Question

How do expatriates contribute to knowledge transfer in multinational organizations?

Answer 1

Expatriates gain a lot of experience when they go to the host nations for doing business. They get a first-hand insight about the culture, the business style, the way of doing negotiations and conflict management of the host nation. When the expatriates come back, they can share the knowledge about the host nation in their company. This helps in business evolvement of the company as a whole. Companies must cater to both tacit and implicit knowledge of expatriates for knowledge sharing perspective.

• Tacit knowledge: knowledge that cannot be taught but learnt through observation and personal discussions. This can be transferred through informal discussions of employees with the expatriate
• Explicit knowledge: This knowledge can be transferred by means of formal training