Avaliação do nível de internalização do conhecimento em processos de transferência: um estudo de caso misto na rede de negócios da Agronutrigenética

Abstract

A critical issue in the knowledge transfer process concerns its results. Although there is an abundant discussion on the subject of knowledge transfer, there is still little understanding of how organizations evaluate the results of transfer. Based on the premise that, only when the receiving company internalizes the knowledge, it can be sufficiently recreated and, ultimately, successfully used, this article aims to analyze the transfer of knowledge in genetics and animal nutrition by Agronutrigenética to its clients - pig farms. Internalization as a measure of the actual results of the process. For this, the studies of Kostova, Kostova and Roth and later by Cummings and Ying Li and Hsieh, by which internalization emerges as a promising perspective for the understanding of success in knowledge transfer interfaces, were adopted as a starting point. The methodological strategy used was mixed, supported by the complementarity between the depth conferred by the qualitative approach and the inference favored by the quantitative approach. 161 questionnaires were applied and 8 in-depth interviews were conducted. The analysis of the data allowed to advance the validation of the internalization as a valid metric to evaluate effective results of knowledge transfer processes, once the scale constructed to measure the internalization was confirmed for all the attributes. In addition to the managerial implications, the article presents as theoretical contribution, the approach of internalization that can throw new insights on how the actual results can be evaluated in the transference of knowledge and, in addition, the results can serve as theoretical framework for the researchers Interested in the subject, considering the systematization of the literature produced from studies, sometimes dispersed and rare, as well as representing a methodological model representative of the dynamics of the contexts of knowledge transfer, and that can be replicated empirically.