A contingency view on knowledge transfer: empirical evidence from the software industry

Abstract

Reports on failures of knowledge transfer (KT) seriously accumulate. A reason for failure, claimed by contingency theory and strongly supported in other disciplines, is the lack of fit between context and configuration. Assessing the reported failures, we found substantial evidence for this view. Unfortunately, literature on KT explored context and configuration isolated, but largely ignored the fits between both and their relationships to success. Thus, we developed a contingency framework on KT including the above contingency concepts and underlying factors evident in the KT literature. Based on that, we addressed the unexplored relationships between fits and success by case study research in the software industry. In-depth interviews yielded audio-recorded statements for theory building leading to nine propositions. We encourage case study research to reach conceptual closure as well as hypotheses-testing research to achieve empirical validation.