Analysis of knowledge transfer process and model building

The paper analyzes the mechanism of knowledge transfer, and summarizes five key elements, including knowledge sender, knowledge receiver, the knowledge to be transferred, knowledge transmission process and knowledge absorption process. Four crucial steps complete the whole procedure of knowledge transfer: emergence of knowledge demand, choice of demanded knowledge, and transmission of knowledge by coding and absorption of knowledge by decoding. Accompanied with knowledge transfer is transformation between implicit and explicit knowledge with patterns of socialization, externalization, combination and internalization (SECI). The paper suggests that knowledge increment in quantity and quality may arise as a result of knowledge transfer. In order to demonstrate comprehensively the elements, procedure and result of knowledge transfer, Vessel Model of Knowledge Transfer is advanced as three-dimension system to elaborate on how the knowledge flows from sender to receiver, how demanded knowledge is acquired and transformed between implicit and explicit forms, and how knowledge increment comes into being.