A heterogeneous view of knowledge transfer in supply chain partnership

Interfirm knowledge transfer is attracting more and more attention from practitioners and academics. The previous research conducted appears to overlook the importance of the type of alliances on the effectiveness of knowledge transfer. The literature suggests there are many types of alliances, such as franchise, R&D alliance, joint-venture, licensing agreement, etc. Supply chain partnership is a specific type of alliances because of its vertical functional cooperative interface, loosely defined contractual agreement, more indirect performance target, and potential extended network based partnership. According to the unique nature of supply chain partnership, this paper discusses the particular characteristics of supply chain knowledge transfer and the relationship factors that are more likely to affect the conduction of interfirm knowledge transfer. In this paper we develop a number of propositions regarding interfirm knowledge transfer in supply chain partnership using existing theories.