Reverse Knowledge Transfer from Multinational Subsidiaries to their Headquarters in the GCC – the mediating effects of social equity, transfer mechanisms, trust and willingness

Organisational knowledge can be reasonably regarded as a valuable organisational asset, and particularly so where multinational enterprises (MNEs) share knowledge between parent and subsidiary to secure competitive advantage. Traditionally, much of the research in this field has focused on unilateral flows of knowledge from the parent to the subsidiary, with less attention directed towards the reversed relationship of knowledge flows from the subsidiary back to the parent. As internationalisation has increased, closer scrutiny has been directed towards this relationship of so-called reverse knowledge transfer or RKT. As more research attention has been directed towards RKT it has become apparent that there are a range of factors mediating variables which influence the nature of RKT. These factors include, but are not limited to trust between the parent and subsidiary, the existence of social equity (i.e. perception of some degree of parity) between the parent and the subsidiary, a willingness on the part of the subsidiary to share knowledge, and the mechanisms of knowledge transfer, which are also shown to affect the speed efficacy of knowledge transfer and completeness and contextualisation. This study focuses on the relationship of RKT, but explores an emergent aspect of RKT, whereby the parent firm is in a developing/emerging economic region - the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), and the subsidiary is in a developed economy. It is the position of this research that there is something about this relationship with the parent is in the GCC, and the asset which holds the greatest interest for the parent, is the knowledge held by the subsidiary in a developed economy. It is only relatively recently, that multinational firms located in developing/emerging economies have begun to expand internationally and proactively seek knowledge, and whilst there is some research into this same scenario of the parent in a developing economy, such as China or India, there is, it is argued little to no formal academic research which has examined the situation of RKT where the parent is in the GCC. This research determines that consistent with existing literature, trust is a key component in the effectiveness of RKT in this setting, as is the relationship of power between the parent and the subsidiary, which it is held in the study is a unique aspect because the sociocultural norms of the GCC.