International inter-organisational religious knowledge transfer

Abstract

The rapid growth of Muslim-directed food markets and the emergence of a global Halal food industry have created new forms of international inter-organisational knowledge transfer within religious business networks. Religious in nature requires an academic approach capable of understanding the complex theological discussion characteristic of these processes, without neglecting the requisite methodological rigor of solid research. With these difficulties in mind, our method involves conducting interviews with religious authorities and Islamic scholars, and revising existing literature on religious and non-religious knowledge transfer. We also analyse a case involving a Brazilian Halal certifier, providing aid to a Mexican Halal producer, with no direct measurable return. To confine this research to a specific field is to lose sight of its inherent multidisciplinary complexity. For this reason, we propose a conceptual framework of four interconnected axes - technical-procedural; religious-procedural; socio-technical; and religious values - as an adequate tool for understanding cases of religious inter-organisational knowledge transfer.