Many moving parts: Factors influencing the effectiveness of HRM practices designed to improve knowledge transfer within MNCs

Abstract

Minbaeva, Pedersen, Bjorkman, Fey and Park’s (2003) award-winning article highlights the importance of human resource management (HRM) practices for enhancing employees’ ability and motivation to transfer knowledge – practices that, in turn, affect knowledge transfer to subsidiaries within multinational corporations (MNCs). In the decade since their laudable article was published, some contributions have been made highlighting the contingencies related to the effectiveness of HRM practices in MNCs, especially those affecting an organizations’ absorptive capacity. These contingencies – the “moving parts” – include country-level differences in HR systems, cross-cultural differences in acceptance of HR practices and individual-level factors affecting the effectiveness of HRM practices. With an eye toward the future, I discuss these contingencies, paying closest attention to the effect of the individual differences affecting employees’ willingness to engage in knowledge sharing. From the perspective of HRM, this year's Decade Award article opened some significant doors for future research; my goal for this commentary is to highlight them and the many that remain relatively unexplored.