Knowledge transfer via personnel mobility: The effect of knowledge about the distribution of information

The effect of knowledge about the distribution of information on knowledge transfer was examined to understand why some organizations are able to benefit from personnel mobility while others are not. The authors proposed that shared context moderated the effect of knowledge about distributed information on knowledge transfer, particularly the information pooling process. The hypotheses were tested in an experimental condition (N = 240). As predicted, knowledge of distributed information interacted with shared context to affect knowledge transfer. Two mediated moderation effects help explain this finding. Shared context moderated the effect of knowledge about distributed information with information pooling, which in turn was positively associated with group performance. Moreover, information sharing partly mediated the interactive effect of knowledge of distributed information with shared context.