Simulation on Knowledge Transfer Processes from the Perspectives of Individual’s Mentality and Behavior

Abstract

Knowledge transferring between people within an organization leads to varied results due to individuals’ distinctive mentality and behavior. In this study, mental and behavioral factors, such as the prestige and reputation of individual and the movement for people within the organization, are introduced to examine their impact on knowledge transferring between individuals. A conceptual model is proposed which involves two actors in the process of knowledge transfer, knowledge sender and knowledge recipient, their corresponding disseminative capacity and absorptive capacity, as well as mental and behavioral factors. Accordingly, a network model is constructed in which nodes act as the knowledge senders or recipients. The process of knowledge transfer on the network is inspected from two mental aspects—the prestige and reputation of individuals. The degree of impact of the factors on knowledge disseminative will or knowledge absorptive will of actors is measured. A personnel movement mechanism is also introduced to simulate the dynamic processes of knowledge transfer within the organization. The simulation results show that the positive mental factors for individuals can promote the disseminative capacity of knowledge senders, accelerate the processes of knowledge transfer, and improve the knowledge stock of the organization.