowledge transfer by the Taiwanese EE organizations.; Additionally, this study attempted to identify whether there is a relationship between different variables such as: types of knowledge and transfer mechanisms, years of investing in Mainland China, number of Taiwanese expatriates employed in China subsidiaries, and the number of subsidiaries in Mainland China. Several significant relationships between these variables emerged. These relationships suggest that the relation between headquarters and their subsidiaries may evolve over time. As time passes, knowledge flow within Taiwanese EE organizations is not only from the parent organizations, but can flow from the subsidiaries as suggested by the reduction of some types of knowledge transfer as time goes by.