Abstract
In this Retrospective, we summarise and discuss the findings of our 1999 JIBS paper “Knowledge transfer in international acquisitions”, and we consider how research in this area has evolved over the last decade. The paper's key contribution was to show how the post-acquisition integration process in a sample of three international acquisitions led to the creation of a “social community”, characterised by two-way knowledge-sharing between the acquirer and acquired companies. We discuss how the timing of this publication, as an early contribution to the knowledge-based perspective on the firm, helped its visibility; and we consider the boundary conditions around our findings.
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Acknowledgements
Editor-in-Chief Lorraine Eden and Anne Hoekman provided thoughtful guidance and helpful suggestions. The authors are indebted to the late Gunnar Hedlund, who was instrumental in creating the environment at the Stockholm School of Economics that made possible the research discussed in this Retrospective.
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Accepted by Lorraine Eden, Editor-in-Chief, 23 August 2009. This paper has been with the authors for one revision.
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Birkinshaw, J., Bresman, H. & Nobel, R. Knowledge transfer in international acquisitions: A retrospective. J Int Bus Stud 41, 21–26 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2009.71
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2009.71